"M is for the Million Things She Gave Me."

From the outside in or from the inside out; these are the two perspectives of life. The former are what the latter become once they have exhausted the process, or let us say, once disenchantment has set in. You get this in each life regardless. Life automatically draws within at the closing of a cycle. However, there are larger cycles of greater importance; at least according to the party of the first part; those who are tired of hanging out at the mall.

Western religious culture is a big penis alpha male who doesn’t always gift his offspring with similar attributes; this leads to a whole area of psychology of which I am sure a great many readers are familiar. If this makes you smile that’s good, if not, keep scratching your head. You probably didn’t get any thunderbolts either.

For those looking outside, the chariot of desire is usually a ‘Hummer’ with or without the double entendre attached; or it could be a Ferrari or some Matchbox vehicle. For those looking within it’s another vehicle whose highways are the heavens. There are traffic cops in both areas.

This brings me to the main body of my interest today; God as the mother. Much is made of the goddess lately in fringe areas of western spiritual interest and a lot has been written on her; mostly by women with names like Sapphire Moon or Rainbow Hallelujah Morning. Sometimes they just have a lot of hyphens in the name and that’s followed by degrees in dance, massage therapy and psychology. This goddess costs money and is usually quite personalized, with or without her consent. But she’s pretty forgiving; after all, she is a mother.

Now, in this world- and I am talking about the West... but it could be anywhere, there are mother lovers and motherfuckers. We have seen strange prayers and poems by the latter written on bathroom walls, often accompanied by iconographic portrayals by the artist. The former are often corrupted by an inadequate understanding of the mother due to confusions arising in their relationship to their birth mother; how and why they came here and whether it really isn’t all about Mom, God bless her.

In mainstream religious oatmeal, the mother is commonly seen as The Virgin Mary in a blue light. This has been somewhat annotated by the Beatles song, “Let it Be.”. Things change of course and, of course, the more things change the more the thing behind the things remains the same. We’ve sanitized the mother in the established church and generally don’t want to know about all of the things she does besides the night-light effect in the kid’s bedroom. We also usually don’t want to know how her relationship to us is directly connected to the way we see her and how we feel about her.

This Virgin Mary is an image set to represent the pure matter out of which everything is formed. Depending on the seed implanted and the idea it contains you can get a cornucopia of health and well being or... a hairnet of mosquitoes and a lot of internal disorder working its way outside. Sometimes this thing called prayer works and sometimes it doesn’t because theurgy has rules just like everything does and you need the right tool for the right job. You get one exception and that’s a product of virtue; no elaboration given.

This mother can be scary beyond the capacity of the rational mind to endure or accept; so, put a pretty face on it. It helps in the early going. The final clarity no doubt involves seeing and understanding the Kali and Tara in the graveyard ritual but... who’s that driven? You’d have to be mad wouldn’t you; especially if you took acid and went looking for her there at night. Well, some people do but you won’t be meeting them down at the Kiwanis or Burger King.

When you were a kid did your mother often half scare and half delight you by saying, “I’m going to eat you up?” Believe it. It’s true union for the praying mantis among us; besides that? It happens anyway; might as well enjoy it.

It’s rough for the rational souls to comprehend that this lady fulfills the role of every single female relationship in your life and that it’s all the same energy being. No wonder you’re conflicted. However, when I was talking about ‘motherfuckers’ that isn’t what I meant. Then I was talking about people who do bad things. You really don’t want to piss her off. And now we come to the justice aspect.

Mother Nature, at least in the common parlance, has a lot to do with our health. I’m under the impression that the closer we stay to her, the healthier we are. You can make a lot of things out of Mother Nature. There are the things she comes with, the raw materials... there are the hidden aspects secreted in amongst the raw materials and sometimes deeper secrets vibrate outside the common bandwidth but interpenetrate with the raw materials... and then... you get the things we make out of combinations of the raw materials; with or without the addition and assistance of the secret ingredients.

While you are making things, selling things; products, ideas, agendas... you are also preparing a mask for the mother you are going to meet. In the beginning you were inside her. Then you came through her and then she was all around you and then... and then she’s still all around you but the focus and awareness has changed. Well... that’s at the other end too. Is she waiting with open arms? Are you afraid to go? A lot of people don’t think about that much because as the stork told one of The Pandavas, “The greatest mystery is that you see people dying all around you and don’t think that you yourself will die.”

Well, you don’t die... not in the sense of total finito; you just get repackaged based on where you thought you were headed and sent off with a new suit of clothes.

It’s probably the hardest thing in the world to accept the fact that everything is our own damn fault. Our insistence on knowing what we know, based on the partial information from which we formed our perspective, is the catalyst for the things we suffer. As soon as we don’t know that shit anymore our destiny changes immediately. This is the sort of thing we see happen when someone’s denial breaks; when they wake up to something, when their heart is broken- oh... there are a lot of ways. We’re not always improved then either, because once again we’re only seeing a portion- it may just be a larger piece.

One aspect of this mother is called Sophia; the aspect of Wisdom. I’ll bet a lot of people who don’t have it think that it is something you get, like an air conditioner or a suitcase and you just have it. Actually it is a relationship. You get into this place where you hear it more or less of the time. You can also lose it. People do when they all of a sudden know something again; wisdom backs off.

When we appreciate a great musician or any sort of exceptional soul- even if we don’t know this... it isn’t ‘their ability’ that we appreciate. It is rather their capacity to channel. This is how come some people can’t write anymore. It was there and then... the well went dry. It’s how we make fools of ourselves and how we get into the idea that we did something. We never did and we never do. For myself, I love the idea of being with my mother. Words could never describe all the wonderful things she does for me every day and, like most mothers, she doesn’t expect any thanks... she knows better. But I will tell you that she appreciates it. And if she sees that you know and appreciate it... even if you can’t see her; if you know she’s around and you are grateful... well then... words fail.

I know for some this seems silly. Grown men know better... all stiff and stern and knowing... Invictus-armored... but I think it’s always best to be a little boy. She just loves that. It’s okay to pretend with everyone else.