Clarissa Pinkola Estés Quotes

El duende is literally the goblin wind or force behind a person’s actions and creative life, including the way they walk, the sound of their voice, even the way they lift their little finger. It is a term used in flamenco dance, and is also used to describe the ability to “think” in poetic images. Among Latina curanderas who recollect story, it is understood as the ability to be filled with spirit that is more than one’s own spirit. Whether one is the artist or whether one is the watcher, listener, or reader, when el duende is present, one sees it, hears it, reads it, feels it underneath the dance, the music, the words, the art; one knows it is there. When el duende is not present, one knows that too.

While exile is not a thing to desire for the fun of it, there is an unexpected gain from it;the gifts of exile are many. It takes out weakness by the pounding. It removes whininess, enables acute insight , heightens intuition, grants the power of keen observation and perspective that the 'insider' can never achieve.

When the personal soul life is burnt to ashes, a woman loses the vital treasure and begins to get dry boned as Death. In her unconscious, the desire for the red shoes, a wild joy, not only continues, it swells and floods, and eventually staggers to its feet and takes over, ferocious and famished.

Go. Go right now, and as soon, and as often as you can. Keep going.

We dismantle the predator by countering its diatribes with our own nurturant truths. Predator: You never finish anything you start. Yourself: I finish many things. We dismantle the assaults of the natural predator by taking to heart and working with what is truthful in what the predator says and then discarding the rest.

So what compromises the Wild Woman? From the viewpoint of archetypal psychology as well as in ancient traditions, she is the female soul. Yet she is more; she is the source of the feminine. She is all that is of instinct, of the worlds both seen and hidden — she is the basis. We each receive from her a glowing cell which contains all the instincts and knowings needed for our lives. “...She is the Life/Death/Life force, she is the incubator. She is intuition, she is far-seer, she is deep listener, she is loyal heart. She encourages humans to remain multilingual; fluent in the languages of dreams, passion, and poetry. She whispers from night dreams, she leaves behind on the terrain of a woman’s soul a coarse hair and muddy footprints. These fill women with longing to find her, free her, and love her.

She is intuition, she is far-seer, she is deep listener, she is loyal heart. She encourages humans to remain multilingual; fluent in the languages of dreams, passion, and poetry. She whispers from night dreams, she leaves behind on the terrain of a woman’s soul a coarse hair and muddy footprints. These fill women with longing to find her, free her, and love her. She is ideas, feelings, urges, and memory. She has been lost and half-forgotten for a long, long time. She is the source, the light, the night, the dark, and daybreak.

La ignorancia es no saber nada y sentirse atraído por lo bueno. La inocencia es saberlo todo y seguir sintiéndose atraído por lo bueno.

Once women have lost her and then found her again, they will contend to keep her for good. Once they have regained her, they will fight and fight hard to keep her, for with her their creative lives blossom; their relationships gain meaning and depth and health; their cycles of sexuality, creativity, work, and play are re-established; they are no longer marks for the predations of others; they are entitled equally under the laws of nature to grow and to thrive.

I am amazed how little women cry nowadays, and then apologetically. I worry when shame or disuse begins to steal away such a natural function. To be a flowering tree and to be moist is essential, otherwise you will break. Crying is good, it is right. It does not cure dilemma, but it enables the process to continue instead of collapsing.

Healthy wolves and healthy women share certain psychic characteristics: keen sensing, playful spirit, and a heightened capacity for devotion. Wolves and women are relational by nature, inquiring, possessed of great endurance and strength. They are deeply intuitive, intensely concerned with their young, their mates, and their pack. They are experienced in adapting to constantly changing circumstances; they are fiercely stalwart and very brave.

Art is not just for oneself, not just a marker of one’s own understanding. It is also a map for those who follow after us.

Intuition is not to be consulted once and then forgotten. It is not disposable. It is to be consulted at all steps along the way, whether the woman's work be clashing with a demon in the interior, or completing a task in the outer world. It does not matter whether a woman's concerns and aspirations are personal or global. Before all else, every action begins with strengthening the spirit.

There is something waiting for us at the edge of the woods, and it is our fate to meet it.

Even the most captured woman guards the place of the wildish self, for she knows intuitively that someday there will be a loophole, an aperture, a chance, and she will hightail it to escape.