Cycles of Womanhood

The Mother

All women are cyclical beings, constantly in motion, ebbing and flowing like the endless tides. We rush outward in welcome and warm to all around us, and then retreat to nurture ourselves and replenish our energies. We move through phases that echo the Earth’s seasons, her spring is our maiden, her summer our mother, her autumn our enchantress and her winter is our crone. As we deepen our awareness of these connections and what they mean for us as individuals, the greater our ability to support ourselves and maximise our potential to achieve all that we aspire to.

In this series of articles, I am acting as your guide to the four archetypes which correspond to the four moon phases… maiden/first quarter, mother/full moon, enchantress/third quarter and the crone/dark moon. Each phase last for roughly 7 days, peaking on day 3 or 4, yet as well all know each one of us are different and our experiences belong solely to us.

As the warmth covers the land and the sunlight languishes longer and longer each day, we come to the Mother phase… the summer… the full moon.

Meeting The Mother

In every corner of the world we have come to know the archetype of the mother through the religious figure of the ‘Divine Mother Mary’. Whether we identify as Christian or not, western culture for centuries has had this example held up as the ideal mother and often the only representation of womanhood after the maiden years have passed. This ideal brings great pain to those who desire but cannot have biological children. It brings frustration and a sense of being invalidated to those who choose not to follow the path of mothering children, and an often impossible, expectation to those who as mothers find themselves unable to see this image reflected when they look in the mirror.

Our second popular Mother imagery centres on the Earth Mother archetype. The image of the abundant and nurturing feminine, deeply rooted into the earth so she can stand strong enough to offer her love and care to all who need her. But again, this is image has become associated with an image of a planet abused and taken advantage of until she has little left to give.

As an archetype the divine mother has been used against women for far too long and needs to be reclaimed and…