A Mother We Can All Love
Happy Mother’s Day
For some reason Mother’s Day is celebrated on different days in different places. In the UK, where I was when I first wrote this, it is in March. In the US, it is now, in May. In South America, it is in August. On the just-passed Mother’s Day in the UK I took a yoga class that was being taught by a new mother who had just returned to teaching after her 4-month maternity leave. She began the class by acknowledging that it was Mother’s Day and mentioning her own new motherhood. But then she said something else unexpected and moving. She said she wanted to acknowledge Mother Earth, “the mother of us all,” the ground on which we stand and take life from, and the ultimate source of all life around us. It was very apt and a great way to begin the journey of inner connection that yoga is all about.
Our relationship with our own bodies mirrors this sentiment. In a way, we are only borrowing our body from the earth for the time we are alive, after which it will go back to that source and become the stuff of other lives. We are like farmers or gardeners, tending to ourselves and the life within us, much like a farmer tends to their crops. The real magic, though, is our health and the lifeforce within us. The force that keeps us alive and heals us is the same one Mother Earth uses to make a seed grow. In this same way a good doctor knows they only help with the body’s wondrous ability to heal by removing the impediments to that healing. Preventive health practices are all based on nurturing and extending the life of these healing forces within us for as long as possible.
This harmony with nature, which is the source of wonder about ourselves and our lives and the source of healing, has taken a backseat in our modern world. We are too busy to notice it. In my own pursuit of health, I am constantly reminded that my body has its own rhythms and tempo. It requires me to be humble and respectful in my pursuit of its healing blessings, to pay attention and be aware of my body and my health, and to listen to my body to recognize and address any symptoms that may arise. To me, this is what’s missing from much of the health advice out there, which seems to simply parrot the ideas and methods of modern treatment-based medicine as opposed to a focus on preventive practices.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s helpful to consult with the traditional medical community to help fix your health problems and then try their advice to see if it works. The world of prevention, though—and staying healthy in the first place—is a different animal. There are a few fundamentals, such as paying attention to good nutrition and different kinds of movement, which go back to the way our bodies have evolved and how our health systems have supported our survival as a species. But there is so much more to staying healthy and preventing disease or ailments and so much more we have to learn from nature.
Health is s system of life that Mother Nature has been working on for billions of years. She not only created life but she developed a wondrously perfect and efficient system to make sure that life thrives. Just think that our respiratory waste, carbon dioxide (CO2), provides the plant kingdom what it needs to “breathe”. In return it provides us oxygen (O2), which is what we and the entire animal kingdom need to breathe. The perfect synergy of this one aspect of our interdependence with Mother Earth is but one element of many that illustrates how we are an integral part of her system of life and health. Acknowledging that my own life wouldn’t be possible without that constant support is part of my daily practice.
Other Dimensions
This doesn’t only apply to physical health. Emotional health and spiritual health are part of the same wholistic spectrum that governs the way Mother Earth and nature work at keeping us healthy and alive. In the story of the Buddha’s enlightenment, when he was tempted by the “armies” of greed, lust, fear and anger, he simply touched the earth on which he was sitting with his fingers and said “This is my army.” His temptations vanished. Being connected to the ultimate life giving earth was all the strength he needed to overcome them.
Realigning our relationship with Mother Earth becomes a very different story when we connect with our own health and well-being. Appreciating the fact that the magic of health and life are only ours to tend to while we are alive, for me, brings this point home in a profound way. It makes me want to experience this health every day, as deeply and for as long as possible.
