May 13th, 2026

Honoring the Great Mother

“Mothering myself has become a way of listening to my deepest needs, and of responding to them while I respond to my inner child.”

Melinda Burns (Writer)

“…quietly meditate on the cosmic Great Mother who can inspire us all; the divine, feminine Spirit of nurturance known as the Goddess, so revered in ancient times and being rediscovered by women today.”

“Many women…share a seldom-expressed yearning to be comforted. To be mothered. This voracious need is deep, palpable–and often unrequited. Instead, we are the ones who usually provide comfort, caught between the pressing needs of our children, our elderly parents, our partners, our friends, even our colleagues.”

“Though we are grown, we never outgrow the need for someone special to hold us close, stroke our hair, tuck us into bed, and reassure us that tomorrow all will be well. Perhaps we need to reacquaint ourselves consciously with the maternal and deeply comforting dimension of Divinity in order to learn how to mother ourselves. The best way to start is to create—as an act of worship—a comfortable home that protects, nurtures, and sustains all who seek refuge within its walls.”

“Gloria Steinem has written movingly of the need to reparent herself after she began exploring, in midlife, the issue of self-esteem. Because her parents divorced when she was ten and her mother suffered from debilitating depression, the legendary editor of Ms. magazine assumed the role of family caregiver. Decades later, as a leader of the feminist movement, she organized, traveled, lectured, campaigned, and successfully raised money for causes, but she didn’t know how to take care of herself—emotionally, psychologically, physically—even though she had spent her life taking care of others. Nowhere was this truth more apparent than in her home…that her apartment was little more than ‘a closet where I changed close and dumped papers into cardboard boxes.’ Gradually she came to the belated awareness that one’s home ‘was a symbol of the self’ and in her fifties created and began to enjoy her first real home.”

“Today, as you walk through your own home, think about the ways that you can start to mother yourself—every day, not just once a year—in small but tangible ways. There should be comfortable places from the living room to the bedroom that invite you to sit, sleep, relax, and reflect. There should be small indulgences from the kitchen to the bathroom that pamper and please. There should be sources of beauty throughout that inspire, order that restores, and the quiet grace of simplicity that soothes.”

“I found god in myself and I loved her/I loved her fiercely.”

Ntozake Shange (American Playwright & Poet; October 18th, 1948 to October 27th, 2018)

“There is no more beautiful way of honoring the love of the feminine divinity waiting to mother us than by celebrating the temple where her Spirit dwells on earth.”

“OMG! Reading the portion above about Gloria Steinem rang to true for my experience as lived. With generational trauma via assimilation, cold-mothering and depression/mental illness within the family, I had to also learn to reparent myself. In fact, I am still on this journey. I was never shown how to sooth myself emotionally, psychologically or physically by my parents. They were overwhelmed and mostly self-absorbed in a pattern of survival leaving my brother and I to fend for ourselves. Remarkedly, I found a way to survive and I believe my brother was not so lucky. I scored my Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) recently and depending on the wording of the questions, I score between a 6-8, which is shocking, as a score of a 4 is already considered off the charts. However, today I saw an updated study which also speaks to the resiliency of ACEs children having enough Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs). I scored a 10 for PCEs and credit mostly my sports, coaches and teachers for saving me and helping me navigate a tumultuous childhood. I always internally knew sports, caches and the classroom felt like a safe place for me. I am profoundly grateful for having access to these people and venues.“

---

–Ban Breathnach, Sarah. “Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy”. Grand Central Publishing. (1976). Kindle Page 158 to 159 of 501.

I challenge each of you on this blog series to post comments so we all can grow together.