Mothering the World
by Mara Mitchell
I started bleeding today, final confirmation that I’m not pregnant. Living by Puget Sound has pulled my cycle later, toward new moon. Clouds roll in from the bay, adding their weight to the darkness. The last two weeks, I played with the idea that I might have conceived, spinning it like a top, watching it whirl, teeter, and crash. I’m not ready for a child, even though I long to create life. Geoffrey watches the moon as closely as I do, and daily raises concern about a late period. My friends tell me they don’t think it’s safe to bring a child into the world. I understand their concern. I’m reading An Inconvenient Truth, the graphic details of the ecological crisis we’re facing together on this planet. In the midst of such uncertainty, what kind of future do I see? What gives me strength to continue? Out of potential despair, I climb the hill to the arboretum almost every day. Piles of leaves beneath trees and dripping rain speak to me of fertility and decay. I sit between maples and hemlocks, asking myself what I’m here to do. What am I giving back? How am I helping Mother Earth sustain us all?
As I stand on the cusp of potential motherhood, I remember the road that brought me to this place. In my teens, I wasn’t happy. My social life felt superficial; I desired depth and meaning. I left small town Idaho to attend a progressive liberal arts college, acutely aware that a money-driven career wasn’t for me. Teachers and elders told me I was a smart, talented girl who could do anything she wanted. I was mostly quiet around my peers, afraid of how they might perceive me. My classes didn’t address the loneliness I often felt. I decided that solitary spiritual practice was the only way to find freedom from my discontent. After a year and a half I dropped out of school, choosing to live and study with the teacher of a newly opened Tibetan Buddhist Center. I cut ties to family and friends, especially my mother, who I felt was the main source of expectation and false praise. During this time I visited the depths of my aloneness, the isolation created out of the belief that I alone was special. Though it seems antithetical, I drove myself into alienation and discovered innate connection. Even with physical distance and silence, I could not separate myself from my mother, my father, my friends, the mountains and rivers and wild creatures who created me.
My mother and I talk regularly now. We share our current challenges and delights. On the phone last week, Mom told me that she met my father at the same age that I’m meeting Geoffrey. I see the cycle of our lives continuing. I was born on the land they bought together in Northern Idaho, where my mother planted vegetables and raised fruit trees. Geoffrey and I plan to buy a piece of property in the next year, to cultivate our dream of a small farm, and possibly a family. Without this link to my mother’s history, my current situation would have little meaning. It is through connection to her that I can see a larger pattern emerging, the growth of seeds planted before my birth. Given this, I can also see the potential of my future, and choose which seeds I want to water and which to let die. Given the current state of the world, do I believe birthing a child is of benefit? In what other ways can I channel my maternal energy that will foster life on planet earth? Motherhood may mean having children. It may mean raising goats and vegetables. It may mean writing a book. I can choose how I am called to create and sustain life.
Neighborhoods and strip malls fan out below my perch in the arboretum. Beyond my sight, salmon and halibut thrash in trolling nets. A few miles north, swiss chard and acorn squash grow in weeded rows. Though we harvest food ourselves, Mother Earth has sustained us since birth. In the gardens of the Tigris and Euphrates River Valley, Gaia laid us in the cradle. She held us in caves as we learned to hunt and gather. She nursed us as we planted seeds, as we milked goats and slaughtered sheep. Our ability to care for ourselves is inseparable from her generosity. As wind, she wipes our brows in summer heat. As water, she washes our hands and feet. As fire, she warms us on cold nights. As earth, she is the ground of all our experience. Despite her sudden storms, plagues, famines and floods, we have survived. We rely on her for our livelihoods, and she provides. She has nurtured us to a point at which some have nearly unrestricted wealth and possibility. She has given us everything. Her forests, her ore and minerals, her oceans and rivers, her fish and horses, her life. Now, when the eco-systems that sustain us teeter so close to devastation, can we offer ourselves with the same abundance as She who gave us life?
We know our species’ power to create and destroy. Human activities are directly responsible for the extinction of thousands of plants and animals worldwide. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Holocaust, less publicized genocides throughout history: we are capable of mass suicide. Simultaneously, we give birth to children, art, and ideas every day. As humans, we hold life and death in our hands. I gasped when I realized I might be pregnant. A sense of responsibility clenched my gut: I can create another human. The thought of an abortion flickered in my mind. I can also kill one. It is a constant choice: death or life? One does not exist without the other. This is the realm of the Great Earth Mother: the creative action to generate life and the vast darkness to enfold it. Wielding these forces mindlessly, we end up where we are today. I feel the call to motherhood as a call to responsibility. As a finite replica of Mother Earth, I am vibrant and strong. I must learn to use my strength with intelligence and kindness, and my vitality with focus. I am accountable for the effects of my actions.
Some days, our ecological and social problems feel insurmountable. Below my apartment, cars rush to and fro. My heater spews gas-heated air into a high-ceilinged room. Looking out the window at the steam from the Georgia Pacific plant, I feel far from the solace of the trees. A quote I read from Edward Cornish, founder of the World Future Society, circles in my head, “Whether we are on the threshold of a Golden Age or on the brink of a global cataclysm that will extinguish our civilization is not only unknowable, but undecided.” Consciously or unconsciously, it seems we humans will eventually decide our own fate. Will we bring our lives into harmony with the earth? Will we continue our present trajectory to a dismal end? Or does the future encompass both or neither of these extremes? As a potential mother and a human, I hold all the possible answers to these questions in my hands. The products I buy, the house I live in, the children I raise, the work I do: all of these influence the path the world will take.
Since I am bleeding, there is no child. Instead, I am choosing to mother my own gifts. This is my offering to Mother Earth. Writing is a practice I return to again and again. It steadies me in confusion, unburdens me in pain, expresses my longings, and carries my voice into the world. I nourish my writing with time and thought and energy. My intention is to awaken people to their own deep purpose, that my words contribute to the transformation and healing of the planet. Writing is like a child. I attempt to steer it in one direction, but I cannot control it. If I try to condition my child’s life -- protect her from failure or pain, make sure she’s a well-rounded person, instill in her high moral values -- she has no space to become herself. Motherhood requires trust and willingness to change. I trust that my writing will eventually blossom if I tend to it. I don’t know exactly what this seed will become. As it develops leaves and thickens its stalk, I grow confidence and insight. My writing evolves because I am willing to change.
Sitting with my back against a cedar, I sense roots sinking into the soil. Clean air, pure rain, abundant nutrients, diverse community. This tree and I have the same needs. A squirrel nibbles pinecones overhead. Sunlight photosynthesizes in maples on the hillside. Soil organisms digest dead leaves. By knowing my own needs, I know the earth’s. We are not separate entities. Interconnection means that caring for Mother Earth is as important as caring for myself. By consuming less and considering the ecological impacts of my choices -- from the shampoo I buy to whether I walk or drive -- I diminish the harm I inflict. By using my gifts to benefit her, I reciprocate her generosity. It will take time and effort for my way of life to contribute wholly to the health of Mother Earth. Not all my food grows on local farms. I still rely on fossil fuels for long distance travel and to heat my house. I stand in the spray of a hot shower to relax. At the same time, I am creating change. Writing this article is one of the small things I can offer. Regardless of the size of the act, it is a way to begin. It is a way to support Mother Earth. May we all find the strength and love to sustain her.