“Mother Love is one of the most moving and unforgettable experiences of our lives.” ~ C. G. Jung
Many more years ago than I care to recall, I used to follow the real life, comic book adventures of Brother Jud, Polly Morfus, Even Eve, Crescent Dragonwagon and their polyamory Kerista Commune based in San Francisco. Like many others, I was primarily intrigued about the logistics of their structured, rotational sleeping arrangements. While the “free love” commune apparently had a good 20 year run, ultimately, like many good things, they came to an end. The fact that there were generally more women in their community than men, probably contributed to their relative longevity, but not for the reasons you might think.
Apart from their sleeping arrangements what remains most memorable about the Keristans is an account that I recall of one of their women members writing about a rape that didn’t happen. In the midst of the attack somewhere in her motor cortex emerged the creative impulse to make a kind and gentle gesture towards her attacker. This unexpected response, in contrast to others so conditioned to recoil in fear and freeze in the face of his aggression, completely pulled the would-be rapist up short. Within a brief time they began a conversation simply as two human beings rather than as attacker and victim. At the root of her attacker’s violent, anti-social behavior, of course lived any number of ACEs. That overused observation that “hurt people hurt people” soon became evident as their intimate explorations unfolded.
Setting Out From a Secure Base
I would argue that this Keristan woman had some special and powerful tools in her toolbox: social neuroscience and secure attachment. Being part of a community of “competent protectors” (no matter their sleeping arrangements) worked to powerfully answer The Big Brain Question for her in a grand positive way. Even had she not been successful in engaging her potential rapist, she would have been able to return to the community and be received by many open, welcoming, loving arms. This is not something always possible or prevalent in today’s often socially isolated, nuclear families. What happens in the wake of Adverse Childhood Experiences often only adds additional, neural network disorganizing adversity.
I would further argue that there was something else at work as well in this story. This Keristan woman was in touch with something I call the Deep Feminine. What is the Deep Feminine? It’s essentially something stored in our brain and body buried deep in implicit memory, probably from our first trimester in utero (although past lives psychiatrists like Brian Weiss might argue such memories begin before that time). Watch the first three minutes of this video showing two cells after conception exploding in a Big Bang of exponential expansion. If this initial rate of growth continued through all three trimesters, the resulting baby would weigh nearly 3000 pounds. Remember though, that the body keeps the score and the brain maintains a record. I would argue that stored unconsciously in implicit memory, without benefit of language, in all of us born to mothers, lives the memory of this ecstatic, explosive unfolding.
The brain is also an association organ, something that Ivan Pavlov demonstrated nearly 100 years ago, and Konrad Lorenz confirmed with his hatched duckling experiments: Whatever shows up in awareness during intense experience, the brain tends to pair and associate together. What’s the first thing babies encounter upon exiting the womb? Something they’re already hormonally and emotionally connected to from their beginning time in the womb: Mom. For better or worse, each of our early beginnings starts from associated encounters with mom. If these early experiences are mostly good, i.e. mom is well-cared for and emotionally and cognitively present and contingently responsive to our needs for comfort and safety, then the inevitable rupture-disconnect gets delayed and the probability increases that we’ll grow up to follow our own lamp light and have the internal drive and external support to be things like artists, entrepreneurs and community organizers. If mom isn’t responsive, then rapture-rupture happens early, and the odds increase that we’ll grow up to be rapists and misogynists and the like.
Fault-free, Blame Free
Obviously the above scenario is generalized and greatly oversimplified and takes little into account of environmental influences. And while mom is a key player in this unfolding drama, she’s never to blame and never at fault. Every mother does the very best in every moment as a parent that her brain and personal trauma history and her own rapture rupture will allow. And remember: she’s trying to skillfully manage something as complex as the whole universe unfolding in her children, often more than one.
But no matter what our associations with mom might be, we all still have the whispered quiverings of initial ecstatic unfolding inside her womb buried deep in our own memory-body and brain. And somewhere within us I would argue, lives a not-quite-forgotten yearning to recapture that blissful, creative unfolding. And for most of us, men and women alike, whether we believe it, or couldn’t care less about what’s buried in unconscious, implicit memory – women hold a powerful key to restoration. One of my favorite neuroscientists, Bruce Perry points out that the problem-solving power of a group is directly related to the number of women in the group. So, if you’re thinking of starting a free love commune, or a community service organization, or a for-profit business, my best guess is your chances of success and longevity will increase if you over-populate it with kind and caring women. And that is truly an extraordinary, under-used hidden power in our 21st century world.