This is a companion overview to those dedicated to mother, motherhood, maternity, gestation, pregnancy, obstetric obstacles, native natality, and a plethora of other concepts, including native natality, paternity, and patriotism. Note another overview - "Happy Mother's Day" - illustrated by icons and depictions of Madonnas (Madonnae). Here the focus is upon "mother" in the sense of nurturing, nourishing, nursing, and related notions found in terms of nature and nutrient. In fact, the nature of "mother" is to be nurturing.     

In Doric, Ukrainian, Sanskrit, and Greek, mother is MATer, MATy, MATa, METer and currently their extensions include METro, METrorrhagia, HYSTERo, HYSTERIA, plus other derivations. In this array, the idea "to have" or MATY a MOTHER (also MATY) is central, since no human can materilize without having a mother. Many notions cannot be measured, but matter can be measured by the METEr or METric system. In medical parlance, METrorrhagia implies that matter is flowing from the uterus of matrix - currently the meaning is reduced to imply bloody flow. Regarding the outcomes of maternity, the birth of multiple "children" may be categorized as brood, cluth, or litter. Note that "brood" in Ukrainian is "dirt" or soil, ground or "litter" in English. "How on earth" did the concept of "earth" became linked to such abusive terms like soil (note Latin sus for pig), dirt (from dung, detritus, excrement) and litter (the process of birth) is hard to grasp.  

HYSTERia is a nebulous psychiatric term formerly associated with "womb fever" or "HYSTERia libidinosa", a subject investigaged by Dr. S. Freud. However, hysteria is no longer a formal medical term - the same ideas are now incorporated into notions inherent to phobia, anxiety, and other related psychiatric alterations. 

In Spanish, womb or MATRIX is MATriz - the meaning is not solely "uterus" but also "a mold" - in Ukrainian "MATytzia" or uterus also implies "to be a MATy" (having an offspring). A MATRix that is malformed or deformed by myofibromas (benign tumors) may impinge on the shaping or morphogenesis of a "baby to be". A "club foot" can be caused by intra-uterine constrains or by malformations - either can distort the "shaping" of the foot. 

Ideas about MATernity gain further latitude through meanings conveyed by MATe, MATernal, MATing, MATron, MATrimony, MATriarch, MATriculate, MATerial, and MATTress. Another array emerges from CEREs, a deity of fertility - note CEREbral CEREal. CEREs is kin to Cybele, Demeter, and Rhea - all deities of "motherhood" amplified by notions of "flow" and "energy". Virtually every ancient civilization worshiped a "Mother Goddess" or "Corn (grain) Mother" like Ceres. Such maternity deities often had a dual nature - one representing motherhood and the other - death and rebirth. Our civilization generated poetic and religious myths about Rhea, Cybele, Ephesian Artemis, Demeter, Ceres, Persephone, Proserpina, St. Mary, and even Baba Yaga. A syncretic view can reconcile the dualities and discrepancies in such beliefs through an emphasis on the cycle of life - birth, life, death, and the nature of motherhood. Arguably, these are the central notions of humanism and one emblem is the intimate link of "mother" with "charity" associated with the respect for life in all its forms. A current example of the grip of Cybele is the modern reliance on CYBER space and Rheology, notions related to cycles and energy. Furthermore, it is common today to speak of "Mother Nature" or "Magna Matter" or Gaia from whom we get Ge, Gea, Geography, Gene, Genetics and Genesis - notions to be explored separately.