A Love as Old as the Earth Itself

There is a pattern woven deeply into the human experience, one of the original, universal forces of nurturing, of protection, of unconditional presence and love. It is like the force of the Earth itself holding steady beneath our feet, nurturing every seed put in the ground to suddenly explode and grow to a strong nourishing plant.  

Carl Jung called it the Mother Archetype.  To me it is the capacity to hold something outside yourself with unconditional love, to give without a ledger, to care without conditions, to create space where another living thing can grow. This archetype and force does not belong only to mothers. It lives in every human being.

It lives in the friend who showed up when you did not ask. In the sibling who simply listened. In the colleague who made room. In the stranger who offered kindness at exactly the right moment. In the person, perhaps you yourself, who held space for someone else when holding space was the most generous thing in the world.

That kind of love is not small. It is the foundation beneath all of our well-being. To me, it is, quite literally, as old as the earth.

This week, leading out of Mother's Day, let us celebrate not only the specific person who has given that love to you - though I hope you will hold them close - but also the energy itself. The willingness to nurture. To protect. To show up. To remain. To hold the people around you in love. It lives in you, and around you, in a complexity of forms that is worthwhile to pause for and recognize on a daily basis.

And the person who carries so much of that, who has given and given and held and held, deserves to be reminded that their own restoration matters too. The earth itself must rest to remain fertile. And self-care, at its roots, is an act of love.