Motherhood
A Mother's Day invocation + prayer
Motherhood: the most ecstatic, most alive, and simultaneously debilitating, stretching and ego-shattering initiations and transformations of a woman’s life.
Motherhood is ancient. The origin of culture. The womb…and the tomb.
Journey to the stars of your ancestors. Crawl into the belly of the Earth. Allow your heart to expand out far beyond your body, yet feel your body as your central temple.
Motherhood breaks you. It softens you. It reshapes you—body, mind, and beliefs. Your values morph. Your sense of self grows to include another.
Your grief is daily, nightly; it quickens and stirs your mortality.
Their tiny hands curled around your finger, the sweet intoxicating smell of their newborn heads.
The sleepless nights with only minutes of sleep losing all touch with reality and swirling in ecstasy until your oxytocin drops. The anxiety and fear that spikes around not knowing how to do this, how it will go, will you all live?
The rest of the world fades into the background noise, and all you hear is heartbeat; all you feel is this new being who emerged from your body. You can’t even believe it!
How can you love this much? This immediately? Someone you just met but have somehow known for lifetimes?
A new language drops onto your tongue: love.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
How many times have you said those words before but never conceived of their meaning?!
1,864,328 kisses bestowed upon their heads, their hands, their feet and bellies in that first year alone; you’ve lost count.
Watching them grow down and up, out and then away…from you and towards the world is exquisite agony, eternal ache.
You witness them fall and try to catch them but can’t; they get hurt, make mistakes, learn to walk, ride a bike, swim in the ocean, and have their hearts broken too.
And somewhere in those passing years, it can all begin to feel like the dull-drums of mundane life. You can take it all for granted; that they are alive; that you are alive beside them.
The endless pleas for you to read “Who Wet My Pants” for the 23rd time today wane and then stop.
His desire to be on your breast, your lap, in your arms loosens.
And before you know it, she stops asking for you to help her tie her shoes.
He wants to read by himself.
They ride their bike off with their friends, and then drive away in your car…with your heart.
Your heart breaks open again, but this time as a way for you to remember yourself; as a pathway home to your dreams and desires for your life…the ones you put on a shelf for these years of mothering another.
So, today, on Mother’s Day (which should be every day), may you cherish whatever stage of motherhood you’re in.
May you remember the moments that have already passed and give thanks for that time with your child, your greatest teacher in this life.
May you wake up this morning—and every morning—with the clear-sighted awareness that every moment you get, every breath you receive is a gift you will never get back.
Your child will change, grow roots, sprout wings—hopefully—and carry the seeds of your love out into this world farther and deeper than you can even imagine.
Motherhood is a sacred gift.
And you, Mama, are the Maker of Miracles.
Happy Mother’s Day to us all.
Beautiful soulful writing Kate. I am in AZ visiting my 22 year old son and celebrating his birthday, mother’s day, his graduation from college, and soon his move in with his sweetheart in AZ. I am a single mom, and empty nester for 4 years now. Still unwinding from the ups and downs of this transition and many others. As my tears release I thank you for helping me deeply feel, remember, and look to what’s next. Much love, Charlotte