#thelitbit // Women Who Run with the Wolves
Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estés
There was a time that I felt disconnected from myself much too often. I was running around from this obligation to that appointment to that event and the list goes on, getting in what rest I could, only looking up every so often to realize how much time had flown by. Don’t get me wrong, I still experienced amazing moments but this lack of connection to my Self, to my Soul, made it difficult to steer, to find my way, to live a soulful and life giving existence.
My values and priorities weren’t consistently parallel with my actions vs. what I actually felt in my heart. They were easily influenced by what was around me rather than being rooted on what was within. It’s difficult to find where those roots really lie when you’ve piled so much on top of them. But they’re there. They’re always there waiting to be re-discovered at the proper time, place, and season. And this continuous path to learn, love, and honor your Self more, rejuvenate, suffer, experience, evolve is one of a lifelong journey.
So when I think about how long it took me to read this book (almost two years), reading a little, putting it away, and coming back to it, I’m glad I kept going. I was at completely different points in my life when I started and finished the book. And as it went on, each chapter found itself revealing notions to me at the perfect time in my life. Notions that I already felt and knew to be true but couldn’t quite put the words to until reading the words before me. Dense with stories, findings, and guidance to live a soulful life, this is truly a “psychological work on spirit” and a definite read.
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Favorite takeaways:
There is a season for everything - whether a part of our life or who we are.
“…the great work before us is to learn to understand what around and about us and what within us must live, and what must die. Our work is to apprehend the timing of both; to allow what must die to die, and what must live to live…What must I give more death to today, in order to generate more life?”
Comfortability and ignorance can always be easier. But it’s not until we go to the depths, to the raw, that we’ll discover our true power.
“It is true, I will not lie to you; it is easier to throw away the light and go back to sleep. It is true, it is hard to hold the skull-light out before us sometimes. For with it, we clearly see all sides of ourselves and others, both the disfigured and the divine and all conditions in between.”
The steps won’t be perfect but each step will be toward the ultimate vision.
“There are always more opportunities to get it right, to fashion our lives in the ways we deserve to have them. Don’t waste your time hating a failure. Failure is a greater teacher than success. Listen, learn, go on.”
With this one life we have, hold out for what has real meaning for you.
“Sneaking a counterfeit soul-life never works. It always blows out the sidewall when you’re least expecting it. Then it’s misery all around. It’s better to get up, stand up, no matter how homemade your platform, and live the most you can, the best you can, and forgo the sneaking of counterfeits. Hold out for what has real meaning and health for you.”
Have the courage to search, stumble, move forward until you find that which you are seeking.
“‘Do not fear ‘not knowing’.’ In various phases and periods of our lives, this is as it should be. This feature of tales and myths encourages us to follow the call, even when we’ve no idea of where to go, in what direction, or for how long. All we know is that like the child in the tale, we must sit up, get up, and go see. So maybe we stumble around in the dark for a while trying to find what calls us, but because we have managed to not talk ourselves out of being summoned by the wild one, we invariably stumble over the soulskin. When we breath up that soulstate, we automatically enter the feeling state of ‘This is right. I know what I need.’”
“And that is the whole point...to go on. To go on toward our knowing destiny.
The tale resurrects the memory of a very old promise; the promise is that the descent will nourish even though it is dark, even though one feels one has lost one’s way. Even in the midst of not knowing, not seeing, “wandering blind,” there is a “Something,” an inordinately present “Someone” who keeps pace. We go left, it goes left. We go right, it follows close behind, bearing us up, making a way for us.”
Take the time to rest, reflect, see how far you’ve gone, and what needs to be amended to get to where you need to be next.
“Whatever revivifies balance is what is essential. That is home.
There is not only time to contemplate, but also to learn, and uncover the forgotten, the disused, and the buried. There we can imagine the future and also pore over the scar maps of the psyche, learning what led to what, and where we will go next.”
The goal of solitude is in being alone - one with your own self.
“Long ago the word alone was treated as two words, all one. To be all one meant to be wholly one, to be in oneness, either essentially or temporarily. That is precisely the goal of solitude, to be all one.”
“Somehow, the educational and business world has felt that such time spent at being “all one,” is unproductive, when in fact it is the most fecund. It is the wild soul who channels ideas into our imagination, whereupon we sort through these to find which we will implement, which are most applicable and productive. It is commingling with soul that causes us to glow bright with spirit, willing to assert our talents, whatever they might be. It is that brief, even momentary, but intentional union that supports us to live out our inner lives so that instead of burying them in the self-inversion of shame, fear of reprisal or attack, lethargy, complacency, or other limiting reasonings and excuses, we let our inner lives wave, flare, blaze on the outside for all to see.”
“The measurement used in assessment is simple: What needs less? And: What needs more? We are asking from the instinctive self, not in stilted logic, not ego-wise, but Wild Woman-wise what work, adjustments, loosenings, or emphasizing needs to take place. Are we still on proper course in spirit and soul? Is one’s inner life showing on the outside? What needs battening, protection, ballast, or weights? What needs to be disposed of, moved, or changed?
After a period of practice, the cumulative effect of intentional solitude begins to act like a vital respiratory system, a natural rhythm of adding knowledge, making minute adjustments, and deleting the unusable over and over again. It is not only potent but pragmatic, for solitude lives low in the food chain; though it costs something in intention and follow-through, it can be done at any time, in any place. Over time, as you practice, you will find yourself designing your own queries to the soul. Sometimes you may have only one question. Other times you may have none whatsoever and just wish to rest on the rock near the soul, breathing together.”
Live out your creative love.
“Some say the creative life is in ideas, some say it is in doing...It is love of something, having so much love for something—whether a person, a word, an image, an idea, the land, or humanity—that all that can be done with the overflow is to create. It is not a matter of wanting to, not a singular act of will; one solely must.”
Transforming from being moved by the currents to creating your own currents.
“For many women the transformation from feeling oneself swept away or enslaved by every idea or person who raps at her door to being a woman shining with La Destina, possessed of a deep sense of her own destiny, is a miraculous one. With eyes on straight, palms outward, with the hearing of the instinctual self intact, the woman goes into life in this new and powerful manner.”
Be brave to live every part of your story, your life of ups and downs that will birth your glowing spirit.
“The authentic mining of stories from one’s own life and the lives of one’s own people, and the modern world as it relates to one’s own life as well, means that there will be discomfort and trials...these are worth everything. There must be a little, and in many cases, a good deal of blood spilled on every story, in every aspect of your own life, if it is to carry the numen, if a person is to carry a true medicine.
I hope you will go out and let stories, that is life, happen to you, and that you will work with these stories from your life—your life—not someone else’s life—water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom. That is the work. The only work.”
“The time with the Wild Woman is hard at first. To repair injured instinct, banish naïveté, and over time to learn the deepest aspects of psyche and soul, to hold on to what we have learned, to not turn away, to speak out for what we stand for...all this takes a boundless and mystical endurance. When we come up out of the underworld after one of our undertakings there, we may appear unchanged outwardly, but inwardly we have reclaimed a vast and womanly wildness. On the surface we are still friendly, but beneath the skin, we are most definitely no longer tame.”
[read on]