Integral eco-archetypal image

Integral eco-archetypal image
Integral eco-archetypal image

Monday, August 19, 2013

An Imaginal Dialogue with the Immaculate Mary

Beloveds: 

This is an excerpt from my doctoral dissertation which helped me to get in touch with my Divine feminine and which also inspired me to look at the occluded feminine psychology of the wisdom tradition in which I was raised. But in order to begin this imaginal dialogue with the Immaculate Mary, I first had to work through my own Mother Complex, which in itself allowed me to open up with the requisite vulnerability even to be able to approach the Immaculate Mary. This process helped me to bring a more nuanced feminine perspective to my doctoral research.

I really had not thought of presenting this material in this manner until this past weekend when I ran into an artist at the Santa Barbara Art Walk who designs pottery and a nice selection of ceramic magnets. On my suggestion, he had made a small magnet of Mary which I had been hoping to purchase. He then shared with me that his faith in Mary had deepened in the last couple of weeks as he was working through things with his own ailing Mother. I shared with him my own experience with the following imaginal dialogue which caught his interest. I promised I would share it with him through this blog.
Love, light and shadow,
Dr. Jalaledin Ebrahim, LMFT.  

Appendix H: Alchemical and imaginal dialogue

Imaginal Dialogue between Jalaledin (JE) and the Immaculate Mary (IM) on 4-05-12

JE: Beloved Mother Mary, hail. I come to you to seek comfort and wisdom around an old wound that I have kept hidden from myself and others for many years.
IM: Yes, my beloved son, I am present with you and for you. Do you wish to tell me of your wound?
JE: Yes, Holy Mother. I just do not know how to begin to talk about the wound that seems so well hidden. It was when I left my Mom in Kenya to go to boarding school.
IM: Son, can you remember the pain of separation from your Mom?
JE: The closest thing I can remember to that is during my first Christmas in Haywards Heath, near Brighton, at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Lane. I went shopping for a Christmas gift for my Mom. I bought her a necklace from a store like Woolworth’s. It had a light blue stone. I wrote her a letter and the Lanes sent it to Kenya in the mail. I don’t remember hearing back from Mom. I do not remember receiving many letters from home. I felt like I was in a world that they would not have understood. They could not have known the fear of dogs I had, when I was staying at the Lanes’. Who could I tell? I was terrorized by the Great Dane and the black bull dog. I did not know how to relate to pets. We never had pets at home in Kenya. We were quite poor.
IM: That must have been very painful in itself, son: to be so very far away, not to be able to talk to your parents, not to receive much news from home, not to be able to tell anyone about your fears and probably even your successes.
JE: I guess it was painful, but I don’t remember those feelings. I did have my cousin at the same school, so I did have family, but he did not come to the same holiday home as me that first time.
IM: I am glad you can remember some of it. Tell me more if it comes to mind. The things you did not like, because I know you liked a lot of things about being in England.
JE: I didn’t like the weather and the clothes we had to wear. I did not like sharing a bath tub with other boys or having a bath in someone else’s water. I did not like being forced to take cod liver oil at breakfast. I did not like lining up to go to the loo after breakfast. I did not always like the food, having been brought up with good home cooking. I did not like not being able to go to Church with my classmates on Sundays with everyone else. I had to spend Sunday mornings with Mrs. Brady because she was Catholic and there were no Catholic churches for her to go to either. I did not like not knowing why I was different.
IM: Yes, these were even less likable if there was no one you could tell about them. That must have been difficult, too.
JE: Going back, it’s hard to feel the pain because there was so much I was grateful for and happy about. I loved my school.
IM: What about the other kids? Did they ever feel the pain?
JE: Yes, I remember a Jamaican boy who cried virtually every night. I did not want to be like him. Perhaps he was crying for all of us, but I did not want to go to sleep crying like him. We thought of him as a cry baby.
IM: Yes, he was crying his real feelings, son. It must have been painful and he was able to express his pain.
JE: True, I guess I did not want feel that kind of pain, so I must have shut that part of me down, Holy Mother.
IM: What did you do instead, son?
JE: I remember praying sometimes, Holy Mother, but I really did not know how to pray. I sought pleasure with other boys: what we would call pleasures of the flesh, Holy Mother.
IM: Yes, it was easier to feel pleasure than pain, son. At least you found a way to cope with your feelings, even if you did not have an understanding of them. Are they just a blur?
JE: Yes, Holy Mother, they were just a blur. I ask for your blessing to heal that old wound, Holy Mother. That is all I can do today. I know you know what the wound looked and felt like. It would be such a blessing to heal that old wound so I can find my outcast feminine, Holy Mother.
IM: Yes, son. I send you holy blessings for a full and complete healing to restore your disowned and outcast feminine so that you can experience the Divine Feminine within you. 
JE: Thank you, Holy Mother. I will turn to you again and again. Perhaps I will go to a Mass, from time to time, to seek your continued holy blessings. Or perhaps you will help me find the Divine Feminine within my own wisdom tradition, so I may receive these holy blessings more often.
IM: Son, yes, I send holy blessings that you retrieve and restore your inner feminine so that you can heal this wound wherever you turn your heart and soul for divine blessings from the Divine Feminine.

JE: Thank you, Holy Mother.

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