I’m not very domestic, and – although I do recycle – I’m not sure I’m really saving the planet (yet), BUT I still think I deserve to be called goddess. In fact, I think all mothers have earned the title. Goddess – Mom – same thing.
My brain started down this track while watching my four-year old daughter luxuriating in her bath. With her long hair piled coquettishly on top of her head and her pale skin adorned with poufs of Tinkerbell bubble bath, she looked at me with unusual adoration and said, “Mumma, I want to wear my pink pajamas like yours so we match.”
Something about that innocent statement (which was about to turn into a temper tantrum upon the discovery that her pink pajamas were, in fact, in the laundry), struck me and I was suddenly thinking about how both goddesses and moms are creators, how we are both the object of much adulation (at least when our little ones are tiny), how we will eventually fall by the wayside as our children learn to stand on their own adolescent feet and make their way in the world, how – hopefully – we will return to a position of some prominence as our children step into adulthood and learn to appreciate us again.
I thought about the many goddesses of different traditions and cultures and all the tasks they perform – giving life, protecting life, tending the hearth fires, healing the sick, teaching, loving...Pele, Aphrodite, Brigid, Isis, Asherah, Venus, Rhiannon, Kali, Kuan Yin, Cerridwen…they were really all just mothers – mothers of the Earth, of mankind, of nature, or of knowledge – they were just devoted caretakers and fierce defenders of that which they loved most dearly.
And then I smiled, thinking about how both moms and goddesses get to wield their will “just because.” Forget the wrath of a woman scorned – you seriously don’t want to make either a goddess or a mom angry – she’ll give you what for and then some.
So, the next time you’re feeling a little run down by the whole mommy routine. The next time you’re feeling less than glamorous or just shy of fabulous, think about how moms are like goddesses. Even better - get the people around you to think about it and treat you accordingly.
ART CREDIT: Athena by Susan Seddon Boulet
