Women Who Run with the Wolves - Clarissa Pinkola Estés, PhD

I opened one of my favorite books today "Woman who Run with the Wolves" to this page which I had highlighted parts of years ago but reading it again today meant something more than it did then by which sentences I had highlighted before. It was a powerful voice to me today so I thought I would share it here... .

"We cannot control who brings is into this world. We cannot influence the fluency in which they raise us; we cannot force the culture to instantly become hospitable. But the good news is that even after an injury, even in a feral state, even, for that matter, in an as yet captured state, we can have our lives back.

The psychological soul-plan for coming back into one's own is as follows: Take extra special caution and care to loose yourself into the wild gradually, setting up ethical and protective structures by which you gain tools to measure when something is too much ( you are usually already very sensitive to when something is to little).

The pitfalls, traps and poisoned baits laid out for the wildish woman are specific to her culture. In a symbolic sense, we are composing a map of the woods in which we live. We are delineating where the predators live and describing their modi operandi. It is said that a single wolf knows every creature in her territory for miles. It is this knowledge that gives her the edge in living as freely as possible.

Regaining lost instinct and healing injured instinct is truly within ones reach, for it returns when a woman pays close attention through listening, looking and sensing the world around her self and then by acting as she sees others act; efficiently, effectively and soulfully. The opportunity to observe others who have instincts well intact is central to retrieval. Eventually, the listening, looking and acting is an integral manner becomes a pattern with a rhythm to it, one you practice until it is relearned and becomes automatic again.

If our own wild natures have been wounded by something or someone we refuse to lie down and die. We refuse to normalize this wound. We call up our instincts and do what we have to do. The wildish woman is by nature intense and talented. But because of being cut away from her instincts , she is also naive, accustomed to violence, adaptive to expatriation and exmatriation. Lovers, drugs, drink, money, fame and power cannot much help the damage done. But a gradual re-entry to the instinctual life can. For this, a woman needs a mother, a "good enough" wildish mother. And guess who is waiting to be that mother? The Wild Woman wonders what is taking you so long to be with her, really be with her, not just sometimes or when it is convenient, but consistently.

If you are striving to do something you value, it is so important to surround yourself with people who unequivocally support your work. It is both a trap and a poison to have so-called friends who have the same injuries but no real desire to heal them. These kinds of friends encourage you to act outrageously, outside of your natural cycles, out of sync with your soul needs.

A feral woman cannot afford to be naive. As she returns to her innate life, she must consider excess with a skeptical eye and be aware of their costs to soul, psyche and instinct. Like the wolf pups, we memorize the traps, how they are made and how they are laid. That is the way we remain free.

To aright this, we resurrect the wild nature over and over again each time the balance tips too far in one direction or another. We will know when there is reason for concern, for generally balance makes our lives larger and imbalance makes our lives smaller.

One of the most important things we can do to understand life, all life, as a living body in itself, one that has respiration, new cell turnover, sloughing off and waste material. It would be silly if we expected our bodies not to have waste material more than once every five years. It would be inane to think that just because we ate a day ago, we shouldn't be hungry today.

It is just as fatuous to think that once we solve an issue it stays solved, that once we learn, we always remain conscious ever after. No, life is a great body that grows and diminishes in different areas at different rates. When we are like the body, doing the work of new growth, wading through the s***, just breathing or resting, we are very alive, we are within cycles of Wild Woman. If we could realize that the work is to keep doing the work, we would be much more fierce and much more peaceful.

To hold joy, we sometimes have to fight for it, we may have to strengthen ourselves and go full-bore, doing battle in whichever way we seem most shrewd. To prepare for siege, we may have to go without many comforts for the duration. We can go without things for long periods of time, anything almost, but not our joy, not those handmade red shoes.

If you want to re summon Wild Woman, refuse to be captured. With instincts sharpened for balance - jump anywhere you like, howl at will, take what is there, find out all about it, let your eyes show your feelings, look into everything, see what you can see. Dance in red shoes but make sure they're the ones you've made by hand. You will become one vital woman"

- Dr Clarissa Estes Pinkola

From 'Women who run with the wolves'



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