A return to ancient posture

     Here it is. A new blog. Not only another blog, but another one published by a mother, talking about being a mother. If you peek around the blogger world, you'll see it's loaded with these things. And since I often need justifications for my actions, I had to sit for a good while on this one, trying to discover why it was that I was wanting to blog on a topic that has probably been blogged about more than any other. Needless to say, I think I discovered a good justification. Actually, I think I have a lot of good justifications for why mothers should speak, and write, and be heard about our experiences as mothers. Here is a list of 15 just to get us going:

1. Because we haven't said enough, or written enough or been heard enough to make up for the centuries of silence and neglect and abuse that have been coming our way.
2. Because if society is demanding change (which it always does), than it is crucial that the new generations are taught new values at a very young age.
3.  Because in many of our current social systems, motherhood has become a role carried out in isolation, cut off from many of the forms of support and recognition that are available for other roles. Furthermore, the forms of support that are available often center around getting the mother out of her role, for example, daycare, early kindergarten, nanny support, and so on. We have yet to see in our contemporary societies forms of support that encourage mothers to stay in their roles, save a few marginal organizations, like La Leche League.
4.  Because the role of motherhood stands now without any clear understanding of its value, power, goals, and methods, which serves to cast our isolation in various forms of confusion and desperation.
5.  Because many mothers find themselves maneuvering in this world of parenthood alone, without fathers who have similarly not been taught to strengthen their roles as fathers.
6.  Because mothers are the transmitters of love and wisdom.
7.  Because mothers are the creators of new beings, and not just physical beings, but beings with spirits and minds and emotions and identities and power.
8.  Because mothers are the bringers of the new beings that will carry the power to connect, bond and unify.
9.  Because mothers are the organizers of community.
10. Because mothers are the educators, inventors, activists, writers, poets, artists, thinkers of a new age.
11. Because we have a priviledged position that allows us to see and understand aspects of our human nature that require lengthy observation, patience and love to witness.
12.  Because we will awaken the old arts of ritual, storytelling, food love and growth, dance, song, playfulness, education, body knowledge, and overall self mastery.
13.  Because mothers are the guides of life in Nature, seeking her secrets of food, medicine and beauty.
14.  Because we deserve support in the forms of education, training, counseling, and support groups.
15.  Because in the end, we must recognize that it is mothers who provide the critical first environment for what ultimately becomes a new world, born again and again every moment of the day with each new baby.

      When I see blog after blog from mothers who are speaking about their families, I believe that they are trying in their way to validate their roles because they know instinctually that what they are doing is very, very important. We feel it in all the small movements of our days as we witness the unfolding of a delicate human story. My hopes for my own blog are that I can also come to understand and gather and manifest my mother power, and that my readers can take some with them. This blog is about becoming and returning to a posture that was carved out for us long ago in our roots, a posture which demands attention and adoration.