Whether true or as a mythical archetype, the Mexican case of La Llorona, (which means ‘The Weeping Woman’), is a powerful cautionary tale for all. With several takes on her origin, the general outline is that she was a woman who had two young sons with a man of a ‘higher’ social class, who became neglected by him after. Paying attention only to his sons, he also spurned her to marry another woman of a more ‘fitting’ class. With a contorted mix of great grief, anger, jealousy and desire for vengeance, she drowned her sons in a river, after which, in guilt and agony for what she had done, drowned herself too. An extended telling says she was literally godforsaken by being barred from heaven, condemned to haunt the earth to find her sons. Yet, she cannot find them, while unrelentingly expressing her negative emotions upon other children, women and men, (which ironically makes it even much harder to enter any heaven).
Some would analyse the La Llorona belief as a practical way to create three social safety effects at the same time. First, it scares male and female children, to not play recklessly near potentially dangerous water bodies. Second, it scares men to be morally responsible to women. Third, it scares women to be careful of who they fall in love with. (With belief in an eternally unforgiving deity who allows endless demonic havoc or not), even if La Llorona does not exist as a single vicious wandering spirit, what truly scary, is that multiple La Llorona-like ghosts might arise karmically, should many become overwhelmed by strong negative emotions like her, while having afterlife conditions to linger as deluded restless spirits with powerful attachment and aversion. Perhaps this is the main moral of retelling La Llorona’s story – that we should never let ourselves be overrun by spiritual defilements like her, lest all ‘hell’ breaks loose for indefinite time.
In this creative movie take on La Llorona, an almost modern day mother is in turn haunted by her. When she was visited by a social welfare worker, her two young sons were discovered to be locked in a room. Simply doing her job responsibly, the worker arranged for them to be taken away from her, to a welfare home for safety. However, away from their mother’s protection, the sons were soon led to be drowned by La Llorona. Vengeful, the mother becomes as if a second La Llorona, as she seeks out the social worker, in a desperate attempt to ‘offer’ the social worker’s own two young children to La Llorona, in ‘exchange’ for the impossible return of her sons. (If only La Llorona also realised the impossibility of undoing the deaths of her sons!) This is how severe deluded rage can render one to be demon-like, while ‘infecting’ others to be similar. May all such ‘curses’ be broken – soon and forever!
