Happy Mother's and Mothering Day to all!

Wishing you and yours a joyful day. Truly, this day is for all as we all mother others. It's a beautiful verb that speaks to feminine nurturing, caring, and protective energy. I hope you will embrace yours today.

The history of Mother's Day starts with Anna Jarvis, whose love of her mother — and of mothers everywhere — speaks to what love really means. She campaigned tirelessly to honor her mother's wish for a day recognizing mothers' sacrifices, and organized the first official Mother's Day celebration in 1908 in Grafton, West Virginia. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed the national holiday into law.

For Jarvis, the heart of the holiday was deeply personal. A handwritten letter. A single white carnation. Time and presence, offered to the women who gave you life. What followed broke her heart. Within years, florists and greeting card companies had seized the occasion. Premade cards replaced personal letters. Carnations gave way to elaborate bouquets. Jarvis spent the rest of her life — and all of her fortune and inheritance — pushing back against the commercialization of the holiday she had created. She wanted effort. She wanted intention. She wanted love made visible.

Which is exactly what I want to celebrate today — making visible some beautiful examples of love in the natural world.

As I meander through nature outside my window and across the world, I've sought out and had the honor of witnessing and admiring mothers.

Right here at home, I've been awestruck by mama sea turtles pulling themselves up the beach in the dark, digging perfect nests, laying huge clutches of eggs, and returning to the sea — never to meet their young.

I was mesmerized by a colony of flying foxes — fruit bats — flying out in the evening over Komodo National Park in Indonesia to forage for fruit, many of them likely mothers with their pups pressed against their chests.

I crouched beside a river in Borneo watching a burying beetle transform something dead into new life to feed her young.

While writing my upcoming podcast episode about rivers, I reminisced about watching Pacific salmon spawn and then give their last breath to nourish the very river their hatchlings would swim through.

After learning about the astonishing hummingbird while writing my June episode, I look forward to one day seeing the masterful nest she builds entirely alone, using spider silk so it will expand as her chicks grow.

And on many a hike through old growth forests, I've imagined the Douglas fir mother tree quietly feeding her own offspring through an underground mycelium network we are only beginning to understand — a story I loved so much I dedicated last year's Mother's Day podcast to it.