Mothers & Mothering

  • “The Japanese Mother and the Law of Harmonious Flow”

    Richard Storry writes of the “devoted attention given, throughout its waking hours, to the Japanese child by the mother,” noting that “the conscious and unconscious Japanese memory of childhood in Arcadia depends surely on the constant proximity, concern, and availability of the mother.”

  • “The Very Essence of Loving”

    What matters more: “I love you” or “I Know you love me”? I believe the second – and my love is in grateful return for hers.

  • “Music and Mothering”

    Throughout the ages music has been associated with mothering. The first sounds the baby hears are those of his mother – her breathing, her pulse and of course her voice transmitted to him through his watery environment. He is in a sea of pulsation, all generated by the mother.

    In the outer

  • “The Drum and the Mother”

    The basic problem of all existence, the root cause of all human suffering, is alienation from the mother. She was the whole world to us – the source of all love, and the cause of all distress. Reconciliation with her, the grateful reunion, is the task of life. This is the way, the only way,

  • “‘You’re the Only Star’: Music, Illness, and Motherhood”

    When I was six I was admitted to hospital extremely ill, not thought to live.

    I vividly recall my mother waving good-bye to me through the glass screen. (I must have been in an isolation unit.)

    Then she hurriedly turned away to hide her tears, but I knew. And then she was

  • “Knowing Our Mother’s Soul”

    It is imperative, I believe, for us to see, to Know, our mother’s Soul, her Godliness, her Buddha-Nature. Only then can we Know our own – and so, at last, be relieved of our anguish.

    This does not mean that our mothers need to change but

  • “Our Life’s Work”

    I am given to believe that for each of us our life’s work, our individual Karma, is to find our Souls and then live accordingly. And, further, the Way may be to go not inside ourselves, but first outside – to our mothers.

  • “Aesthetic Experience as Quickening”

    The quickening: the mother’s first awareness of the baby within. And by capitalizing – Quickening – I am referring to the mother’s first awareness of the baby as spirit within her.

  • “Think Only of What Your Mother Yearned to Be”

    Vivekananda taught to not concentrate on the mother but on that which animates her. From the root ANE, breath – that which animates – is derived the Latin anima, the Soul.

  • “You Are as You Believe Your Mother to Be”

    You are as you believe your mother to be.