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Women Who Run With the Wolves
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Answers from Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés PART ONE
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Thank you everyone for your questions. I’m sorry to have taken so long to answer for it takes me a long time to think things through and then to write in response to you. I have also been saving up for eye surgery for as you know, sometimes in age, you lose your acute sight, even though inner sight grows stronger yet. Soon I will be able to read text more easily again. It meant the world to me that you all asked such good questions, and especially dearest Emma, Summoner of 'the people of the book tribe,' thank you so much for bringing my work before the eyes and hearts of all dear readers here. May all be watched over and kept safe till our paths may cross again. In the meantime, I promise my prayers to you all, for your callings and intentions. Remember: All the good you are seeking, is also seeking you. Hold that thought.
This comes with love,
Dr.e.
Emma wrote: "From Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés to Our Shared Shelf.... Thank you everyone for your questions. I’m sorry to have taken so long to answer for it takes me a long time to think things through and th..."
I tend to avoid speaking for others but feel safe in saying we "people of the book tribe" thank both of you for making a listening online for feminism to grow. I thought I had an open mind but OSS has shown me what that actually means.
For me, the wild woman represents the future as much as the past blending disciplines science art literature it will take some time before we are masters like you Dr. Estés but we can all be more thoughtful, spiritful even (there a word I have never used before) open to the new world we are creating.
Hope your vision (ocular, in terms of perception you see so clearly) is fully restored soon Dr. Estés.
Mod
This is Emma Watson. Award winning actress, UN Women Global Goodwill Ambassador, Ninja book fairy and Summoner of the people of the book tribe.
It has a nice ring to it? ;-)
Anyway, as I mentioned in the other thread - this interview is Epic! It's very much appreciated, we are very lucky! :D
Jo wrote: "haha Emma is getting into Daenerys Targaryen type titlesThis is Emma Watson. Award winning actress, UN Women Global Goodwill Ambassador, Ninja book fairy and Summoner of the people of the book tr..."
So if Emma is Daenerys Targaryen we are her dragons.
Agnes wrote: "Jo wrote: "haha Emma is getting into Daenerys Targaryen type titlesThis is Emma Watson. Award winning actress, UN Women Global Goodwill Ambassador, Ninja book fairy and Summoner of the people of ..."
We will see Emma on the Iron Throne against the forces of darkness LOL.
Helen wrote: "I love you all":)
Agnes wrote: "Jo wrote: "haha Emma is getting into Daenerys Targaryen type titlesThis is Emma Watson. Award winning actress, UN Women Global Goodwill Ambassador, Ninja book fairy and Summoner of the people of ..."
Dragons. Nope. Bookworms. Definitely.
A Dragon totem is one of the most powerful totems, representing a huge range of qualities, emotions, and traits. When Dragons come to us, it could mean many things. The most common message a Dragon totem carry to us is a need for strength, courage, and fortitude.Dragon Spirit is drawn to people of intellect, dignity, contagious enthusiasm and authority. Dragons guide such individuals toward brilliance and, indeed, enlightenment. In this setting your Dragon Spirit Animal teaches you to roar – finding your voice, being heard and truly understood.
Dragon is a rare and powerful Spirit Animal, and you may find yourself quite intimidated by this creature upon initial introductions. There is no question that Dragon is worthy of your respect and honor, but She comes to you with good cause. Figuring out that purpose, however, can prove difficult. Dragon Spirits do not give up secrets easily – it’s part of the challenge. The greater the effort the greater the rewards.
I can be a dragon bookworm.
When you are going through such troubled times,where your life is just hanging by a thread and you feel that life has only lemons in store for you,Dr.Estés' thought is such an inspiratioon.It gives me immense amount of motivation,being a youngster,trying to find where I belong,hoping for a miracle to happen,to have gotten to read this that;"All the good you are seeking,is also seeking you."Thank you Dr.Estés for the book,the interview,your inspirational words and motivational insights into all our lives.You are a real life changer. :)
Emma, my friend, this interview is a very big job. Thank you so much.
Mod
There are so many beautiful phrases that Dr Estés has said in her answers above, but the one that probably made the biggest impact on me is:
"I would say with as much love, I am also heartened by men who understand the great feminine force is with them also, that they too are the guardians of the values of the wild great mother, those stalwarts, ‘the men who run with women who run with the wolves.’ "
The Men Who Run With Women Who Run With The Wolves. Fantastic. :)
Gratitude. Gratitude Gratitude.Your book and your words work as magic to understand our feminine and the world.
I don't feel awake enough to add much to this discussion, but I not want to let it slip by without thanking everyone for giving me so much to redand think about and a reason to smile. I love being one of the women of the book tribe.
Cordelia wrote: "What thoughtful and interesting answers. Thank you so much to Dr. Estés for giving us this extra insight into her writing!There are so many beautiful phrases that Dr Estés has said in her answers..."
That is a great phrase and hope I can live up to it :)
Mod
There are so many beautiful phrases that Dr Estés has sa..."
