In Honor Of The First Mother - Before Breath Was Capital

There's lots of dates surrounding the eventual and official Mother's Day in 1914.  Different groups worked on making this happen for decades before it did. But I'd like to look not at the first Mother's Day... But the First Mother instead.

I wonder sometime what it must have been like eons ago when each specific birth was critical to man's survival. A time when we were pushing our numbers just to diversify the genetic pool. A time when there were so few humans that each woman who bore another human was revered. Indeed... A time when all life-bringers were honored. Nurturing was a cherished gift.

What must it have been like for a First Mother who's numbers had now sufficiently expanded that the miracles of birth and life were commonized? What did she think when life itself was commodified? When breath became capital?

I see a First Mother who spoke loudly in protest of killing the creatures in the forests... A First Mother who pleaded with others in the tribe that trees and plants would sustain them. A First Mother who wept when the great aurochs were made unfree and held captive for the purposes of man. A First Mother who's dutiful gathering of sustenance was halted to tend to cattle instead... What did this First Mother think when she stole the milk from the goat or cow?

Cave painting of an aurochs bull in Lascaux, France

And what did this First Mother do when her husband, the keeper of chattel and cows, proposed the idea of not only consuming the milk but who made it necessary to steal the calf as well? I know this First Mother begged for the other mother... She begged for the child-calf... She wailed and sobbed and tried to reason.  But the high priests and other men made mandates from a god who demanded burnt calves flesh... So her pleas met with no mercy.

And soon it was that the First Mother would have her own sons sacrificed to greed. To violence. To wars. And to death.

To all those who still honor the nurturing, life-worshiping vision of the First Mother - Thank you for doing so through your vegan choices.

Happy Mother's Day to those who never surrendered the idea of love or World Peace: