Did you know that North America has officially been celebrating Mother’s Day for 140 years? Julia Ward Howe, writer of Battle Hymn of the Republic, proclaimed our first Mother’s Day in 1872, following the Civil War, as a call to women to rise up against wars everywhere. Today, this day is celebrated in many countries as a special opportunity for us to thank our mothers for their unconditional love and support.

On May 13, may we remember and honor our human mothers, as well as our universal Mother Earth, with Emily Dickinson’s words from her poem, Nature, the Gentlest Mother Is.

Nature, the gentlest mother, is impatient of no child
The feeblest or the waywardest, her admonition mild
In forest and the hill, by traveller be heard
Restraining rampant squirrel, or too impetuous bird

How fair her conversation, a summer afternoon
Her household her assembly, and when the sun go down
Her voice among the aisles incite the timid prayer
Of the minutest cricket, the most unworthy flower

When all the children sleep she turns as long away
As will suffice to light her lamps, then bending from the sky
With infinite affection and infiniter care
Her golden finger on her lip wills silence everywhere

Happy Mother's Day!