Mother love along with storytelling is fundamental to evolution
May 9, 2015
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.
The challenge for parents, want the best for your child, but not for your child to be the best.
May 7, 2015
Push, Don’t Crush (NYT Sunday Review 4.24.15) speaks to the disturbing phenomena of suicide clusters existing in high achieving communities. Although such clusters are rare, their existence gives pause and urges parents to do some soul searching. The pressure to succeed does not in itself cause suicide but the language we use to communicate our […]
Oski from UC Berkeley is a fan of Shakespeare!
April 23, 2015
Shakespeare, who would be 450 years old today, is considered the single most influential writer in English. He coined over 1700 words by changing nouns into verbs, changing verbs into adjectives, connecting words never before used together, and devising words wholly original. Do you realize how often you quote Shakespeare? Here are some of the […]
Our humanity needs the humanities.
April 16, 2015
A recent NYT article, Starving for Wisdom beautifully highlights what we have known since Homer— of the importance of a close marriage between the sciences and humanism— “science depends upon the humanities to shape judgments about ethics, limits and values.” The study of humanities, and here I focus on literature, enrich a person’s soul. As […]
Don’t burden poetry
April 12, 2015
A poem is not a test. A poem is a magical arrangement of words that delivers feelings. Poetry and music speak directly to your heart. When listening to a piece of music, the melody and the lyrics wash over you, You find yourself in a particular mood. You would not think to analyze how that […]
