Happy Mother's Day 2007

by Robert Wilkinson

A Happy Mother's Day to everyone! This day honors all mothers everywhere, and their mothers, and their grandmothers back to the beginning of time. It has an interesting history and intention which has nothing to do with the modern commercial form of this celebration of mothers. In fact, it is truly a day that calls for pacifism and disarmament.

Though there were ancient celebrations dedicated to mothers and mothering, modern Mother's Day arose out of several historical antecedents in the US. Anna Reeve Jarvis began her "Mother's Day Work Clubs" during and after our own very bloody and cruel Civil War, beginning as health care for soldiers on both sides, as well as a reconciliation force afterwards.

It briefly came to be a nationally recognized day through the efforts of "The "Mother's Day" antiwar observances founded by Julia Ward Howe in 1870-1873, and continued as a regional phenomenon for years afterwards. According to Wikipedia:

Julia Ward Howe is sometimes claimed as the "founder of Mother's Day," implying that Julia Ward Howe's June 2nd occasion and Anna Jarvis' second-Sunday-in-May event are the same thing. It is even suggested that an antiwar and feminist holiday was co-opted by the forces of sentimentality, tradition, and Hallmark. But although Mother's Day was celebrated in eighteen cities in 1873, it did not take root. It continued in Boston for about ten years under Howe's personal financial sponsorship, then died out.

Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day, celebrated on June 2nd, was first proclaimed around 1870 by Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation, and Howe called for it to be observed each year nationally in 1872. As originally envisioned, Howe's "Mother's Day" was a call for pacifism and disarmament by women. The original Mother's Day Proclamation was as follows:

Arise then...women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts!

Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:

"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,

Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,

For caresses and applause.

Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn

All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.

We, the women of one country,

Will be too tender of those of another country

To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with

Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!

The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.

Blood does not wipe our dishonor,

Nor violence indicate possession.

As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil

At the summons of war,

Let women now leave all that may be left of home

For a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means

Whereby the great human family can live in peace...

Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,

But of God -

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask

That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,

May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient

And the earliest period consistent with its objects,

To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,

The amicable settlement of international questions,

The great and general interests of peace.

(Early "Mother's Day" was mostly marked by women's peace groups. A common early activity was the meeting of groups of mothers whose sons had fought or died on opposite sides of the American Civil War.)

The present incarnation of Mom's Day started in 1908, promoted by Anna Jarvis, the daughter of the earlier Civil War efforts. West Virginia recognized it in 1910, Woodrow Wilson signed it into law in 1914, and the rest, as "they" say, is history.

All history (or in this case, herstory) ;-) aside, I tend to put my focus on all my female friends who are mothers, all my female relations, all those who preceded them, into the Great Mother, Divine Mother, the all-encompassing ocean of infinite compassion. So I'll take this day (and every day!) to offer my most heartfelt salutations to The Great Mother in all her manifestations.

Aum namah Mahaboddhisattva! The entire world is forgiven and renewed with each breath of the gentle, vast, and all-nourishing Great Mother. We are all brought to our highest Self through this infinitely powerful, wise, loving, and intelligent all pervasive Divine Feminine Force eternally embodying that which redeems the promise of the victory of light over darkness, truth over falsehood, good over evil, peace over war, and love over fear. Aum Namah Shivaya!

© Copyright 2007 Robert Wilkinson

Comments

[mermaid]

Greetings dear Robert, and thank you for honoring the day with such a profoundly beautiful statement! I have been joyfully catching up with you and the 'Papers' after these last weeks of many 'spinning' changes..... find myself in the "land of enchantment" and spent the day at the foot of a sacred blue mountain (Taos, Sangre de Christos), honoring our Earth Mother....... spirit moves through our lives with so many blessings in this time of such dynamic energies in so many surprising ways........

With Love, Diana } ----*

[DianatheHuntress]

(Yes, 'tis I..... theHuntress formerly known as 'mermaid'... who knew?)

[Robert]

Hi Mermaid Diana - I know the Sangre de Christos well, as Crestone was a questing location for many years. I do love New Mexico as well, for all kinds of reasons. I have no doubt I'll be seeing many friends of the site in NM in the future, and will let you know why and when in the near future.

[poetryman69]

Oh Mistress of the Moon. Oh Lunar Lass. Oh Liquid Mirror: Waiting on the New Moon.

[Robert]

Hi poetryman69 - Welcome to the site. A short one for Mothers everywhere:

Another Mother for Peace
Whose love of offspring will never cease
For caring kindness is the call
For mothers everywhere and all.