Mother as Zen Master


My beloved Divine Mother
Dance with me
under the soft moon shining
in the wide open fields
far beyond the toil and trouble
of my busy mind

My beautiful Divine Mother
This universe is your body
Alive and blushing with cosmic streams
And rivers of love
                                                                           {Ethan Walker: Soft Moon Shining}

Today in the UK we are celebrating 'Mother's Day', and Ethan Walker’s Soft Moon Shining is a fabulous anthology of devotional poetry honouring the Divine Mother. Among the most universally recognised archetype, the mother is nurturer and giver of unconditional love, and a very significant dynamic in shaping the child’s personality, and steering them towards their destiny.
                 The mother (and father) has two roles, parent and mentor/teacher. Parents make sure that you are protected, have food, clothes and a roof over your head, but they may never see who you are. The mentor/teacher on the other hand, operates in an entirely different dimension, often not conscious even to them. The mentor is less focused on your well-being and more concerned with your spiritual growth.
                The parent as mentor/teacher whom the child often seeks outside the home, is the person who sees who you are, sees your beauty, falls in love with it, helps and inspires it, giving it a chance to bloom in the world. Many people, including me, complain that their parents do not really know them; they have ‘parenting’ issues that they may well replicate in their own lives as parents.
                Today, and every day since I became a little more conscious, I express gratitude for the fact that my own mother’s performance of both her ‘parenting’ and ‘mentoring’ roles was outstanding. In terms of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs pyramid, my mother worked hard to ensure that my basic physiological needs were met. She also laid the strongest foundations for me to pursue self-actualization needs, which lie at the apex of the pyramid.
              Nowadays on Mother’s Day, long after her death, I smile and bow to my mother, as the student does to the Zen Master, because she modelled one of the greatest spiritual tenets, that of non-attachment.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

When a President Cried

Image
At a time of year when Christians around the world are commemorating the birth of the Divine Child, some parents in Newtown , Connecticut , USA are mourning the death of their children. There are probably hundreds of children around the world – in under developed countries, in conflict zones – who will die every day up to Christmas and beyond. But right now the focus has been on what one British newspaper described as a massacre of innocents. How horrendous to lose your child in such a manner. Schools should be one of the few places where you expect your children to be safe.   I worked with several of the paramedics who were first on the scene dealing with the carnage on the trains at various metro stations after the 2005 London bombings. Many, especially the younger ones, suffered severe post traumatic stress. Not trained for such horrors, those teachers immediately on the scene at that school in Connecticut will carry the scarring from that day for some time. How many more
Read more

The Economic Migrant and the Bag Lady

Image
Some years ago I was telling someone about my bag lady experience. She looked at me with astonishment and disbelief.  The Bag Lady Many years later this person, who had by then become a friend, also had her own bag lady experience. She had gone from place to place, not quite sleeping on a park bench but near enough, with only the barest essentials – a toothbrush and change of clothes in a bag – not enough to merit a supermarket trolley! The economic migrant and bag lady experience are etched into my DNA. I was born on the Caribbean island of Dominica nestled between Guadeloupe and Martinique , two French colonies. Dominica was itself fought over by the French and British for centuries. The French eventually lost. I could so easily have been a French citizen sitting in Paris writing this. In fact my mother's maiden name is the same as her family's French slaveowners of yester-year. A SNAPSHOT OF HISTORY: In 1635, France claimed Dominica along with all th
Read more

The Trickster as Teacher

Image
I received mail from a reader who was unable to post a message following my comment last week about ‘Myth as Metaphor’ (see The Fool Unmasked). He asked whether I knew any myths which were more relevant to his African culture. Well yes I do….but not a myth as such, more of a folktale. But all myths are relevant to every culture .   Archetypes are generally referred to as "the gods". It is generally claimed that Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist and a founding father of depth psychology, brought knowledge of these innate patterns of human behaviour to the attention of Western psychology. Certainly all my training text books made the point.  Obatala - Father of Humankind Divinity of Light I guess he did do that but long before Jung, West African Orishas were known as multi-dimensional beings representing, not only the forces of nature but certain human attributes. Their characteristics and legend were similar to those used to describe the ancient Greek and Roman go
Read more