Gathering

A Mother With Children
by: Giuseppe Magni 

I'm terrible at art interpretation, but this picture speaks volumes to me with all of its baskets.  It has taken me years of mothering to recognize the crucial role that mothers play as "gatherers" for their families.  During these first formative years of life the world for my children is what I bring into my home: the foods, the books, the movies, the conversations, the babies, the tone.  All of it is gathered together by me.  The power of homemaking!  I love it.  

I might also resonate with the picture a little because her house isn't perfectly clean...  Isn't it beautiful though how she holds her children in the light?  And doesn't she look calm?