“That psychic secret is – in order to grow the internal mother, you have to be willing to be decent and good to yourself. The more you are willing to accept self-love, self-respect, it doesn’t matter if your ears stick out or your hair stands up or if you’re too short or too wide, too tall or too fat, it doesn’t have anything to do with that. It has to do with caring about all the things that you are, you can have favourites, you can have some lesser parts than others, but a caring for all the things you are. THAT is what develops the inner mother and you can actually feel her grow and see her grow, before your very eyes–to accept your own love and your own respect, and regard for yourself. “
-Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Picture by Mario Torero “The Rising of Gaugin”
Defintion:
To leave, desert, forsake someone or something when they are in need.
To put under someone else’s control.
To leave unrestricted.
The original Greek word for ‘eclipse’ comes from the word for ‘abandonment’. Literally, the ancients thought the moon has abandoned them (See “Lost Mother Moon”).
Body Location:
Root chakra, base of spine, pelvic floor, lower 3 vertebrae.
Influences the adrenals, kidneys, muscles like the psoas which is connected to stress, sexuality.
This area of the body is inherently relationship, boundaries, fear (especially survival), (bladder) and kidney expression, performance, realization (right) as well as fear of introspections (left).
The girl has lost her instincts of how to live living on fantasies instead of action to survive. She sells the very thing that could keep her alive being the matches that bring heat. The abandoned may be consumed by such fantasy or have a lack of instinct in how to survive.
La Llorona is abandoned by not just the Hidalgo, but from the community or culture and herself in not being worthwhile. She kills her children out of grief, the things she has created and raised, and then forever looks for them unable to find them again.
Your scars are maps of the deep self. When paying attention, those with deep wounds also have a sense to see how they came in and how they can get out various situations. They have a sense of intuition for survival.
The hunger can make people do crazy things. Makes them stay too long in things not in their best interest. With such terrible loneliness one has to be tied down so not to hurt anyone. Heating the stone the psyche requires great heat like a hen that sits on the eggs.
A certain kind of light can be brought by the moon and her cycles.
She loves by bringing consciousness out of the darkness so that we can see the muddy bogs below as we travel. But now and then the Mother would disappear and the travelers would be dragged down into the bogs that they couldn’t see. Later, when the moon created cycles, the traveller would know not to travel on certain nights or certain times. Illuminating the bogs is illuminating these places in our lives and realizing how to care for ourselves when we don’t have that light..
The Fisherman’s Wife
The unmothered child may take more than they need later in life. They may hoard things for fear they will disappear or that they cannot be satiated. Nothing is leaving the planet. You don’t have to grasp them.
The infant is the part of our “first child” self that was damaged, possibly from abandonment, that was hurt by the spark. It was also what needed to be sacrificed to the Mistress of the Fire to bring back heat and illumination to others around a person. The anger and rage resulted in the destruction of the heat that kept life for the whole village even the baby itself.
Sly Mr. Fox
Sly Mr. Fox and Bluebeard both abandoned their brides’ bodies and bones – one after the other and then hid them. They were predatory and then searched for more until the light (or the elders) exposed what had been abandoned and killed. By seeing the corpses, that which has been shoved into the room cannot be forgotten even if others trick you to forgetting. This abandonment goes along with betrayal and a loss of innocence, but also through the light and bringing it to the surface one prevents their own death.
Finding the bones of what was lost from abandonment and helping put them together (that part of ourselves that we have to dig up) and sing them with their marrow to life. That the bones can dry out and become brittle, but they still can be cared for, found, collected and sung to for transformation. Can even play with how things can come to life even if a bone is missing or not fully formed. That care in the singing of the bones that have been hurt or are brittle.
Possible Manifestations, Questions, Notes and Thoughts:
Notes from Estes “Warming the Stone Child: Myths and Stories About Abandonment”
(In Childhood) “Collapsing is a syndrome where when someone is angry or being negative towards you, instead of staying strong and present as an adult, you go into a psychic regression, get hooked into old feelings, feeling worthless, unprotected, not knowing what to do next, wishing to be invisible, even wishing you would die to avoid the pain of rejection and separation that you feel, the abandonment that is triggered. Instead of acting sanely in relation to the present circumstances, you journey to a horrible place in the past and react from the feelings of that place.” https://sevenintentions.wordpress.com/2014/10/21/courageous-intention/ (See “The Mistress of the Fire”)
Abandonment is not always intentional or because the parent left. The parent may have been ill or taking care of a sibling or not present when a certain thing occurred. This “parent” may have been a part of one’s self.
So how do we engage this mother archetype within us? What will bring out the ‘inner mother’ – that nurturing force – in our psyche?
What will is to have guidance, the guidance of intuition, the guidance of common sense, the guidance of consciousness. Consciously knowing what we’re made of, what we’re capable of, what our good points have been- what our bad points – and guiding ourselves through life with that knowledge. That is the deepest internal mothering that you can ever have. And if you are an unmothered child THAT is what was missing in your upbringing. But have heart. No matter what happened to you – that light still lives inside of you. Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Must be assured surviving isn’t enough, one must learn to thrive.
Fanning that flame into sturdy flame. That is what healing is all about.
Signs of abandonment:
Collapsing or losing one’s temper or being out of control where someone acts quite negative to you.
Gets hooked on old feelings of being worthless, unprotected and not knowing what to do next, wishing to be invisible or even die to avoid rejection.
Not staying adult in the present and reacts from horrors of the past.
Collapsing causes internal flame (chispe) to waiver or sputter. Can go back and drag it out but that isn’t going to keep flame burning bright.
The tinder of the flame is the mother (internal mother). If external mother has failed you once, she isn’t going to change to fulfill you now. Have to grow internal mother. Probably is a very young mother who isn’t sure what to do all of the time.
A psychic secret: in order to grow the internal mother you have to be willing to be decent and good to yourself. Accepting self love and self respect – caring about all the things that you are that develops the internal mother. Can see her grow in front of your eyes.
Many people who have unbothered sense, these people often feel searching for love. If just loved enough, everything is so much better. You can have love coming out your ears and it won’t work. Don’t need a slavish love, that isn’t enough. Guidance of intuition, common sense, consciousness. Consciously knowing what we are made of what are good points and bad points is some of the deepest internal mothering you can have. Have heart, no matter what happened to you, that light lives inside of you.
Neglect is where mother doesn’t pay attention to child’s needs and is still abandonment.
Mother has had difficult births and not perfectly formed. Falling off of mother’s lap – not abuse. Not holding and containing the baby so they feel secure – mother is simply unaware of basic need of the baby. No instinct is the mothering of neglect. Parents are themselves little children and don’t know how to take care of baby.
Possible Birth Manifestations:abandonment and connection – mothering the self
Checking out physically – Twilight Sleep, emergency, learned behavior under stress
Checking out from pain and unable to take care of self – collapsing
Epidural or Interventions – used to not connect
Epidural or Interventions – used to connect or listen or save a life
Disconnection from process or baby
Reconnection to process or baby
Moving past fantasy
Finding the authentic need for your own experience
Feeling attacked
Where is the repair? How do we teach resilience? The elder, the one who knows does not judge or victimize or become upset, but brings us to look at what happened objectively and ask that place within ourselves how we can bring the fire back – bring back our life and mother ourself. This is the sacrifice of that initial (potentially infantile) part of ourselves to the Mistress so she can give us (our community and family around us) back our life.
