Clarissa Pinkola Estés Quotes

It is difficult to sneak little shreds of life this way but women do it every day. When a woman feels compelled to sneak life, she is in minimal subsistence mode. She sneaks life away from the hearing of “them,” whoever the “them” is in her life. She acts disinterested and calm on the surface, but whenever there is a crack of light, her starved self leaps out, runs for the nearest life form, lights up, kicks back, charges madly, dances herself silly, exhausts herself, then tries to creep back to the black cell before anyone notices she is gone.

Nurture is like psychic Wheaties.

If you say how lovely she is, or how beautiful her art is, or compliment anything else her soul took part in, inspired, or suffused, something in her mind says she is undeserving and you, the complimentor, are an idiot for thinking such a thing to begin with. Rather than understand that the beauty of her soul shines through when she is being herself, the woman changes the subject and effectively snatches nourishment away from the soul-self, which thrives on being acknowledged, on being seen.

Having a lover/friend who regards you as a living growing criatura, being, just as much as the tree from the ground, or a ficus in the house, or a rose garden out in the side yard... having a lover and friends who look at you as a true living breathing entity, one that is human but made of very fine and moist and magical things as well... a lover and friends who support the ciatura in you... these are the people you are looking for. They will be the friends of your soul for life. Mindful choosing of friends and lovers, not to mention teachers, is critical to remaining conscious, remaining intuitive, remaining in charge of the fiery light that sees and knows.

Among wolves, when the bitch leavers her pups to go hunting, the young ones try to follow her out of the den and down the path. She snarls at them, lunges at them, and scares the bejeezus out of them till they run slipping and sliding back to the den. Their mother knows that they do not yet know how to weight and assess other creatures. They do not know who is a predator and who is not.

Wolves and women have much in common. Both share a wild spirit. Women and wolves are instinctual creatures, able to sense the unseen. They are loyal, protective of their packs and their pups. They are wild and beautiful. Both have been hunted and captured. Even in captivity, one can see in the eyes of a woman, or a wolf, the longing to run free, and the determination that should the opportunity arise, whoosh, they will be gone.

The word pneuma (breath) shares its origins with the word psyche; they are both considered words for soul. So when there is song in a tale or mythos, we know that the gods are being called upon to breathe their wisdom and power into the matter at hand. We know then that the forces are at work in the spirit world, busy crafting soul.

"إذن ما هي "المرأة الوحشية"؟ من وجهةنظر علم النفس المبدئية وفي عرف الروائيين, هي روح الأنثى, بل أكثر من ذلك, هي مصدر الأنوثة, إنها كل ما هو فطري في كلا العالمين الظاهر والباطن، إنها الأساس، فنحن جميعاً نأخذ منها الخلية النشطة التي تحوي كل الغرائز والمعارف التي نحتاج إليها في رحلة الحياة."

فالمرأة الوحشية كنموذج بدئي هي قوة لا توصف قابلة للمحاكاة، وهي معين لا ينضب للأفكار والتخيلات وخصوصيات الجنس البشري، نموذج بدئي موجود في كل مكان، إلا أنه لا يُرى بالحواس العادية، فما يمكن أن نراه في الظلام ليس باستطاعتنا أن نراه في وضح النهار.

There is no one a wildish woman loves better than a mate who can be her equal.

"In this tradition a story is 'holy,' and it is used as medicine," she told Radiance magazine. "The story is not told to lift you up, to make you feel better, or to entertain you, although all those things can be true. The story is meant to take the spirit into a descent to find something that is lost or missing and to bring it back to consciousness again."

Stories set the inner life into motion, and this is particularly important where the inner life is frightened, wedged, or cornered. Story greases the hoists and pulleys, it causes adrenaline to surge, shows us the way out, down, or up, and for our trouble, cuts for us fine wide doors in previously blank walls, openings that lead to the dreamland, that lead to love and learning, that lead us back to our own real lives as knowing wildish women.

I feel that men are as much of a mystery as women. Once we get past a certain amount of self-consciousness and protection of certain sacred cows by each gender, we could have a real conversation, maybe, for the first time ever in the universe, in this century.

The only trust required is to know that when there is one ending there will be another beginning.

Long ago the word alone was treated as two words, all one.20 To be all one meant to be wholly one, to be in oneness, either essentially or temporarily.