Mother Nature

Mother Nature (sometimes known as Mother Earth or the Earth-Mother), is a common personification of nature that focuses on the life-giving and nurturing aspects of nature by embodying it ,in the form of the mother.

Western tradition history

The word "nature" comes from the Latin word, "natura," meaning birth or character (see nature (innate)). In English its first recorded use (in the sense of the entirety of the phenomena of the world) was in 1266 A.D.. "Natura", and the personification of Mother Nature, was widely popular in the Middle Ages. As a concept, seated between the properly divine and the human, it can be traced to Ancient Greece, though Earth (or "Eorthe" in the Old English period) may have been personified as a goddess. The Norse also had a goddess called Jord (or Earth).

The earliest written dated literal references to the term "Mother Earth" occur in Mycenaean Greek. Ma-ka (transliterated as ma-ga), "Mother Gaia", written in Linear B syllabic script (13th or 12th century BC). The various myths of nature goddesses such as Inanna/Ishtar (myths and hymns attested on Mesopotamian tablets as early as the 3rd millennium BC) show that the personification of the creative and nurturing sides of nature as female deities has deep roots. In Greece, the pre-Socratic philosophers had "invented" nature when they abstracted the entirety of phenomena of the world as singular: physis, and this was inherited by Aristotle. Later medieval Christian thinkers did not see nature as inclusive of everything, but thought that she had been created by God; her place lay on earth, below the unchanging heavens and moon. Nature lay somewhere in the center, with agents above her (angels), and below her (demons and hell). For the medieval mind she was only a personification, not a goddess.

New Mother

New Mother is the debut studio album by American folk music act, Angels of Light. It was released in 1999 via frontman Michael Gira's own record label Young God Records, immediately after Michael Gira disbanded his previous band, Swans. The album features contributions from various musicians, including violinist Hahn Rowe, Rasputina band cellist Julia Kent, drummer Thor Harris, composer Joe McGinty and ex-Swans members Bill Rieflin, Phil Puleo and Bill Bronson.

The album contains versions of some songs that were performed live during Swans final tour, including "The Man With the Silver Tongue" and "Not Alone". The Michael Gira solo album Solo Recording at Home contains an outtake from the recordings session for this album, on the song "God's Servant".

Critical reception

Ned Raggett of Allmusic gave the album a positive review, stating: "No less than 19 musicians participated in the creation of New Mother, and the fact that Gira was able to synthesize their efforts and create such a powerful debut bodes well for his future efforts in this vein." He also wrote that the record "draws on a juxtaposition of lush '60s American and European pop orchestration." Jordan N. Mamone of CMJ also praised the album, writing: "While many of the Swans' attempts at levity sounded forced and gothic, the Angels of Light shine naturally, with poise and stunning clarity." He subsequently included the album in his "Top Ten Picks" list.

Guess Who

Guess Who may refer to:

See also

The Guess Who

The Guess Who are a Canadian rock band from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Initially gaining recognition in Canada, the group also found international success from the late 1960s through the mid-1970s with numerous hit singles, including "No Time", "American Woman", "These Eyes" and "Share the Land". Several former members of The Guess Who, notably Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman (of Bachman–Turner Overdrive), have found considerable success outside the band. Formed as a garage rock/rhythm and blues group during the rise of British beat, their musical style primarily consisted of pop rock,blues rock,psychedelic rock and hard rock.

The band was inducted into The Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1987. In 2002, Randy Bachman, Burton Cummings, Garry Peterson, Donnie McDougall and Bill Wallace received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement, Canada's highest honour in the performing arts, for The Guess Who's contribution to popular music in Canada.

History

Mother

Mothers are women who inhabit or perform the role of bearing some relation to their children, who may or may not be their biological offspring. Thus, dependent on the context, women can be considered mothers by virtue of having given birth, by raising their child(ren), supplying their ovum for fertilization, or some combination thereof. Such conditions provide a way of delineating the concept of motherhood, or the state of being a mother. Women who meet the third and first categories usually fall under the terms 'birth mother' or 'biological mother', regardless of whether the individual in question goes on to parent their child. Accordingly, a woman who meets only the second condition may be considered an adoptive mother, and those who meet only the third a surrogacy mother.

The above concepts defining the role of mother are neither exhaustive nor universal, as any definition of 'mother' may differ based on how social, cultural, and religious roles are defined. The parallel conditions and terms for males: those who are (typically biologically) fathers do not, by definition, take up the role of fatherhood. It should also be noted that mother and fatherhood are not limited to those who are or have parented. Women who are pregnant may be referred to as expectant mothers or mothers-to-be, though such applications tend to be less readily applied to (biological) fathers or adoptive parents.