The Great Mother, a Pantoum

A flower springs from the fertile soil,
roots plentiful and deep.
Just one face of the great mother,
she who nurtures and destroys.

Roots plentiful and deep,
life-springs flow, over and within her.
She who nurtures and destroys.
The sun illuminates her beauty as life-giver.

Life springs flow over and within her.
Her darkness too, nurtures, even through death.
The sun illuminates her beauty as life-giver.
The water and light flow, a sacred circle, a constant spiral.

Her darkness too, nurtures, even through death,
just one face of the great mother.
The water and light flow, a sacred circle, a constant spiral.
A flower springs from the fertile soil.

Sarah D. Norton, Ph. D. lives south of Washington, DC, in Virginia, USA. She completed her dissertation Arctic Imaginings: Chasing Ice through C.G. Jung’s Liber Novus into the 21^st Century in 2020, as the pandemic hit the US. Her dissertation was a Jungian and archetypal exploration of climate change and grief. The experience in this essay was one of many catalysts for this work. Sarah wears many hats as editor of The Rose in the World (www.roseintheworld.org), head of online educational module creation with the Foundation for Family and Community Healing (www.HealingEdu.org), and co-host of Psychreative with Dr. Roula-Maria Dib.