THE MOTHER MIND

I have a confession to make. In the style of AA, hi, my name is Renee and I am a news addict. I can usually hold off and control my urges to read the news and when I do, I find that I am at peace, relatively. Then something big happens, like the Haiti earthquake and I think to myself, “That is what happens when I don’t follow the news”, as though somehow by my lack of information, I caused the quake. And that gets me started on the news again. I browse every paper online, I tune the radio to news stations, I glance at newspapers and before I know it, I am waking up to the headlines, I am cussing over the state of Britain/Afghanistan/Haiti/Sri Lanka/Kenya. News of Sarah Palin’s palm scribbled cue words are forming my opinion of her and of Americans, the death of some Taleban in Pakistan is drawing me to delve into the ins and outs of a war I vehemently opposed. The testimony of Tony Blair at the Chilcot Commission of Inquiry makes me want to write them and tell them to take a cue from Kenyan Commissions into how to truly and properly waste taxpayers’ money... and I am angry. Inner peace is out. Righteous indignation is in. And the world is no longer a beautiful place. I want the peace back, but I also want the delicious feeling of being “current”. I want to know of the major events around the world but I do not want to be overwhelmed by the news. As these thoughts race through my mind, I catch a snippet of a radio interview playing in the background. The interviewee says...”Credo Mutwa...” I don’t catch the rest. I’m not really interested but I remember an uncle being so proud to have met him. I am intrigued by the name and google it. If you have not heard of him, Credo Mutwa is a famous South African Zulu sangoma – medicine man. “Awaken the mother mind within every one of you human beings. Our people believe that every human being, male or female has got two minds, the mother mind and the warrior mind. The warrior mind looks at things logically. The warrior mind says two plus two is four, but the mother mind says nothing of that kind. The mother mind, I don’t know how I can explain. The mother mind does not think in a line way as warriors do. The mother mind thinks sideways, sideways, and upwards and downwards. We must awaken the mother mind within us. We must feel what is going on in the world, we mustn’t just listen to newspapers. We must ourselves feel... it is said by our, the Zulu people, that women think with their pelvic area where children grow and are born. We must think that way. I must no longer look at a tree, but I must see a living entity like me in that thing. I must no longer look at a stone but I must see the future lying dormant in that stone. What minerals are there. We must think like grandmothers. That is all.” http://peacesanctuary.blogspot.com/2008/05/credo-mutwa-message-to-world.html Wow! That is all? How do I do that? How do I see the men who pass anti-abortion laws in Kenya while allowing 8 year olds to be married off to 40+year old men, through the ‘mother mind’? How do I see the devastation of Haiti through the ‘mother mind’? Can I accept that evil happens, fight it with my ‘warrior mind’ and still retain the perspective that the mother mind promises? I don’t know but I am willing to try. I look outside. It is so very cold, sunny but absolutely frozen. And I try to see the winter as the stillness of nature when she regenerates, recuperates and dreams the dream of spring – of new birth. It feels funny to think this way, almost fraudulent, but strangely, it brings some peace and some comfort. For a moment, all is well. Perhaps there is a place for that female mind my world, after all. (c) Renee Ngamau