Ross you definitely do every day! :)
This made me so happy. I discovered this book a few years ago, but it came at the right time for me. When Emma chose it for her book club I was ecstatic because I knew it would introduce this book that I privately hold in such high esteem to many more women, which is a personal fantasy of mine (which is to say, getting it in the hands of a lot of women).
First and foremost, thank you, Emma, as well as the entire OSS crew for making this possible. I adore you all.:) Dr. Clarissa Estes-- I love your heart, your spirit, and your compassion, not just for women in general or your tribe, but for humanity in general. It's incredibly infectious. I also love your "voice," your unique lexicon. Thank you for the inspiration and encouragement, and for taking the time and energy in answering everyone's questions, which were all well-thought-out and insightful, I thought.
Agnes Szalkowska wrote: "A Dragon totem is one of the most powerful totems, representing a huge range of qualities, emotions, and traits. When Dragons come to us, it could mean many things. The most common message a Dragon..."I love, love, LOVE this so very much, Agnes!!!!:))
Emma wrote: "Dustin wrote: "Agnes Szalkowska wrote: "A Dragon totem is one of the most powerful totems, representing a huge range of qualities, emotions, and traits. When Dragons come to us, it could mean many ...":) Well, I was more than thrilled to bring it back to you!
Please join me in thanking Dr. Estés for her thoughtful and considered answers to all of our questions!
Emma x
Q: What was your intention when writing this book?
A: As V.S. Naipaul said, “…to understand my work, one has to understand my life…” My work dear readers comes from my being mestizo Mexicana [Native American /Spanish/ Mexica] born to farmer/fisher people, and as an older child adopted into a farmer family of deportees, refugees and immigrants who were from the Magyar and Upper Danube River tribal groups.
Their wounds from war and slave labour camp traumas, their braveries, their veering hard into trying to mediate their hard struggles to live a new life in a nation where in they knew not the language nor the culture, were my first witness into the ongoing worlds of helping and healing the souls of those devastated by inhumanity to humankind.
My families are the rootstock of my writing and my spoken word works. Many in my family could not read nor write, I grew up in a nearly pure oral tradition of stories handed down, not from books, but in original voice from the people who lived them through travail and triumphs, through hard won insights, through errors and through striving to re-aright themselves by striving to follow the soul rather than ego alone.
My families, myself, are far from perfect, for amongst my beloved elders who were both brutal and beatific in many ways, there have been as Levinas the great philosopher and survivor of the holocaust writes, strong endeavours to ‘escape from existence’, meaning their issues with alcohol, abandonment, lack of health, and more. Living with and through all of these layers of cultures within cultures, is part of my knowing mercy and love continue to be great healers for many, most and much.
I began to write Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype in 1970 when I was pregnant with my youngest daughter. I had heard for years since childhood, a call, both inside and out, to try to help those in the world who were hurt, lost, wandering about, trapped, unable to bring full unleashing of self, soul, heart, mind, spirit and body to the world…because of injuries, or being told they were meant only for X, and not for Y and Z, A, B and all points of talents in between.
Q: If a young woman has a lack of confidence and is fighting against a feeling of not belonging, how could she use the lessons in Women Who Run with The Wolves to break out of this cycle?
A: There is a chapter I wrote into this work called ‘Belonging as Blessing’. In particular, the story of the Ugly Duckling, as told in my family of elders [my parents I grew up with for the majority of my life were 20 years older than the parents of my peers; I grew up in a family of old people war survivors who knew many things despite their own griefs, challenges that had come to them through seeing that none of their children, mates, many of their village, more than half their sisters and brothers did not survive the war as an ‘immigrant’ story, a story of a little innocent immigrant who accidentally was thrown into the wrong ‘nest’ and nearly pecked to death.
The ‘ugly’ duckling was told he was a duck. But was really a beautiful swan. As are all souls; beautiful in their own rights. Eccentricities are often the first sign of giftedness. And, one cannot live in a village of ducks who cannot recognise a swan, meaning the over culture as I call it [society] attempts to steal the talents out of a woman, leaving a mere duck shell in more ways than one. Belonging to like kind is a seeking we all have undertaken.
And once there with even one other like-kind in reciprocal caring, then we can build bridges to others who are from other layers of talent different than our own. Belonging is not granted by the ‘belongers’…it is sought out by the one properly and justly finding one’s own kind. That is often a journey, a worthy one.
Q: Were there any other animals that came close to the wolves in the significance of this piece of work?
A: I cannot exactly say I chose the leitmotif of wolves, rather that the archetypal wind of wolves of our world…chose me. I grew up in the backwoods, north country, and as a child, with family, travelled to fish for winter food, far, far up north where there be wolves in the woods still at that time. They took my heart.
Though I also know bear and butterfly, forests and foxes, and other ensouled creatures closely, for this work, the beauty of, the cohesiveness of intention of wolves and their young, and yet the hounding of and need for protection of wolves were so like the experiences of the feminine animating force in the psyche, the challenges and struggles of the feminine in the over culture, that it was clear to my writing hand and my deepest heart that this iconic creature was in my childhood blood, and central to my work.
