In honor of Mother’s Day or Mothering Day, which is celebrated in many places around the world in the month of May, let us give a big hearty salute to our world’s mothers whose love, strength, and care are like a towering tree with deep roots and far reaching branches which hold us in Her divine embrace. One of the themes in the reading journey is recovering a more natural and interdependent view of ourselves in our relation with one another, with Creation, and with God/the Sacred from the dominance of centuries of patriarchal religion, thought, and social norms. These patriarchal structures came to view life and all relationships more as something to be dominated and exploited rather than as an organic, interdependent living system.

Across many cultures and faith traditions, this more interconnected view of the cosmos has been depicted in the feminine as a Tree of Life. In the spirit of all our world’s mothers, we invite you to take a break from your labors and enjoy a walk in the forest to breathe in the air of freedom and mutuality which is our truest nature as creatures living together. Remind the mothers around you (and all who mother life in many ways) that they are an image of God and a tree of life which gives us all sustenance. 

If you are interested in reading more about the reciprocity of the natural world as a source of wisdom to live by, here is a new book you might want to pre-order: Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard.

May you know and rest in the timeless wisdom and embrace of this mothering presence which fills our world, and which our world’s mothers most vividly embody.