I deliberately avoided religion in the upbringing of my sons. They are not baptized nor confirmed in the Anglican Church as I was by Archdeacon Hall, who also married my parents. I went through a period of my life when I identified as Muslim. And now I understand myself to be trans-religious. So even though I was given the continuity of sacrament and ceremony, which I love, and I know has served a purpose in my spiritual development that has been valuable, for reasons I can’t really explain to myself, I decided to not impose my history upon my sons.
When I lived in a small prairie village as a child, it was easy to walk to church. And I remember attending quite regularly with the whole family. But by the time we lived out on the farm, many a Sunday I’d need to convince my mother or father to drive me to church so I could attend either the Anglican or the United service. It didn’t matter to me which one, I just wanted to go. Nobody else in the family was interested at all.
As an adult, I called into my life a woman who has become a beloved teacher to me. She’s been instrumental in helping me understand the curriculum of my own soul. She says I’ve lived as a nun in other incarnations and for this reason, I know my Bible well. For the soul never forgets. And this might explain how it is that as an eleven-year-old girl sitting in the front pew listening to the Anglican Archdeacon or the United Minister delivering sermons, I’d think to myself that neither man was speaking the truth!
So perhaps it is this soul knowing that intended to protect my sons from receiving religious instruction that may not have been for their highest good. Whatever it is, I took a stand on their behalf even though a part of me felt there might be something lost in the decision.
From where I am now, I can see how I made mothering my devotional practice. A living spiritualism based on the service of not only my sons’ unfoldment, but also of my own. Its rituals were the practical, everyday demands I faced as mother. Laundry as spiritual practice. Cooking meals as spiritual practice. Making beds, making school lunches, making do with what I had as spiritual practice. Driving kids to school as spiritual practice. Attending concerts, recitals and events when I’d rather be at home reading and writing as spiritual practice. I simply learned to show up for whatever was needed because I sensed I’d rather fail at anything else than fail at being mother. Life had given me life to care for, and a part of me knew receiving the gift was wise.
Who needs an ashram or a monastery to become enlightened? I had the home I was building and the children who were birthed through me, and it was plenty when I settled down, showed up for the work at hand, and trusted my own spirit to guide me.
When my sons were young adults, I attended a retreat in the coastal mountains of Whistler, BC, among a circle of women with Caroline Myss, author and teacher in the fields of spirituality, mysticism, energy medicine and medical intuition. In our shared storytelling during her lectures, there was a moment when we learned there were many mothers among us carrying the grief of unaccepted sons and daughters. Unaccepted in the sense that some women present felt they’d not been good mothers.
They’d realized that they never accepted nor appreciated the sacred bond of mother and child and for this reason many difficulties had ensued to cause great suffering in their families. Their stories were tragic. A son who committed suicide. Teenagers who left home too early. A daughter who cut off communication with her mother.
To meet this suffering, Caroline offered our group a ritual of baptism for all the sons and daughters who had come through the mothers in the room. She led us into a powerful ceremony of accepting, receiving, and blessing the souls of our children and the gifts they brought with them. And we, as women and as mothers, were acknowledged and empowered in our sacred role.
At the moment of baptism, my sons were 17 and 28 years of age and I stated their names into the collective ritual. As I did so, I felt the authority of my own spirit move through and beyond me as feminine power. It was a tender moment of celebration I’ll never forget, a collective prayer for my sons’ flourishing. I sensed a common bond with all mothers in and beyond the room that was immensely powerful. Spontaneous hugging and crying erupted among us as deep healing moved through all of us together.
Being mother taught me what it means to stand for all of life. I endeavoured to rise to meet every day in the pure simplicity of life to be the best mother I could be at any given moment. Did I get everything right? Heck, no! But I embraced the sacred authority I was given and allowed myself to learn. Nurturing the lives of my children became sacrament enough.
It helped tremendously that a part of me has always known the value of being mother even though the society I live in rarely acknowledges my contribution. Valued or not, I did it anyway. It was hard labour. And now that my children are adults, I can see clearly that my staying power as a writer, a therapist, and even a gardener is directly related to the endurance I learned as a mother — I know how to show up for the work.
Salvation is really not about the deliverance of our souls from some definition of sin imposed on us by a corrupt institution. Salvation has always been and will continue to be self elevation — and there’s no better or more rigorous spiritual path of development than conscious mothering.
***
Many women have been responding to the idea that the men in their lives have been “wounded boys.” I’d love to hear about your experience! I invite you to download this Story Form, use it to tell me about your experience, and email it back to me at [email protected]. Let us unite in the truth of our lives and rise!
—
This post is republished on Medium.
—