May is the merry month according to the Camelot myth. May is the month that holds Mother's Day, a day honoured by even the most recalcitrant offspring. May is Mary's Month: O Mary, we crown thee with blossoms today, Queen of the angels, Queen of the May. These images, myths and prayers lead us to Mother Church, Mother Earth, and dare I say, Mother Goddess. O mother, mother, mother of all things chants a small group of women in a modal tone of long ago. Mother's Day follows quickly after Passover and Easter, the full moon, the light nights and longer days. It is a glorious awakening time on the planet.

It is a time wherein I revisit again the memory of my mother's garden (my mother Annie, daughter of Josephine) and the sweet book of poems I hope to birth about that sensuous, worn path garden, well-fenced, full of my mother's presence, the tangy smell of gooseberries, the first crunchy radish, all the breath-taking blossoms, dew drops, and warm, black earth.

Mother Earth, our generous planet, is full of life from sea, land and sky. We can speak lovingly of Mother Earth, swollen with new life, birthing and nurturing all living things. Ah! but her lungs are weakened: so much logging her circulatory system, more and more polluted with toxins, the air she breathes more fetid and poisonous. Undaunted, she struggles on. She is often still the battered woman, suffering in synchronicity with the earth sisters.

Surely, we can turn to Mother Church for safe haven, healing and hope. Yet, can a patriarchal system that holds power over, really be a healing source? Can the teachers we seek and the rituals we need, nurture the life of the feminine? How is it possible that the present patriarchy can so piously betray Mother Church by depriving it of the energy, wisdom and leadership of women? And yet, paradoxically, despite this culture of death, many good women remain, write so beautifully, inspire one another, and lead us toward a new and revitalizing spirituality. Despite the violence of a feudal papacy, Mother Church will not allow Creation to be crucified: women dream dreams and share those visions generously with all. As Rosemary Radford-Reuther suggests early in Womanguides, women do birth; men do battle! I thank the mothers of the church, of the earth faiths, all those spiritual mothers who walked me through the dark passages of patriarchal religion, led me to the womb of wholiness, wherefrom I emerged into the Light, hopefully to share Wisdom.

Wisdom led me to study, nourish and sustain a spiritual life in spite of and ironically, because of my life in Mother Church. The search led far beyond the patriarchal culture, back to Mother Goddess. I found Isis the Redeemer. I learned how the Goddess wove the morning, and saw a whole new mysticism begin to unfold. The Spirit is always there for all; the Breath of Life awaits us; we are all in one Spirit.

O mother, mother, let wisdom be with us!