My son lost his biological mother at a young age and in a highly traumatic manner. His subsequent experience with a stepmother was not great. However, he lived in a culture that provided substitute mothers in the form of many aunties. I became very much aware of this in the past few days, as I have watched him interact with a close friend (whom I call sister) with whom I have shared this life for the past 45 years. Luther sees her as a mother, as well, and interacts with her as such. She is a warm, caring and very loving individual who extends love to all she meets: plants, animals, and humans.
Watching her interact with Luther had me thinking about motherhood and where we have become afraid of being mothers. WHY? Some of the most impressive art I have seen has depicted women as mothers and as grieving mothers. Animals grieve their young. It is a natural instinct to both love and grieve. At one time we thought only humans could love. This ability to love was supposedly what separated us from animals, and made us superior. It is interesting, this constant need for humans to feel “superior” to others in some way. And as we grow and develop, we find that other animals love, grieve, and otherwise have “human” elements, reminding us that there is far more to this universe than we know – we discover we are all travelers upon this road. We are at different points in our journey,, and when we come to steep hills and crevasses, it is our responsibility to help those who are having more trouble to continue to walk the path of their choosing – not judge whether it is better than ours or worse, simply because it is different.
Luther responded so wonderfully to my friend. She accepted him warmly and openly, as did he. We say he “fit in,” but I wonder what it means to fit in. He blended easily with her energy in a way they both easily understood: in the “mother energy.” Luther is not my son biologically, but in all other ways, he is. We fit into this “mother-son” energy. It is conveyed through hugs, looks, lectures about health (usually my health and need to exercise), and in other ways. Being with him has set me thinking and wondering about the nature of motherhood and the expression of it within our modern society.
We are not very accepting of the soft feminine within us. Somehow, we see this as “weak” and something to denigrate. I saw a picture recently of a woman, an actress, who was depicted more like a man, wearing armor and see-through underwear. What was interesting was how the image struck me as very hostile and aggressive. I remember being insulted when someone referred to me as a “Mother Earth” figure. Yet, a woman’s strength lies in these qualities we find so difficult to accept.
Within nature, the element we seem to feel fits so closely with being feminine is water. Water is wonderfully soft and fluid. It feels so wonderful on the skin to flow in a river and have this engulf your skin, to feel it lap up against you, to be carried upon the river and to feel its comfort. However, if you hit water the wrong way, it can break your back and will keep on flowing without looking back. Water is nothing to be fooled with - ask my friend whose bedroom flooded during a recent storm. It can cradle us and nurture us, or it can kill us. The choice is ours in how we interact with it.
I was struck by this as I watched Luther interact with my friend. He has a strong need for mother love, as he was denied it at such a young age and in such a brutal way. He does not deny this need and readily blends into it.
He is African. Perhaps this is why he can so easily blend into this love, nurturing both himself and the other person. African culture does not, in my experience, appear to have such a strong need for masculine domination as does the West. We fear our own need for nurturance, both giving and receiving. It is of particular interest to me, as I am of Middle East descent and I lived for 21 years in Africa and the Middle East. I have always heard of these cultures as male dominated, putting women in a subservient role. While this may be true and there are many practices that I found difficult to accept as a western woman, I also found the males in these cultures to have a very nurturing feminine side and for the cultures themselves to be much more accepting of the feminine than the West.
In my travels, I am finding more and more young women dressing to their feminine and not being afraid of the flowing, simple clothes that grace female bodies so well. Looking elegant and youthful and beautiful. I realize how beautiful we truly are as humans and how much time we waste not appreciating this within us. I realize how much time I wasted hating my body - my body that has served me so well and which has loved me so well, in spite of the hatred I learned to show it. What a waste of precious, wonderful time.