Q: Do you feel that you are in tune with your wildest nature, or is it something that you need to work on regularly?
A: When I began writing Women Who Run with The Wolves, I was a young mother in love with my baby and with all the vulnerable and variegations of beauteous nature and all the bright possibilities of the world. Now, I am an old woman in my seventies, and just as certain that the wild nature is birth right, bright and innate in us all, not separate from nature, but rather interdependent with nature, and that more so—throughout life for the wild to thrive in a cohesive and life-giving manner, it takes us pushing back, resisting utterly and often the ‘over culture’ --the daft society’s strange constant desire to be ‘cutting down’ women’s full territory, still wanting her to be an ornament rather than an awesome being she was born as/into/to become.
My ‘pushing back’ against the indecent and inhumane shackles that some tried to place over the innocent, began as a teenager, and grows only stronger and more lovingly fierce the older I become. We are in a time now when all hands of the good souls must be on deck in fullest sight and voice possible: THAT, is truly the wildest of the wild nature; protecting and defending and raising up and building bridges to that which cannot be allowed to perish from this earth.
And…I know many of my spirit daughters and spirit sons across the world are carrying the consciousness, are doing just that: what is within one’s reach: starting anywhere. Knowing all and anything good and decent will help. And I am proud of you all, for I can see with the advent of internet and digital everything never before conceived of, I can see you daily through one venue or another, especially my Facebook page but also other forums, that you all indeed are awake, alert and active! You are a blessing on this earth for certain dear brave souls.
Q; Talking about fairy tales, you rightly say that many of them have gruesome parts (chopping off toes / feet for example) to shock the reader and make them think. However, in modern adaptations there is less danger and gruesomeness. Do you think something has been lost in changing these old stories to be more palatable?
A: I would suggest that there are over culture ‘cutting' of stories that ‘clean them up’ for various reasons of personal sensibility/sensitivity for instance, but remember the Grimm Brothers tales are cleaned up too, “Christianised” according to the 19th century brothers' personal beliefs. Perhaps most striking is the Grimm’s did not attribute the stories to their tellers, nor follow the respectful genealogy of stories followed by the ethnic groups of farmers/fisher people/tradespeople’s stories which are ever tied to real life, as in my ethnic traditions too.
Story and real life are inseparable. One informs the other. Thereby I brought my families original stories into my work with full earthy dirt still on the roots and this is why they stand out as very different often from the more ‘mannered’ stories one might find elsewhere. The old ethnic tales of our family contain what the Grimm’s left out, e.g. the scatological, the praising and supplication of the old gods, the irreverence for man-made institutions, the sexually blatant, the wild humour, and most especially, the seeking by the soul and spirit for true home in ways that are real, down to earth, not a cake frosting fantasy. The ‘real road' way, I hope is ever elucidated in my works, ever strived toward in my own life. Your life too.
Q: Are there any reactions to Women Who Run with Wolves that particularly surprised you?
A: Here in 2017, it has been 25 years since Women Who Run with The Wolves was first published. It took 20 years to write Women Who Run with The Wolves, and 42 rejections by major publishers over that twenty years before it was able to be seen as print on paper for the dear readers.
In one sense, now by my sights from my advancing age, I think sometimes I can understand myself as the young woman who began this helping/healing work as carrying in her soul something I'd call ‘nearly pathological optimism’. I can see now how perhaps not despite, but perhaps ‘because’ she felt cut to ribbons at many a rejection, and yet, something of her fire would not die, refused to be extinguished.
I can see myself through the smoke of memory, as we say in my ethnic tradition by ‘the smoking mirror of Tezcatlipoca,’ as a young woman, as a middle-aged woman, somehow, she kept going no matter how many doors were slammed shut. No matter who hurled words that were ‘spirit killing’ -no matter who, how, what, where, when, and why.
Like a wolf carted off far from its home territory and relegated to some barren flatland by those who think they ought ‘manage’ wildlife, this wolf woman came sniffing for the scent of home, trotting amongst the near invisible trails by night, resting in whatever shelter one could find, ducking away from and full fighting off predators, and day by day, night by night, coming back time and again, to true home…and launching from there, time after time, time after time, like a scarred but strong wolf with clear intention…until one day…
And one of the surprises has been, one of the things most dear to my heart of hearts, is that many of each generation since this work came to light, has handed it to their daughters and granddaughters, their sons and grandsons, fathers giving to daughters, grandfathers giving to grandsons, abbas and abueitas and omahs bringing this work as a gift to their young, so that the lifeline to the wild can be repaired, taken back, strengthened in the ways most critical to women who are to me, the preservers and leaders of ‘the world that lasts, the world that matters’ along with their confreres/brothers…
I love heart-to-heart women’s courage to be in the balanced wild, to live not ‘as if’ their lives matter, but ‘because they matter so.’ Also, I would say with as much love, I am also heartened by men who understand the great feminine force is with them also, that they too are the guardians of the values of the wild great mother, those stalwarts, ‘the men who run with women who run with the wolves.’