Circled by Mothers

an invitation

[art: by the extraordinay visionary Salma Arastu, please check out more of her reveries]

Imagine that you are circled by mothers. Not one mother, not one biological singularity, but many orbits of motherhood that include all those that have held you since you were born, the many women who have nursed you over the years, the entire clan of old and young, male and female, that has put you at the very center of their community—to nourish, cherish, and celebrate.

In this all-but-forgotten world people still remember that we have—in the great spiral dance of birth, death, and rebirth—all been, in one lifetime or another, each other’s mothers. One woman may carry a child in her body but every body has the responsibility and the privilege of caring for every other body. In this world there is no singular god but a pantheon of mothers circling the cosmos. Some are fierce maidens and others gentle crones, some are artists and weavers, others are hunters and warriors.

Each of these mothers, all of these mothers, are our mothers.