"Why is the image of the Divine Mother so important? To answer this question, we need to look no further than our experience of birth into the world. First of all, there is the experience of the embryo in the womb; the experience of union or fusion and containment within a watery, nurturing matrix. After the traumatic experience of birth and the sudden and violent expulsion from this matrix, the prolongation of the earlier feelings of close relationship, trust, and safety is absolutely vital. Without the consistent and loving care of the mother in early childhood, the child has no trust in itself, no power to survive the negative life experiences, no model from which to learn how to nurture and support itself or to care for its children in turn. Its primary response to life is anxiety and fear. It is like a tree with no roots, easily torn up by a storm. Its instincts have been traumatized and damaged. With the love of the mother and trust in her presence, the child grows in strength and confidence and delights in itself and in life. Its primary response is trust.
"Without this experience, life becomes threatening, terrifying. Without it, the effort of living exhausts and dispirits. Intense and constant anxiety means that there is no resting place, no solace for loneliness, no feeling that life is something to be trusted and enjoyed. Without this positive image of the feminine, fear, like a deadly parasite, invades the soul and weakens the body. Those cultures that have no image of the Mother in the godhead are vulnerable to immensely powerful unconscious feelings of fear and anxiety, particularly when the emphasis of their religious teaching is sin and guilt. The compensation for this fear is an insatiable need for power and control over life. How hungry the human heart is for an image of a Divine Mother that would, like an umbilical cord, reconnect it to the Womb of Being, restoring the lost sense of trust and containment in a dimension that may be beyond the reach of our intellect, yet is accessible to us through our deepest instincts.”