Maternal Love

Ultimately, we love things best when they contain an element which is universally beautiful. Unless prejudice prevents our seeing it, then no matter what our perspective is, we will all find it beautiful. For example...

It is clear that everyone loves their mother uniquely, in a unique way. There are very specific memories, utterly impossible to replicate; combinations of smells, tastes, images, colors, sensations, sounds... This is not some abstract mother. This is Mother. Your Mother. She has a name and a history. And every inch of it enriches our experience of her reality and its fullness. In mysterious ways, it informs your love for her.

But, what you love most in your mother is something universal. Something we all love. The experience of motherly or maternal love is one we can all relate to. Even those of us who have never had the experience. We may have had no mother at all. No memories. But we relate, somehow, on a profound level, to the experience of having a mother, and being loved by her; held, cradled, soothed, and treated like the most precious object in the universe.

The ones who have had some taste of it, want more of it, and the ones who've never tasted it, what to drown in it for eternity. That is the beauty of the Shekinah.

We should endeavor to see it shining in the center of all that we love about our own mother. And we should endeavor to "flesh out" our conception of the Shekinah, without skimping on the imagination. The archetype of The Goddess, like our own mothers, ought to be specific. It doesn't matter if you imagine Minerva or The Lady Madonna, but that you see her clearly, and movingly, in your mind's eye.

Set before yourself an image befitting the exalted state of emotion you wish to inspire. As a result, your soul will be shaped like clay in the hands of a potter, and you'll be transformed into a holy grail, fit to hold and to dispense the sacred waters of life.

This is how the alchemy of religion is accomplished.