A Day Rooted in Peace

Mother's Day Proclamation- 1870

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Julia Ward Howe, a woman whose two most passionate causes were peace and equality, wrote this proclamation 238 years ago calling on all mothers to unite in the name of peace. This was the beginning of a future declaration by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914 after the first celebration of Mother's day in West Virgina in 1907 in honor of JWH's earlier crusade.

I found it fascinating that a day that honors mother's (and is capitalized on by all mass markets) in its original form was a call to mothers to fight for their children and families by ending the suffering of war, which unfortunately continues to be very relevant today. It was an urge for mothers to tap into their collective power and rise up to rally for something they believed in. And, women have been doing it ever since, in marches on Washington, in online grassroots communities such as momsrising. When mothers unite, things happen.

On a more personal, individual level, every mom I know struggles with cultivating a sense of balance and inner peace. We judge, we criticize, we dismiss our intuition with uncertainty all the while fighting our own battle for that elusive sense of peace, validation, if you will, for the choices we make as women, as mothers, as partners, as members of our communities. One of my favorite mantras is "within me there is a peacefulness that cannot be disturbed". We have the power to find tranquility with every breath regardless of the chaos around us. Tap into that power. Breathe.

One of my fellow mothers and I have a saying "every day is Mother's Day". Let's pay homage to the work of Julia Ward Howe by making it so. Find the peace available to you in each moment, each breath. Let that peace transcend your inner struggles to your family, your community to the world at large.

Happy Mother's Day. Go in peace...