Biologically, the mother is the one who begets the children and carries them in her womb until they are ready to give birth. She gives birth to them and feeds them through lactation in the first moments of their lives. But there is a much deeper societal understanding of this concept: mother is also the one who loves, protects, nurtures and nurtures, even if she has not fulfilled the biological functions implied by motherhood.
Worship of the mother figure, represented as a deity, has been present since antiquity. A mother goddess embodies fertility, in some cultures she is also associated with Mother Earth.
In Western traditions it has been symbolized in a variety of ways, from the images of the goddess Cybele carved in stone to the image invoked alongside Zeus in the Greek oracle. The poet Homer sang one of his verses to the Mother Goddess, the “Hymn to Gaea, Mother of All.”
Since ancient times, the Sumerians wrote many erotic poems about their mother goddess Ninhursag. The depictions of these deities generally emphasize attributes such as hips, chest or abdomen, and the beauty lies precisely in the volume of the body.
Among the various figures found during archaeological digs, the Venus of Willendorf is perhaps one of the most famous. Many experts believe that this could be one of the first expressions of the cult of motherhood.
In the ancient religions of India, the goddess Áditi, the mother of all gods, held an important place. In the Popol Vuh, the Mayan sacred book, the young Ixquic became pregnant from the Jícara tree and gave birth to the gods Hunahpú and Ixbalanqué. She is the mother goddess of the Maya. Egyptian Isis was worshiped as the mother goddess, goddess of motherhood, childbirth and the fertilizing power.
Another example is the Greek Cybele, worshiped by the Romans as Magna mater, Great Mother, as was Venus, who was considered the mother of the Roman people as she was the mother of their patriarch Aeneas.
Gaia or Gea was the quintessential Mother Earth to the Greeks, and among the ancestors of Aztec land was Cihuacóatl, “snake woman,” the goddess of childbirth, patron saint of midwives, physicians and healers, and everything to do with giving at her birth she saved her children from the destruction of the world and wept for her future while predicting the end of the Tenochtitlan Empire.
But many flesh-and-blood mothers have also earned a place on our personal and collective altars, and have come to them for very different reasons. For some, it would even be enough to eliminate myths and live motherhood with total commitment, but without giving up dreams and aspirations. Personally.
The famous physicist Maria Curie, a native of Poland, studied radioactivity, engaged in science while raising a daughter, the brilliant Irene Joliot Curie, a French chemical physicist who, like her mother and father, received the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Belgian tennis player Kim Clijsters, who is ranked among the all-time greatest, retired from tennis at the age of 23 after the birth of her daughter and returned to the professional world after two years to become the first woman to be ranked number one in the world stand this discipline after I was a mother. Bárbara García, the leading figure of the National Ballet of Cuba, returned to the stage after the birth of her child and left almost all professional critics unanimous in one opinion: Motherhood made her a better dancer.
What costs twice as much work? Maybe so, but the idea that motherhood means giving up dreams and personal longings may have gone out of fashion by now.
Young American Anna Jarvis admired her mother, who worked in women’s organizations and cared for the wounded during the Civil War. Therefore, after her death in 1907, she promoted the petition to make Mother’s Day a national celebration, with the inspiration to honor all women who had contributed to humanity in general and not just to a specific son.
Many mothers gave themselves as if they gave birth to a whole people, and we Cubans are proud to be the children of Mariana Grajales, mother of the Maceos. During the first stages of the Cubans’ struggle against Spanish colonialism, he went into the jungle and healed wounds, including those of his own offspring, who had inherited the spirit, character and courage of the Maceos’ mother.
Juana Azurduyuerda is considered the liberator of Bolivia, she took part with her husband in the Spanish-American War of Independence for the emancipation of the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata against the Kingdom of Spain, none other than Simón Bolívar promoted her to this rank As a lieutenant colonel, she gave birth to five children and lost four to starvation and the hardships of war.
Much closer in time, the mothers and grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo led one of the most impressive socio-political movements on the continent through peaceful resistance, to this day they fight for justice for the victims During the bloody military dictatorship that Argentina endured, for them all children, who all feel like the mother of a whole generation.
There are women who have sacrificed their souls for children who have not borne children. Celia Sánchez is one of the big names to prove this, but there are certainly many around us who confirm this truth in everyday life.
Real mothers, with tiredness, pain and joy, with other loves and reasons in life or given to their children as the only love. Calm or Vulcan mothers, divine in their good measure of being and motherhood.