Table of Contents
First Words: Our Ancestral Great Mother Opening Blessing: Totus Tuus, I Belong to You, Blessed Mother 1
Chapter 1 Meeting the Lady in Red: The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face 9
Chapter 2 How the Great Woman Was Erased: Our Part in Restoring Her Untie the Strong Woman 15
Chapter 3 She Is the Inspiratus for Souls Who Suffer The Drunkard and The Lady 25
Chapter 4 In Humble, Helpless Love with Her Guadalupe Is a Girl Gang Leader in Heaven 39
Chapter 5 Rise Up! Even From Bloodshed, Says La Conquista, Our Lady of The Conquered Massacre of the Dreamers: The Maíz Mother 47
Chapter 6 "Shirt of Arrows" She Teaches Protection of the Vulnerable: No Exceptions The Memorare, Remember! 67
Chapter 7 The Uses of Broken-Heartedness, Mater Dolorosa Ever Bends Near: The Use of the Seven Swords Through The Heart 79
Chapter 8 Many Kinds of Prisons: The Last Woman Standing "Our Lady Behind the Wall" 81
Chapter 9 Carrying the Name of the Mother: A Man Named Mary 131
Chapter 10 Forged In The Fiery Furnace: The Black Madonna 137
Chapter 11 No One Too Bad, Too Mean, or Hopeless: How the Motherfuckers Became the Blessed Mothers 155
Chapter 12 No Racism, No Discrimination, No One Is An "Untouchable": The Great Woman Appears to Us Daily 181
Chapter 13 Her Names Without Cease: Litany of the Mother Road: Chant of Her Incandescent Names 193
Chapter 14 Compassionate Mother: Restoring The Soul After Shock: Post-Abortion Compassion: "The Children She Got That She Did Not Get…" 201
Chapter 15 The Lasso of Our Lady … For Saving a Life: The Drowning Man … 221
Chapter 16 Holding Fast To The Soul: God Has No Hands: Comforting María, The Ritual of Pésame 227
Chapter 17 The Great Mother Inspires the Little Mothers: The Marys of Mother Africa 241
Chapter 18 Refusing the Holy: No Room for You Here: The "Oh Yes, There Is Too Room for You Here" Ritual of La Posada 253
Chapter 19 Letter To Young Mystics Following Holy Mother Our Lady of Guadalupe: The Path of the Broken Heart 269
Chapter 20 Los Inmigrantes, We Are All Immigrants: The Undousable Creative Fire They Tried To Stop Her At The Border 283
Chapter 21 Mi Madre, Tu Madre, La Madre de Ella, La Madre de Él, Nuestra Madre: My Mother, Your Mother, Her Mother, His Mother, Our Mother: The Truth about How Very Hard It Is to Get into Heaven 293
Chapter 22 That You Be Watched Over and Kept Safe Until We See Each Other Again: Closing Blessing: Have You Forgotten? I Am Your Mother 297
Chapter 23 Beautiful Words About The Mother: Some of the Ways Other Creative Souls Understand Relationship with Mother 303
Chapter 24 Aymen, Aymen, Aymen … And A Little Woman: The Highest Prayer 327
Notes 331
Notes to the Reader 343
List of Illustrations/Credits 347
Gratitude and Intercessory Prayer 355
An Unconventional Biography 359
Additional Works Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés 365
Index 369