Self and Other III

The persona ima engages with questions of invisibility. In particular, ima’s  actions come as a response to the invisible aspect in the daily maternal experience, mostly of domestic and caring activities. As a method, it is informed by Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ writings as a form of intuition which is invisible, but always accessible. The story ‘The Doll in her Pocket: Vasalisa the Wise’ is used to discuss female intuition. The doll was given to the child by her mother on her death-bed, as a protection.

Pinkola Estes writes:

‘The doll is the symbolic homunculi, little life. It is the symbol of what lies buried in humans that is numinous. It is a small and glowing facsimile of the original self. Superficially, it is just a doll. But inversely, it represents a little piece of soul that carries all the knowledge of the larger soul-self. In the doll is the voice, in diminutive, of old La Que Sabe, The One Who Knows. […] it is our helper which is not seeable, per se, but which is always accessible.’[1]

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[1] Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run with the Wolves, Rider, London, 1998, p. 85.