If there’s one book that I believe every woman should have on her bookshelf and pass on to her daughter some day, it’s Women Who Run With Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. My mom passed on her copy to me years ago, and I always seem to pick it back up when I’m in need of renewal, or new life.
And so I find myself here, on New Year’s Day, paging through my favourite book, reflecting on passages I’ve marked for myself in the past…as if part of me always knew what I’d need now. That’s how I always feel when I pick up this book.
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Women Who Run With Wolves examines intercultural myths, fairy tales, folk tales and stories that trace the wild woman within us all. She’s there, a powerful force, misunderstood and feared. She’s as passionate as she is intuitive, she’s in touch with her most primal instincts.
She’s the magical spark inside of you, you know her. She carries you in your happiest moments. Embracing her is embracing your own magic. When we waver from her, we’ll always reconnect with her in the end. She never leaves.
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Here are 4 things the wild woman within wants you to remember:
Failure is the key to success
Clarissa says:
“Though fairy tales end after ten pages, our lives do not. We are multi-volume sets. In our lives, even though one episode amounts to a crash and burn, there is always another episode awaiting us and then another. 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.”
Failure is an opportunity for rebirth. Death isn’t as morbid as it may seem. It makes may for new life. Sometimes we have to shed the dead skin, turn the page, or face whatever form decay that has presented itself. Failure and defeat make up the compost for new life to sprout.
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Life’s greatness may come in disguise
Sometimes, fear will govern how we receive life. Stepping into power means facing life in all its many forms. It may present itself in robes and golden rays, it may present as fear or death itself. How will you face it? Clarissa says:
“In mythos and fairy tales, deities and other great spirits test the hearts of humans by showing up in various forms that disguise their divinity. They show up in robes, rags, silver sashes, or with muddy feet. They show up with skin dark as old wood, or in scales made of rose petal, as a frail child, as a lime-yellow old woman, as a man who cannot speak, or as an animal who can. The great powers are testing to see if humans have yet learned to recognise the greatness of soul in all its varying forms.”
Once we accept life in all its colours, we can fully embrace it.
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Run wild with your ideas
Often, we stop ourselves from pursuing our wildest thoughts or ideas. “Oh but what if?” Looking back at it, some of the most happiest moments in life stem from letting go of the niggling thought that tells me ‘no.’ Clarissa says:
“Be wild; that is how to clear the river. The river does not flow in polluted, we manage that. The river does not dry up, we block it. If we want to allow it its freedom, we have to allow our ideational lives to be let loose, to stream, letting anything come, initially censoring nothing.”
She continues:
“That is creative life. It is made up of a divine paradox. To create one must be willing to be stone stupid, to sit upon a throne on top of a jackass and spill rubies from one’s mouth. Then the river will flow, then we can stand in the stream of it raining down.”
Fortune favours the bold, so go for it.
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Don’t wait to ‘feel ready’, dive in!
“To be strong does not mean to sprout muscles and flex. It means meeting one’s own numinosity without fleeing, actively living with the wild nature in one’s own way. It means to be able to learn, to be able to stand what we know. It means to stand and live.”
Fear will stop us in our tracks. When we meet fear with open arms instead of running away, we take a step towards embracing our our power. Little fears and great big fears, they’re doors to new life.
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