Untie The Strong Woman is a beautiful and poetic audio book about the Immaculate, Holy Mother.
Call her Our Lady, La Nuestra Señora, Holy Mother—or one of her thousands of other names,” says Dr. Estés.
“She wears hundreds of costumes, dozens of skin tones, is patroness of
deserts, mountains, stars and oceans. Thus she comes to us in billions
of images, but at her center, she is the Great Immaculate Heart.”
Review: Untie the Strong Woman, Blessed Mother's Immaculate Love for the Wild Soul
Regardless
of religious background or spiritual belief system, Dr. Clarissa
Pinkola Estés, expresses the immaculate love and strength of the
Blessed, Holy Mother in a very unorthodox, poetic way that resonates
with so many in search and seeking Divine Love.
Untie the Strong Woman
(Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Sound True, February 22, 2011) is an
invitation to join with and under the shelter of The Mother, in one of
her many disguises and fashions. This is the author’s original
adaptation of the
Untie the Strong Woman manuscript, recorded live by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés.
"There is a promise Holy Mother, Our Lady makes to us," explains Dr. Estés,
"that any soul needing comfort, vision, guidance, or strength can cry
out to her, flee to her protection, and thus, Blessed Mother will
immediately arrive with veils flying. She will place us under her mantle
for refuge, and give us that one thing the world so longs toward: the
warmth of The Mother's most compassionate touch, and strong guidance
about how to and which way to go, by the soul's lights."
Blessed Mother's Protection
When
I was a little girl I went to a Catholic grade school from kindergarten
until eighth grade. I Loved it, I really did. I Loved the safety in
faith, the protection the small cross I wore around my neck gave me, the
innocence that I felt not knowing that I was truly blessed in my
ignorance.
What a beautiful place, those Holy Catholic School
memories I have, praying for the honer roll and good health for my
family. Oh and there was, of course, that one time, that one summer when
I prayed for some roller blades, and someone to roller blade with.
Funny how it manifested in the fall, when school began and we had some
new students in the class. Funny how things happen like that, as though
people make wishes simultaneously at the same time and life brings them
together. That year I had so much fun, with the new girl, whose
innocence matched mine and whose heart was also on fire.
This
audio story takes me back to the purity I felt in those younger years,
from nuns and priests and teachers who also practiced and had great
faith. My rebellion from the spoon-fed Christianity in search for
something deeper, the true seed of spirituality came later during my
adolescent years, when I began to see the contradictions in the
teachings of my cherished Catholic School Upbringing.
"No
demure little cabbage, that woman. No paltry, well-behaved carbon dot.
No follower of worldly orders. Quite the contrary. Our exemplar.", Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés.
Who is Clarissa Pinkola Estés, PhD?
Clarissa Pinkola Estés (born 27 January 1945) is the author of the bestselling Book
Women Who Run With the Wolves,
along with over a dozen audio programs from Sounds True. A Jungian
psychoanalyst, American poet, post-trauma specialist and a cantadora
(keeper of the old stories in the Latina tradition), Dr Pinkola was once
a mother on welfare. She is currently the Deputy Managing Editor and
columnist writing on politics, spirituality and culture at the news blog
TheModerateVoice.com and a columnist at The National Catholic Reporter.
The
recipient of numerous awards for her life's work, Pinkola continues to
inspire and channel the voice of divine grace. Estés is a spoken word
artist in poetry, stories, blessings and psychoanalytic commentary. Her
spokenword audios, including
Untie the Strong Woman, Blessed Mother's Immaculate Love for the Wild Soul,
are passionate, expressive, poetic and therapeutic. She is a voice of
compassion, a heart you can trust to pick you up when you have fallen
and are feeling lost, beaten and alone.
The Force Of Immaculate Love
“Holy Mother is not meant to be a fence,” writes Estes
, “Holy Mother is a gate.”
Untie the Strong Woman
is a blend of poetry, blessings, prayers and teachings in the form of
story, all interwoven into a beautiful and heart touching expression of
the divine Holy Mother. The Holy Mother whose grace and protection is
only a call away, a heart beat's distance from her loving embrace.
With
wild-hearted compassion, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés encourages the
reader to reveal her wild, true nature, her compassion and strength that
is not always quiet and submissive as many would have the Holy Mother
portrayed. She speaks out when necessary, she remains quiet when that is
what is best. You cannot control her, you cannot manipulate her. Holy
Mother is no puppet, nor is she ever absent. She is always with us.
Where there is compassion you will find her. Where there is need she
will sprout, in one of her guises, in one of her many forms, one of her
many voices.
Estés reminds the reader that Blessed Mother cannot
be tamed, cannot be silenced, cannot be shut into a wall or desecrated
beyond existence. She cannot be destroyed. With the sweetness of the
poetry of her words, her voice and her accent that speaks the language
of "the people", oh ... the people ... The people whose hearts are
broken, or in need, or suffering or impoverished somehow. That is where
you will find this Immaculate Heart the most. An audio book so
inspiring, it set my own heart aflame once again.
"I know, and
I hope with deepest love that you do too, know the Mary, Maria,
Mir-yam, Guadalupe of wilder heart, of long journeys with a blurred map,
of night fires at the far encampment. Our Lady who, when all the
apostles ran away ... she stayed. Blessed Mother, she who is renowned as
the one able to wear the flaming, exploding fire lakes of the Sun.", Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés.
In Closing
Brilliant! I am hungry for more Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés. For more information, please visit
Sounds True.
Sources:
- Untie the Strong Woman, Blessed Mother’s Immaculate Love for the Wild Soul
- Clarissa Pinkola Estes
- Spoken-Word Audio / AW01723D / 4 CDs / 4 hours
- Spirituality, Women’s Studies
- US $29.95
- ISBN-10: 1-60407-079-X
- ISBN-13: 978-1-60407-079-8
