Mother’s Day celebrates the love between mothers and their children. I recently read a bold statement that put mother love in the context it deserves, Mother love, along with storytelling is fundamental to evolution. Attachment, the core of a mother’s love for their child, nurtures a child’s development of self and allows them to thrive and eventually go out into the world and be their best self.
Mother Nature, in her wisdom, knows to imbue Mothers with an enormous amount of generosity. I believe an infinite spirit of generosity drives how mothers love their children and is behind what we refer to as mother’s intuition. We love our children and at the same time we raise them to become independent and leave the nest. On its own, this calls for an enormous amount of generosity. Kahil Gibran, the Lebanese-American poet captures this sentiment in his poem On Children I quote here a few passages.
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday…
No truer words were ever written and mothers the world over know the challenges inherent in this type of mother love.
