Who is “The Divine Mother” for you?
Do you connect with Her in some way?
Do you think the “Masculine”
is as lonely for the “Feminine” as we are?
Let’s explore…
Singing to the Mother with Jennifer Berezan
This is a painting I did of the Black Madonna when I was 24 years old – this IS my breakthrough painting that changed every single thing that I call my life and changed me from the inside out. I was with Sue this day – and I was about to give up on painting – really – but then something magical happened, and this image emerged. This image was the key that unlocked the door to the rest of my life.
Red Thread Letter, #911
The Ever-Emergent Ma
Dear One,
Life as sacred always includes the feminine, otherwise, we have male-only structures. Father only structures are failing, due to a lack of a true root system or awareness that we were all given birth to by a mother. Inclusion of the feminine does not result in the exclusion of the masculine, She includes all spectrums of genders as her children.
Many of us, regardless of our relationship with our human mother feel a call to re-mothering and to have a meaningful spiritual practice that includes Her – in some real, intimate, and tangible way. When we look for Her we find Her in image and in story ~ but how do we really engage in a meaningful relationship with a Divine Mother for our times? I have been exploring this question for close to 30 years
Even the term ‘The Divine Feminine’ can feel othering instead of mothering. Perhaps what we want is the Real True Big Mama and we want Her presence to help us navigate the uncertain terrain of life that often feels cruel and conditional. We want a mother’s love to nest around us in grace. Who doesn’t? In a life where there is so much joy and suffering, so much capacity to connect, and yet so much isolation, there are riddles to solve. No wonder we want re-mothering. We feel a sense of paradox that keeps us in a struggle for potent meaningful spiritual practices that have a living root system.
For me, the Divine Feminine is the Ever-Emergent Ma, an archetypal framework encompassing all Mothers from our Ancestry and all of those to come into the future. She is the one who appears in our own hearts.
We are in a time where the call to Her is exponentially rising as each person comes into contact with the idea that there is a Divine Mother EVERYWHERE in our human story and we are called to explore that potential relationship. At times we may experience anger and betrayal that She has been so intentionally hidden from our sanctuaries – hence the need to rediscover sanctuary for ourselves.
“Does not wisdom call out?
Does not understanding raise her voice?
At the highest point along the way,
where the paths meet, she takes her stand” Proverbs
The past 10,000 years have seen a rigorous attempt to hide, dis-member, disassociate and frame “Her” in a storyline that seeks to make it appear as if we have no mother. And if we do, we can’t trust Her. In the story of Eve, called First Mother by some traditions, we are taught that She is the reason all Mothers would give birth in pain, that she disobeyed and created a fallen state. While not all traditions follow this storyline – it is still persistent in the paradigm of blaming women and the treatment of women worldwide continues to be influenced by a lack of the feminine or a feminine gone astray or forbidden.
While many of us have moved beyond this limiting story constraint we still needed the evidence in the form of Her image – and to find our own permission slip to connect with her energies and stories. Inside of ourselves, we didn’t buy this story of there not being a mother, because we all came from a mother and that is pretty obvious. We just kept looking for Her. The rise of Feminism in the late sixties and early seventies finally saw an increase in awareness of the Mother in books and education, which was hard-won and relatively sparse in many of our lives. Without Her we act as motherless children, exploiting and colonizing life for our own gain and removing the mother from the Divine Parent storyline.
I can’t help but imagine, how lonely the Father is in His own heart for Her. The presence and archetype of “Father” didn’t remove Mother, human beings removed Mother and isolated Father. What a great sorrow this divine divorce has initiated and continues to insist upon. May we all return from this tragic story and enter into an emergent relationship with Creator that is both personal and intimate, and yet somehow able to be shared with others in community. That is why we attempt in Sanctuary.
Love,
