For all the gifts of motherhood, one of its greatest
poverties is the lack of solitude. Originally, in an ancient text called the
Hatha Yoga Pradapika, there were just a handful of yoga postures, all of which
were either seated postures or other ways in which to prepare the body to sit
in meditation. These were created to assist a life of solitude, a life in which
the journey inward far exceeded in time and commitment to external demands, a
life in meditation.
The conversation on meditation can be divisive. From some
camps, there is the dogmatic insistence on taking your seat on a cushion once
daily or more. Contrast this to our fearful plea “I can’t meditate!” usually
after attempting to jump fully from the chaos of a fully lived life right into
the thimble of Samadhi and wondering why we didn’t land right.
Most of the mothers I know are tired. They are tired because
they have nursing babies that need them in the night. They are tired because
they are working outside the home and then coming home to put dinner on the
table, clean up afterwards, assist with homework, pay bills and faint into bed
each night, while to-do lists continue to gallop through synapses and muscle
tissue. They are tired because they want to be alone or exercise or pray or
sing or draw or work their knitting needles or read that good book but they
have passed another day not able to fit it in. I have to yawn and sigh just to
write about it.
So, we can imagine a spectrum in our minds. On one end, we
see the ascetic yogi of yore, sinewy and folded in lotus in a cave in the Himalayas – most every moment devoted to solitude. On the
other end is the harried mother, as the ancient Hindu goddesses are portrayed
with millions of arms and heads, each serving another cause in our lives as
women, mothers, partners, professionals.
More in the next post…
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