Every week a few friends of the Vadodara ecosystem come together to cultivate stillness, community, and service. What started as a one time call in the first week of lockdown, has now become a weekly offering of love by Jaimit and Krunal. It is an evolving online circle for us to engage, share, spread joy, and rise through collective consciousness. The anchors have been beautifully holding the space exploring a different theme every week, pouring their love in writing the invitation, and also creating heArt offerings for every circle!

As 10th May was Mother’s Day, this week our circle was a tribute to Motherhood. With that Krunal and Jaimit invited us to a heartfelt circle to presence/celebrate/hold space for Mother's Day and reflect on the experiences of “માતૃત્વ” (motherhood) in our everyday life.

Krunal wrote: “We experience motherhood in many forms. One of the forms in which it comes to us is also “Maitri”. There is always so much of “મૈત્રી” in “માતૃત્વ” that we all have been witness to.”

The invitation started with this beautiful story:

“Mommy, you are a fairy,” I said.
My mother laughed like tinkling bells.
“I am serious, Mother. You know everything.”
“My child, I try to answer as best as I can. When you grow older, you will not need me,” she said.
“No, Mom, I will always need you. Nothing can change that,” I said.
Her words echo in my heart as I look at the blue sky: “Dear daughter, nothing remains the same except the vast blue sky.” It has been ten years since I lost my fairy. Mom, you were wrong about one thing:
I still need you.

- A story by Saman Rahman, Peshawar, Pakistan




It was an invitation to celebrate all the “mothers” who have walked in our lives. Be it the Sun that never stops to show up every morning, or the full bloomed flower that never stops smiling, or the river that never stops flowing, or the way your pet shares love while licking and wagging his tail or the tree who spreads its hands up in the sky on a hot summer day or any human form sharing unconditional love with us. We have all experienced that kind of love that has melted our hearts, invited a smile, and moistened our eyes.

We were all encouraged to sit in an optional silence for an hour. The virtual circle started at 6 pm. Krunal and Jaimit opened the circle to share context and gifted us all with this beautiful video:



[What a labour of love offering. When we asked Jaimit how he came up with this, he shared that each picture is a story of community and love… for example there are photos taken by a friend who cares for animals as his own family… and it is hard not to think about Sr. Lucy when thinking of motherhood.]

The video is a heartfelt gratitude to all the “mothers” around the world, who are selflessly serving in their own little compassionate ways. It is a tribute to the very source of love.

After we saw the video the anchors gave us 10 minutes to reflect on the seed question -

Can you share an experience when you were deeply touched by motherhood, in any form?



Collective reflections:
We all returned to the circle after 10 minutes and collectively reflected on the relationship between a child and the mother and the intuitive sense that mothers have which is beyond words. Motherhood is a trait that is often associated with only females. But we have all experienced "mother's love" from both women and men in our lives. It led us to think that motherhood is always present at the core of every being and it gets nurtured when one starts serving selflessly.

The reflections were not limited to words. One of circle members, Bhaskar drew this beautiful picture in those 10 minute as his reflection:



The question that all of us are holding is,
“Are we gentle and giving to our own mothers, to Mother Earth, to Mother Nature, and to all other sentient beings the way they have been gently serving us?”

[Editing courtesy: Ashima & Swara]