{"id":156,"date":"2011-04-30T11:10:29","date_gmt":"2011-04-30T15:10:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/insweetcompany\/?p=156"},"modified":"2011-04-30T11:10:29","modified_gmt":"2011-04-30T15:10:29","slug":"mother-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/04\/mother-love.html","title":{"rendered":"Mother Love"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>\u201cCelebrate Her. &#8230; You are of Her and you know how to do it.\u201d <\/em>&#8212; Olympia Dukakis, N SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE<\/p>\n<p>As Mother\u2019s Day approaches, my thoughts turn to the women who paved my way through the ages and those who nurtured my own becoming &#8212; including the women I wrote about in IN SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE.\u00a0 (www.InSweetCompany.com)<\/p>\n<p>St. Theresa of Avila once said that \u201dThe demand of the splendid favors of awakening is that they be embodied,\u201c and this, surely, is what women help me do. Together, we are finding our way through the chaos of the times we live in and the lives we live; stumbling, perhaps for a time, in the darkness, but forging a life that speaks to our deepest needs. We gather in cul de sacs after our children are in bed, and in coffee houses and conference rooms by day to share our stories, to actively explore our options, to push the edge of our own and the collective envelope as we resolve personal and global conflicts. We are becoming the beating heart of a great renaissance occurring in America, a grass roots spiritual revolution that is changing the way women and men live their lives.<\/p>\n<p>The search for meaning and the longing to live from our deepest values, though genderless, is embedded in women\u2019s history. Despite centuries of religious persecution &#8212; or because of it &#8212; women articulated their spirituality primarily in the language of relationships, in harmony with the natural cycles of our lives, in our homes and in the arts rather than in our churches or the battlefields &#8212; as we birthed our babies and comforted our dying, in all that came between. The path we trod was personal, intimate, internalized, creative, and immediate.<\/p>\n<p>As the 20 th century unfurled, our spiritual expression expanded to include the right to vote and equal rights; and we earned more than our keep through several world wars. We made education and child care a priority. When evidence of the great matriarchal cultures of the Neolithic Age emerged, the shroud that covered the feminine face of God to Western civilization was torn asunder. Once these ancient images of the Divine Feminine resurfaced, women and men began to find a path to the Divine in the arms of the Great Mother, an embracing image of Divinity that is broad, inclusive, compassionate and forgiving, yet strong, creative and joyful. She has many names: Mary, Sophia, Quan Yin, Gaia, Saraswati, the Shechinah &#8212; as many names as there are hearts to fill. Hidden from sight, hidden even from our awareness for thousands of years, we discovered She never left our side.<\/p>\n<p>As Mother\u2019s Day draws near, I remember Her, too.<\/p>\n<p>Your thoughts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cCelebrate Her. &#8230; You are of Her and you know how to do it.\u201d &#8212; Olympia Dukakis, N SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE As Mother\u2019s Day approaches, my thoughts turn to the women who paved my way through the ages and those who nurtured my own becoming &#8212; including&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":231,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[51,48,49,50],"class_list":["post-156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-divine-feminine","category-womens-spirituality","tag-divine-feminine","tag-mothers-day","tag-olympia-dukakis","tag-womens-history"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mother Love - In Sweet Company<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/04\/mother-love.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mother Love - In Sweet Company\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cCelebrate Her. &#8230; You are of Her and you know how to do it.\u201d &#8212; Olympia Dukakis, N SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE As Mother\u2019s Day approaches, my thoughts turn to the women who paved my way through the ages and those who nurtured my own becoming &#8212; including&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/04\/mother-love.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"In Sweet Company\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-04-30T15:10:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Margaret Wolff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Mother Love - In Sweet Company","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/04\/mother-love.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Mother Love - In Sweet Company","og_description":"\u201cCelebrate Her. &#8230; 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She speaks and writes about things women care about: how to make our lives and our work be about what we value most; how to navigate challenge and change; how to live with integrity and grace, to look at error in ourselves and others in a forgiving way and view life as an invitation to transform ourselves into instruments for the Greater Good. \"I laughed, I cried, I was silent, I cheered. Most of all, I loved.\" Spoken by a woman at In Sweet Company Retreat, these words express what women experience when Margaret engages them in dynamic, soul-searching conversations about their lives. Margaret holds degrees in art therapy, psychosynthesis, and leadership and human behavior. Her work takes her to universities, to conferences and retreat settings, to living rooms and board rooms -- wherever women gather. Her articles, essays, and stories are featured in numerous magazines; her women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spirituality retreats are held throughout the U.S. Margaret\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s last book, In \"Sweet Company: Conversations With Extraordinary Women About Living a Spiritual Life\" (Jossey Bass), is a collection of intimate conversations she had with 14 famous women of various ages, faiths, and backgrounds about how their spirituality nourishes them and serves as a steady compass for their decision-making. Olympia Dukakis, Riane Eisler, Zainab Salbi, Margaret Wheatley, Sri Daya Mata, Lauren Artress, and other women artists, activists, religious leaders, and visionary thinkers shared their lives with her. 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