Honouring the House of the Mother.

Returning to the ways of the mother requires reclaiming our ancestral wisdom, our rituals for living, healing and relating. Following the primary principle of the mother as the life-giving vessel of all existence which in effect is how terms such as ‘Earth Mother’ and ‘Mother Nature’ came to be.

There is a growing recognition that the matrix of systems the global majority are fighting against all sit under the same roof, the house of capitalist modernity.

Patriarchy, colonialism, capitalism and all the structures of the ‘isms’ are all relatively recent constructs within the broader time-line of human civilisation.

Through out history human civilisations particularly those of the global south followed Earth honouring matriarchal principles. Due to the white-washing of history much of that knowledge and wisdom has been suppressed.

Eurocentric narratives and the hegemony of Western thought is build to scaffold a toxic infatuation ego and a relentless pursuit of power. White men have distorted and rewritten ‘his-story’ to reinforce the models of supremacy and hierarchy of the Western worldview to the point where ideology of Matriarchy is misunderstood.

Many assume a matriarchy is a society where women hold the same dominant power as men hold in a patriarchal society. This widespread misunderstanding distorts our imagination and visions of an alternative reality. One that is free from the power over structures of violence, domination and oppression.

The truth is Matriarchal societies are not simply a mirror image of patriarchal societies, but rather they are based on Earth honouring values and social structures that are reflective of ecosystems within nature.

Learn more about the ancestral mothers and the suppressed narratives of the African feminine on my latest course “Good Juju”

Whilst patriarchy thrives on possessing power over others, matriarchy thrives on experiencing power from within.

The way of the mothers utilises the functions of the right brain. Neurologically speaking the right side of the brain innervates the left side of our body - our feminine side - which is all about the emotional, feeling, subjective, musical, spatial perception, pieces together in ricochet fashion, abstract, intuitive approach and the being, receiving, relational sides of ourselves.

Matriarchal societies understood the importance of eco-systems, they mimicked the cyclical rhythms of nature, most female mammals are equipped with the capacity to replicate the Earths cycles of birth, death and regeneration within their wombs which reflect the cycles of we see in all of nature.

·Matriarchal societies often emphasise care-taking, nurturing, and motherliness as central values that apply to everyone, not just mothers. 

They are often described as being need-oriented, aiming to meet the needs of everyone in the community due to the centring of the maternal principle of nurturing, care, compassion and rationality.

Afro-spiritual traditions have always honoured and centred the feminine with the underpinning in the Yoruba tradition that when the feminine suffers so does every one and everything else.

As a system patriarchy enforces the imbalance of power between genders, it follows a pyramid model that places man (white men specifically) at the pinnacle above everyone and every thing else, charactering a human supremacist dynamic that pits men above all other aspects of nature including the feminine. The hierarchal structure also works to reassert the other isms, racism, sexism, classism, agism and so on. As a trickle down exertion of power and dominance this leads to all men exercising disproportionate power over women, animals, mother nature, her resources and materials and ultimately oppressing, violating and extracting from them. Matriarchal societies are a liberatory in contrast, placing value on all aspects of life and nature. Understanding that families, community and society are eco-systems in themselves, and as such all aspects are honoured with mutual respect as their value is understood. When one aspect of the eco-system becomes ill, in disarray or broken, all other aspects will suffer as a consequence. The maternal way is to ensure attention is served to maintain harmony, balance and equilibrium, working to ensure all aspects are serving the other. The core humanistic principles of care, empathy, reciprocity, kinship and love are celebrated and centred. The role of the matriarch is to put maternal instincts at the centre of society, to meet needs–of all parts. There was an emphasis particularly in precolonial African cultures of passing down valuable social, natural and intellectual knowledge through the generations. The woman is seen as a vessel and vehicle for evolution and growth.

The ways of the mothers invite us to consider how we can better align our needs with the Earths needs. How can we live more cyclically, pivot from capitalist consumption to centring sustainable, equitable exchanges? How do we reimagine our collective identities beyond the narratives of ‘his-tory’?

Our spiritual assignment is to reclaim the wisdom of the not to distant past, to root out the suppressed blueprints that enabled our ancestors not only to survive for millennia but to thrive and prosper. We are being called to return reverence to the ways of the feminine, to shift beyond the toxic restrictions of patriarchal and Eurocentric emphasis on left brain logic and embrace more of our

multidimensionality and spiritual nature. Neurologically speaking the right brain attributes govern emotion, feeling, subjectivity, spatial perception, intuition, the sensibilities of creativity, imagination abstract thinking and the being, receiving, relational sides of ourselves.

What is possible when we expand beyond the surface of our five senses and embody more of our knowing?

The Kemetic Goddess Nut, who embodies the cosmos, her body arches and stretches over the Earth, she is swathed in stars and planets

 Examples of the ways that matriarchal and matrilineal societies thrive across the world can be seen when observing the animal kingdom, Elephant herd, a pride of Lionesses or a family of penguins shows us that an alternative reality is possible. Lets not forget that everything and everyone including men themselves suffer under the patriarchy too, often forced into restrictive and distorted prescriptions of masculinity, an extension of generational trauma and conditioning that keeps them suppressed and stifled when it comes to emotional expression.

“The true power of the matriarchy lies in its need-oriented ability to place the collective values and interests of both genders at the heart of business, politics and society at large. The matriarch's intuitive approach to building for the community versus the individual speaks to the profound potential of a more holistic approach to tackling some of the most complex problems we face today, an approach characterised by cooperation, equity and community.” - Nikita khandwala

 Are you eager to learn more about what is needed to divest from Patriarchal conditioning, reclaming ‘her-story’ and narratives of the Ancestral mothers, the power of the feminine intuition?

You might want to check my latest offering “GOOD JUJU’.