Book Review: Untie the Strong Woman

Warning:  This review will contain language that may make some people uncomfortable.  I'm only including it here to show the potential for transforming the coarse and vulgar into something truly beautiful.  

I've been busy with other projects and other books, so it has taken me a long time to get through this book.  Last year I read Clarissa Pinkola Estés book Women Who Run With the Wolves and loved it, so when I found Untie the Strong Woman:  Blessed Mother's Immaculate Love for the Wild Soul at Half Price Books, I figured it was worth the investment.  Although she primarily focuses on Mary, the mother of Jesus, the boundaries are fluid between her ideas about Mary and her ideas about the Feminine Divine in general.  In many ways, Mormons could read these words and be reminded of Heavenly Mother.

In Women Who Run With the Wolves, Estés told many stories, but the themes linked together well and transitioning from one chapter to the next was easy.  I love the content of Untie the Strong Woman, but the structure and organization is not as strong.  It's almost as if each chapter was a new and random, unrelated musing about Mary.  That did make this book harder to read, but should in no way keep people from the message of this book.

Some chapters of this book spoke to me and other did not.  I suspect that that is mostly due to my own knowledge, understanding, and experience with the topics.  There are a few chapters that will make some readers extremely uncomfortable as they make us look at things and people from a different perspective.  Estés' ideas about immigration, abortion, convicted criminals might be a challenge for some who have only viewed these issues from the outside.  But, the thread that connects the whole book is that the Mother is there and always will be there for any one who needs her.

In Blessed Mother's view, all are lovable; all souls are accepted, all carry a sweetness of heart, are beautiful to the eyes; worthy of consciousness, of being inspired, being helped, being comforted and protected--even if other mere humans believe foolishly or blindly to the contrary.  (page 2)

Estés is a scholar and a psychoanalyst.  She has studied the great stories and myths of the world and how they affect us.  But more importantly, she has lived the stories.  It's not just academic knowledge she shares, but memories of her childhood, growing up around women who knew the Mother.  And it's her own personal experiences of feeling the Mother's love and it's transformative power that make this book what it is.

It's one of these stories that I want to tell you about.  I can't give you all of the details.  You really need to read Chapter 11 for the full effect of this teaching experience.  Here is the short version. Estés was teaching class in a prison.  The girls were tough and crude and she was having trouble reaching them.  Many of them had the word "fucker" tattooed on their forearms.  In one class, she was having trouble reaching them and things were close to getting out of hand.

But, there was no stopping Our Lady's voice inside my voice.  Being literally inspired is like giving birth; there is a moment up to which you have control, and then a tilt occurs and you couldn't stop if you tried with all the strength in you--everything rushes out.
So that's how I came to lose my mind and blurt out this challenge to the girls:
"If I can tell you a better story about the real meaning of each letter of the word 'fucker,' will you consider changing the tattoo on your arms to something that lifts you instead of dealing you down low, the way is does now?"

Over the next several meetings, they talked, and they transformed the word.

The f was the shepherd's staff, a symbol of Jesus who came from the Mother, "this Capital M Woman," and she wrote and M over the letter f as she taught them about Christ and the Holy Mother.

I continued then, "Consider this u in the word 'fucker.' This u is actually a broken sun with only one little ray showing at the bottom because many people have forgotten the real story of the precious life shining like a sun.  But because this sun really belongs to the Great Woman I've been telling you about, now her other rays can show too..."

And she made the u into a circle and added rays of the sun all around it.  

She added a cross to the c.

"This is the Cross on the round-topped hill called Golgatha."
I told them about the God of Love being found guilty of loving humanity instead of following the orders of the rulers and authorities of His time.  They understood completely being forced to follow rules instead of learning the Rules of Love.  They understood the ill drive in some to kill love.  They had lived it.  They understood the idea of the Cross.  Being nailed.  Some cried softly to hear of the Child of Love who included the downtrodden in His care most of all--that He had been murdered.  

To the k she added two more crosses for the men crucified on other side of Christ.  One asked forgiveness and Jesus granted it.

The letter e became an eye because "Creator first and foremost was all-seeing, not to catch people doing wrong, but to look after them."

…the kids decided that r at the end of the newly minted work "Mother" would become Blessed Mother's roses--the sweetness of new life--and the freedom to grow free.  Truly free.

Estés ability to meet them where they were and love them opened a dialogue that changes the girls' lives.   Her own powerful testimony of the Holy Mother's love made a difference.

This book opened my eyes to new ways of thinking and broadened my perspective of what it mean to give and receive love.  It's not an easy read, but definitely worth it.