Wild Woman Archetype

I had heard the author of "Women Who Run With the Wolves," Clarissa Pinkola Estés, speak on several podcasts and always found myself pulled into her talks like a rip curl pulling one out to sea, but never picked up one of her written works. The best way to describe her is being a women of innate wisdom, who also dances in the great mystery. Graceful, light, ultimately powerful. Recently, I struck up a conversation with an acquaintance who spoke highly of her most famous book and how moving it was. Being a book lover myself it motivated me to read it and already I am preparing myself to go on a great journey.

Myth and story has a way of igniting not only the mind but the heart. Think about it, before the written word, wisdom was passed down through oral traditions. Not only do they carry illuminating wisdom but energy. Carrying the energy of each person who has passed these great stories along.

"A woman's issues of soul cannot be treated by carving her into a more acceptable form as defined by an unconscious culture, nor can she be bent into a more intellectually acceptable shape by those who claim to be the sole bearers of consciousness. No, that is what has already caused millions of women who began as strong and natural powers to become outsiders in their own cultures. Instead, the goal must be the retrieval and succor of women's beauteous and natural psychic forms. 

Fairy tales, myths, and stories provide understandings which sharpen our sight so that we can pick out and pick up the path left by the wildish nature. The instruction found in story reassures us that the path has not run out, but still leads women deeper, and more deeply still, into their own knowing. The tracks we all are following are those of the wild and innate instinctual Self. "

(Clarissa Pinkola Estés, "Women Who Run With the Wolves.")