Momma Goddess: I Wonder If the Lady Feels Exhausted Too

     As I write this, I feel like I should be curled up in bed with a blanket over me and fast asleep. Have you ever been so tired that your body aches and you feel a little sick to your stomach? That’s about how I feel right now, but I can’t take a nap because I have a toddler who is happily playing on the floor beside me. This is making me apprehensive of how the recovery period is going to go after I have this baby, but that’s just something I can set aside for right now. I worry too much anyways, just ask my dear husband. The poor guy had to listen to my babbling about my worries about this and that last night when he was trying to sleep at 2:30 in the morning. As he so kindly said, “It’s probably because of your hormones.”

      I sit here and wonder if the Goddess ever feels this way. The most frequent image that we see of the Mother aspect of the Goddess is one of her in late pregnancy with a small child toddling about. If this is the Mother aspect, then I can understand why some prayers don’t get answered. It’s exhausting to be pregnant. To be pregnant and minding a toddler… I don’t think there is a word for that level of tired. A lot of other witches, particularly Wiccans, like to view the Goddess as a generous benefactor who is the icon of the ideal mother with a dash of Glenda the Good Witch from Oz thrown in. Over the last few years, I have increasingly found myself rejecting this concept.

     Motherhood is not some serene and blissful thing that we float thru gracing our children with gentle caresses and being adored by all living things. I have found those kind of things are just moments, beautiful moments but fleeting. As I write this, one of the more realistic moments is happening. The baby is giving me heartburn as he is kicking and my first-born is throwing a temper-tantrum because he wants to sit in my lap right now as he waves the top to his box of toy cars around and wears his wide brimmed hat. Moments like this are often frustrating, but they make up the solid ground of our lives.

     I think that I am not a better witch because I’m a mother and I don’t think it gives me some kind of special insights into life that I had magically bestowed upon me the moment my child was conceived. A lot of other witches, especially ones that are young and new to the practice of witchcraft, seem to think that reaching the status of motherhood puts you into some kind of state of infallibility akin to what the Catholic Pope has. That hasn’t appeared to be the case for me and it doesn’t appear to be the case for the other mothers I know. We just find ourselves engaged in the hardest job we’ll ever love. (Going deaf as we try to take care of various other things at the same time because the child just will scream until we give in sometimes.)

      I think, however, the challenges of motherhood gives us a a different perspective. We are faced with some hard work and with some incredibly sublime moments (like baby’s first smile or when they say their first word). This shapes us and I think that the events of our lives shape our spirituality. I think that the Mother aspect of the Goddess is not the ‘chocolate box’ image. I think it’s closer to the harried woman I see in the mirror who feels like she is living half her life with her heart in her throat as her child is exploring the world. I think it’s closer to the woman who tries to will herself deaf to her child’s temper-tantrum and debates locking herself in the bathroom even as she’s doing her best to teach her child self-discipline, wondering if she should record herself saying ‘No! Stop! Don’t touch that!’ and play it endlessly.

     I think that the Goddess is present everywhere and in each moment of our lives. But I think that people are uncomfortable with the idea that the Goddess could possibly be a hard task mistress even as she’s nurturing our potential for growth. I think that other witches are very uneasy with the idea of ‘humanizing’ the Goddess because it makes them realize that there’s a lot of weight on our own shoulders in life that we must deal with ourselves. For my part, however, I think I am alright with that concept. While I don’t enjoy the half hour long screaming temper-tantrums of toddler hood and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to enjoy some of the teenage rebellion and angst that are waiting down the road, I have to admit, those moments of serene bliss and the sound of my child’s laughter makes up for all of that frustration.