The Great Mother: Awe in Her Presence

A few months into being 51, The Great Mother came to me, a magnificent, blue, statuesque form who grew from the base of my altar to reach beyond the clouds. I wept uncontrollably and then experienced a sensation of complete release.

Her presence and the unusually heavy winter rains that streamed down the mountain valley where I live were uncommon, and somehow managed to empty my heart of debris as well as unclog my spirit valves.

I had experienced some hint of Her in the past—as gentle grandmother spirits or nature’s dynamism—She felt like a subtle, supportive, and cruelty-free force. This encounter was different. She arose in a monumental, enveloping and somewhat embodied form to answer a prayer I had never uttered.

She was a miracle.

As Her brilliant azure presence grew in intensity, flashes of various stages of my life surfaced, and with them, both healing and a falling away of personhood transpired.

This holy engagement had no requirements of me, no forced surrender to an alien might. Rather, She called me to sink deeper into the most vulnerable places in myself —the wounded, brave, injured, powerful, lost, abused, unknowing and thwarted you-have-to-be-strong-all-the-time places and spaces.

Slowly, I slipped into beingness. Is this awakening?

Tenderly, She broke me apart. I let go, and She held and soothed me, filling the gaps of longing and loss while tending to the raped parts, the unmothered parts, the I-am-too-much, and I-am-not-enough parts.

She liberated me.

She had been there all along, a steady force guiding, guarding and accompanying me. Her presence throughout my life was instantly clear, and I immediately garnered a vast perspective, much like we envision we’ll experience moments after death, when it “all makes sense”.

Pieces of my past faded and erupted, broke off and released, until a new kind of harmony emerged,

something I had sought since my involuntary spiritual journey started at age 18. I realized that Her seeming absence, or all too subtle presence, was not faint at all; she had been there all along.

She is everywhere.

Her bold attendance, strikingly pure, filled my lungs, heart and being with awe. I suddenly remembered how She had been with me when I’d trained to become a traditional healer in the mid-90s in Soweto, and that it was largely Her, whom I had embodied in ecstatic engagements with the divine.

The farm that I moved to recently, tucked away in a rural mountain town among evergreen boreal forests, had been ordained by Her. And the plethora of medicinal herbs that I grew each summer to help pollinators, and to heal The People, were delicate offerings to be made at Her feet.

My path, my life, a homage to Her and to Her many faces, hues, bodies and presences.

After sobbing and processing the impact of awe, I experienced a new kind of vibrancy. The care and love I received was undeniable, unfolding and ever-present.

It wasn’t God that I found on that dull winter day; it was The Great Mother. The mender, the revealer, the vast Creatress/Creatrix. The one who destroys mastership, hierarchies, subordination and obedience. I revelled in my chosen service to Her, to the universal force that creates, was created and is creating.

My revelatory birth leaked into the late afternoon. She demanded nothing of me but suggested that offerings of flowers and coins may be given; always flowers.

The flower admires flowers and the Creatress creation.

My seashell-ensconced altar, which I had carefully curated through spirit-informed guidance months earlier, had made little sense to me at the time, but I had learned that the plethora of ocean medicine scattered across my indumba was in honour of The Great Mother’s relation to the seas, while Her iridescent glow flatters bright skies.

She is the universe Herself.

Her, as a word or concept, does not suffice. She is everything-ness. She is willing to share glimpses of Herself/lves, when we are ready to see, know and be with Her, then, awe unfolds, and little by little healing finds us.

 She grew in me that day, not as a power from above but as a power within.

“Bless”, She said, placing a heavenly hand on my head, while gently instructing me to do the same for myself.

“I am a blessing”, She asked me to repeat.

A blessing by Her and with Her. With the universe and through my own hands.

Is this enlightenment?

Following the great awakening with The Great Mother, I no longer put off sitting at my altar as I had for too long. I’d come to fear dishonouring Ancestors, or not doing things “right”, or, because “I’d left things for too long”. I felt neglectful; “a bad girl".

Perfectionism of all kinds had plagued me my whole life, and was mainly born out of a socialization into He/Him (alone), God (as phallocentric and separate).

She liberated me from “nice girl” behaviours and “get it right” attitudes and asked me to simply return to the place of all, for care and blessings. It felt “easy” to do but also daunting because of a nagging lack of self-worth that seemed to cast a shadow on the notion of being a blessing, being blessed, receiving blessings and blessing myself. This, despite effortlessly putting my steady rose water-dampened hand on my children’s heads and invoking prayers of safety and protection for them, their whole lives.

Am I not a daughter too?

The Great Mother heard my request for healing of tangible and less palpable wounds and went about removing them from my flesh, nightmares and heart. She restored hope in me once more.

She came in and came forward, simply because I was willing to sit with Her and didn’t “try hard”, nor endeavour to fix, resolve, mend, or obscure. I had opened up my being and was ready to receive Her.

It took 40 years for me to arrive at this threshold. The constant feeling of aloneness born out of childhood neglect, sexual abuse and other factors, somehow, no longer preoccupied my being. I felt a dissipation of pain.

I am not alone. She is always here.

Hours after experiencing Her radiance, and in an effort to “situate” Her in history and in-place Her in the present—it may have also had something to do with a neurodivergent hyper-focus—I “researched” Her.

Within Hindu religious beliefs and practices, She can be found, and in early biblical texts, too. Judaeo-Christianity continues to cast Her as he and him. The God of fury and punishment. The final judge who uses force and conquering fists to deal with his sinful and disobedient children.

She is compassionate, fiercely protective and caring. An ever-present force.

The Great Mother lives among us and within us. She values sacred and messy, learning and broken, and asks only to be welcomed, and to offer flowers to sweeten our lives.

She fills our sore hearts with delight.

Oh-Maa.

Oh-Maa

Oh-Maa.

The Great Mother.

_________

Thank you, Daisy Pillay, for bearing witness to this process, from a distance, and for your knowledge and affirmation of The Great Mother through your rich sociocultural and religious beliefs and practices.

©Rebecca Rogerson, 2025