May is a time of birth and renewal; when the burgeoning diversity of nature is recreated; when the life again re-invigorates our bodies and minds. Whether ours is a life of happiness and fulfillment or of suffering and strife, it is a rare opportunity-one to be grateful for. The Bhagavad Gita clearly states that birth in human form is a profound and unusual boon in the universal scheme.

Who can we acknowledge for the gift of human life? Who else but our mother. Most directly, she is the catalyst which brought us into the world. Mother is the gateway, the conduit through which creation flows. She is the vehicle. And without her nothing would be.

We all suffer the vestiges of childhood-those psychic scars which resulted from unsuccessful attempts at reconciling our nature with an unnatural world; and from the results of confused or even deluded parenting. These scars are the result of what happens in life-shaping the way we continue to relate to our mothers and fathers.

But can we see "mother" without all the associations that life brings, sensing the debt we have to her, a debt which never can really be repaid? Can the actions of our lives begin to carry a new respect and reverence for our lives-and for all life. Indeed, all life has a mother and is mother to something.

Nothing and nobody deserves to be. Existence is a gift. This is the correct view of our place in the world. The world has given birth to us, and we have a debt to pay for our existence. We see life upside-down-always striving to satisfy the needs and desires of ourselves and those close to us. Meanwhile, the universe is a vast web of interdependence-a celestial harmony of creative and evolutionary cycles with planets, suns, galaxies all maintaining each other according to laws and within scales utterly unfathomable to our puny minds. Nonetheless, humanity has a role to play in this elaborate system. We have the role of caretaker for life on earth. We must practice husbandry towards the mother earth's offspring: plants, animals and our fellow men.