It’s the season for soft greens, purples, blues
and pink (lots of pink) balloons, cards, candy, and ribbons. Not only
is it spring, but it is Mother’s Day along with Teacher Appreciation, Nurses
Appreciation, Administrative Assistant Appreciation and Social Worker
Appreciation. Aside from the observation that all of these traditionally female
dominated, under-paid, over-worked careers are lumped together leading to a
frenzy of card buying / giving by women for women … (I digress), I don’t think
that the Founding Women of Mother’s Day would go for the colors.
Motherhood is a bold and fierce undertaking. When I delivered my first baby I saw burnt
orange…the power of the experience, the connection it gave me to women around
the world, and my sense that I was a warrior woman was not a muted color. Nor
was the feeling I had when I looked into my daughter’s eyes and my heart
exploded into sparks of silver and gold. And as my heart came back together it
was indigo as I knew that I would do anything for this child – offer my life to
save hers in a second… without an instant’s hesitation. As I know my mother
would for me.
Once my heart was split open to the universe, I began to see
charcoal when I read about mothers losing children, children losing mothers, toddlers,
teens and women being hurt, abused and broken. I see scarlet (almost every day of
late) at the policies being perpetrated that keep women and children,
particularly those who are poor and/or of color, behind, below and beyond reach
of the resources and rights they need to reach their full potential for health,
wealth and joy. What would Julia Ward Howe, suffragist, poet, pacifist and a
Mother’s Day founder think about how we do or as more often the case do NOT use our
collective voices as women to call attention to the issues that matter most?
Whether the focus is a child, a partner, a best friend or an
important cause, mothering takes courage, persistence, unbending love, and the
willingness to get really messy. I see flames of fushia and cerulean blue. It
requires self-reflection, a sense of humor, and the energy to hold center in
the middle of the storm. Motherhood calls us to practice deep compassion.
Forest green…midnight blue.
There is nothing pastel about listening to the soul deep
pain of someone who has been hurt, teaching someone to read and think for
themselves, waking up night after night to care for a crying baby, comforting a
friend or partner who has lost a job or hope, and watching someone you love
learn hard lessons, grow up and move away. Anna Jarvis, an Appalachian
homemaker who organized Mother’s Work Days to avert deaths from disease-bearing insects living in neighborhood polluted water, and in 1868 took the initiative to heal the
bitter rifts between her Confederate and Union neighbors, could likely relate
to the crimson and golden rod hue of civic engagement and just getting things
done. As could her daughter who got the President to make Mother’s Day
official.
Let’s take back this day and lift up our voices in a BOLD kaleidoscope
of deep and strong colors. We need to raise the Mothers’ call for peace to
include the many wars that are waged every day – in our homes, in our
streets, in boardrooms and politician offices. As Julia Howe said, “why do not
the mothers of mankind interfere in these matters to prevent the waste of that human
life of which they alone bear and know the cost?” Mothers are rising in the South in a blaze of
magenta. Join us!
