Image: Mommy and Me – Photo by Ron W. G.
Original Song: “Astral Mother” with Prose Commentary
This song is dedicated to my beautiful mother, Helen Richardson, whose soul left the physical planet Earth at the age of 58 and now resides in the astral world. By faith and deep love, I visit her there from time to time.
Introduction with Text of “Astral Mother”
My original song, “Astral Mother,” plays out in three verse-movements and two chorus-movements. A traditional verse is a unified set of lines—often four but through innovation the number is not consistent.
Thus, a verse-movement may be any number of lines or stanzas because the emphasis in on the theme of the movement. A movement depends upon theme rather than number of lines or stanzas.
On the astral plane, souls have shed their bodies of chemicals and dust and reside in bodies of light. Although the physical body is also made fundamentally of light, the astral body is perceived as light more easily than the “mud” covering the soul on the earthly plane.
After visiting my mother on the astral plane, I bring back images, ideas, and thoughts that I dedicate to her in poems and songs. The text of the song follows, and you are welcome to listen to the song on SoundCloud.
Astral Mother
In memoriam:
Helen Richardson
June 27, 1923 — September 5, 1981
for your beautiful soul
You are waiting now . . .
A bright star light
In the astral world
You have shed the mud
That covers the soul
On the earthly plane . . . —
Where you were my mother, and I was your child
You were my mother, and I was your child . . .
You are watching for me . . .
To catch my beam
In the astral world
We will live again
The love we lived
On the earthly plane . . . —
Where you were my mother, and I was your child
You were my mother, and I was your child . . .
We will understand the Spirit-made plan . . .
That kept us a while . . .
In this earthly world . . . —
Where you were my mother, and I was your child
You were my mother, and I was your child . . .
O, my Divine Mother, make me Thy Divine Child!
O, my Divine Mother, make me Thy Divine Child!
Commentary on “Astral Mother”
A daughter addresses her mother who has departed the earth and now resides in the astral world. Through faith and divine guidance, the daughter visits the mother and creates a tribute to her mother’s beautiful soul of light
First Verse-Movement: Living as Light in the Astral World
You are waiting now . . .
A bright star light
In the astral world
You have shed the mud
That covers the soul
On the earthly plane . . . —
From the earthly plane of existence, the singer/narrator is addressing a loved one who is residing on the astral plane of existence.
The soul of the departed loved one is now existing in her astral/causal bodies—where the soul continues without its physical encasement. Paramahansa Yogananda explains this phenomenon:
astral body. Man’s subtle body of light, prana or lifetrons; the second of three sheaths that successively encase the soul: the causal body (q.v.), the astral body, and the physical body. The powers of the astral body enliven the physical body, much as electricity illumines a bulb.
The astral body has nineteen elements: intelligence, ego, feeling, mind (sense consciousness); five instruments of knowledge (the sensory powers within the physical organs of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch); five instruments of action (the executive powers in the physical instruments of procreation, excretion, speech, locomotion, and the exercise of manual skill); and five instruments of life force that perform the functions of circulation, metabolization, assimilation, crystallization, and elimination.
The singer/narrator affirms that her loved one—her belovèd mother—is now “waiting” in her body of light as it exists on the astral plane. The singer/narrator in the second part of the movement refers to the physical body as “mud” which the astral mother has now “shed.” The physical body encases the soul on the earthly plane of existence.
The physical body may be metaphorically referred to as “mud” after the Biblical description of the human body:
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. (KJV Genesis 3:19)
But after the soul leaves that physical encasement, it continues its existence in the two other bodies—astral and causal—on the astral plane where it is perceived only as light. Thus, the daughter/speaker has perceived her mother as a body of light, which she designates metaphorically as “a bright star light.”
Second Verse-Movement: Waiting to Spot a Familiar Dot of Light
You are watching for me . . .
To catch my beam
In the astral world
We will live again
The love we lived
On the earthly plane . . . —
The singer/narrator then affirms that the astral mother is waiting for her daughter to join her on the astral plane. The daughter will become a “beam” of light after she leaves her own physical encasement, entering the “astral world.”
The singer/narrator then affirms that the mother and daughter will experience that same love that they shared when they were both on the earth together. The “lived” love and they continue to live that love, but after they both are in the same level of existence, they are likely to recognize and have a deeper level of awareness of that love.
Third Verse-Movement: Understanding and Appreciating Love and Light
We will understand the Spirit-made plan . . .
That kept us a while . . .
In this earthly world . . . —
The singer/narrator finally affirms that after the mother and daughter are reunited, for however briefly that reunion might exist, they will understand more about the divine plan that God has for them.
They were both maintained on the earth planet for while; they no doubt had questions about the meaning of life and all of its vicissitudes. The singer/narrator predicts that after entering the astral plane, both she and her mother will understand more about meaning and purpose then they had before.
Experience is great teacher; and God puts His children in positions from which they may learn what they need in order to meet their karmic demands. The singer/narrator holds great faith that she and her mother on the path that leads to the ultimate enlightenment of union with the Divine.
Chorus-Movement 1: A Simple Statement of Fact
Where you were my mother, and I was your child
You were my mother, and I was your child . . .
In the first chorus, the singer/narrator simply states the fact that the addressee in the song was the singer’s mother, and the singer was the child of the mother. On the earth plane, they were mother and daughter.
The simplicity of the statement may be misleading. This simple fact is, however, very important. On the earth plane, they were mother and daughter, but on the astral plane they are only two individual souls that are children of the One Father-Mother-God.
The mother/daughter relationship on earth is likely quite a different one from that relationship as two individual souls on the astral plane. Despite that obvious fact, the important fact to remember is that love exists between the two; it existed on earth and it will exist in the astral world.
Chorus-Movement 2: A Prayer-Chant to the Divine Mother
O, my Divine Mother, make me Thy Divine Child!
O, my Divine Mother, make me Thy Divine Child!
The momentousness of the shift from the earth relationship of mother/daughter to Divine Mother/Divine Child cannot be overstated.
By ending with a chant-like prayer, the singer/narrator affirms that through the love relationship between earth mother and daughter, she has come to understand that both mother and daughter are children of the Divine Reality (God).
And the singer/narrator then supplicates to God as Divine Mother to help her realize her soul as that “Divine Child” that she is. The same supplication is offered on behalf of the astral mother, whom the singer/narrator has been addressing.
Both former earth mother and earth daughter are children of the Divine, and they both must one day come to realize that relationship to the Divine—and the singer/narrator prays for that to happen.
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