By Shivani Ranchod | July 2023
The word sutra refers to ancient texts which contain observations which point at some sort of truth (akin to a finger pointing at the moon). The word also means thread. I like to think of it as a thread of wisdom that connects us. The Heart Sutra, The Diamond Sutra, The Kama Sutra.
The word Mama as I’ve used it refers to the non-gendered archetypal mother. Not only people with wombs carry archetypal maternal characteristics, nor the lived experience of parenting.
To be clear – there is no ancient text called the Mama Sutra – probably because of the patriarchal nature of the history of the texts. And that choosing a spiritual path was a full-time undertaking, not intended for “householders.”
The phrase Mama Sutra is also deliberately provocative because it rhymes with the Kama Sutra, which makes us think of sex and desire and pleasure. These are ideas that are biologically connected to mothering, but also discordant with the Virgin Mother archetype. In the context of patriarchal systems of knowledge transmission, the all-important question of what mothering can teach us about a path to enlightenment has been a neglected one.
Archetypal mother images exist across cultures. The earth itself is often characterised as the mother: Pachamama, Mother Earth, Grandmother Earth. This points to a sense of support and of holding, and the current urgency at a planetary level for us to engage with ideas of mothering. There are also the fierce mother archetypes, such as the she-wolf protecting her cubs. Just with these two examples, we can begin to feel some of the apparent contradictions within motherhood: earth & fire, stillness & movement, soft & fierce.
Some of these archetypes have been minimised and over-ridden in favour of stereotypes that support the patriarchy: the mother as martyr, the mother as all sacrificing. We see a myriad of ways in which the womb has been colonised, women stripped of reproductive rights and agency over their bodies.
The mother archetype that resonates with me most is that of Kuan Yin, the Chinese Bodhisattva who listens to the cries of the world at ease. A Bodhisattva is someone who is enlightened or fully awake but continues an earthly existence to support the journeys of others.
She Listens. To the Cries of the World. At Ease.
There is so much there. The sense of presence. Full body listening. Ease. A steady nervous system. And the deep compassion: listening to the cries of the world, able to be present with suffering.
These are all capacities that can be cultivated. The capacity to listen. The capacity for ease. The capacity for compassion. Learning to mother is learning to cultivate all of these capacities.
Which begs the question: why are we learning to mother, and who are we mothering?
We cannot attend to others with ease and compassion and presence without learning to attend to ourselves in this way. Often, we are learning to do the latter while also having to do the former without the luxury of first re-mothering ourselves.
Learning to re-mother ourselves is essential work. It is how we learn to be present in the places where we have been absent. It is how we break cycles. Abandonment cycles are healed when we stop numbing and distracting and busying. Violent cycles are healed when we learn kind ways of being with ourselves. Cycles of internalised oppression and othering are healed when we reconnect with our innate power and worth and build a sense of belonging. Cycles of intergenerational trauma are healed when we recalibrate our nervous systems, so we discern between what is a real threat and what isn’t. It is the process through which we develop trust and a sense of safety in the world.
If we don’t do this work, we run the risk of taking responsibility for what is not ours, of over-attuning to the pain of others, of being reactive instead of responsive, or perpetuating harm.
When we feel the enormity of the re-mothering task, we can also see a path to forgiving our mothers for their imperfect mothering, and to forgiving ourselves for our imperfect parenting, and to forgiving ourselves for our imperfect self-care. We can see the inter-connections between our mother wound, our wounds in relation to how we parent, and the wounds in our relationship to ourselves. There is no one entry point, as we begin to attend to any one aspect, the others begin to heal too.
The Buddha himself carried a mother wound, his mother having died in childbirth. An abandonment he re-enacted by leaving his wife and child to pursue his spiritual path. And in his deep reckoning with his demons, the question of “who do you think you are” came up in relation to his imperfect parenting. And like all of us, all he could do was fully acknowledge his flaws and mistakes and regrets AND the true intention of his endeavours to heal and to do better.
There is no perfect mothering, there is only good-enough mothering. Showing up again and again. Coming back to the present moment. Remembering to breathe. Opening our hearts. A little softer, a little more open, a little more vulnerable.
And the good news is that as we do this, we are reminded that we are not alone. The archetypal mothering exists beyond us – it is something we can connect to and be supported by. Something we can come into allyship with and learn to recognise.
The path of wholehearted mothering IS the path to enlightenment. The mothering heart is the heart of everything.