There is an innate force that drives the intuition and psyche of women. Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D. calls it “Wild Woman”. She sustains us and when we are cut off from her our lives are not all they should be, we are not fully our own. This will not be a formal study of Dr. Estes work. It is simply reflections and musings that her work sparks in my mind. I feel the stirring as I read and re-read passages. Something old and deep smiles at recognition and nourishment.
I am not a trained academic scholar. I am an educated wonderer, yearner, and thinker. My desire is to connect with my highest, truest self. Women Who Run With the Wolves (1992) is the guide I’ve wanted. I’ve rarely connected with a work so deeply and swiftly. It sings over my bones and aids as I call myself back to life and myself. I think it can help any woman, femme, or non-binary person who appreciates the feminine. Anyone who embraces the way feminine power possesses them or fills them, there are pieces for you. I hope that is not too forward, I simply feel strongly about being seen and I know I’m not alone.
Pick up Women Who Run With the Wolves and read it. I’ll share what pulls at me and try to not regurgitate each page. The text is dense, Amazonian jungle. I can wrap myself in it, a quilt of stories. I don’t intend to water it down but, it’s so rich and full it’s overwhelming. Some of it is beyond my current scope. That’s okay, I hopefully have many years ahead to read it repeatedly. In a few years it may be different, years after that different again. But right now, at 34, this is what she’s telling me.
Introduction
We, women/femmes, have power. Power to exist independently and to lead. A threat to those who think we should be subservient or who want to exploit our power for their benefit. We are wild. Occurring naturally without force or prodding. We are and always shall be, inevitable. Possessing inherent strength and qualities necessary for a well-rounded human being. I need to search to understand and learn when societies decided that we were less than. That we should be subjugated and made to believe that we are incapable of directing our lives. That we cannot be useful to the larger, worldwide community. That our contributions are nonexistent.
It is a lie that requires everyone to turn against their inherent nature, interests, individual strengths, and beliefs. Dr. Estés notes that “thankfully there was always wild seed which arrived on the wind” (p. 3). There have always been and will always be women who forge ahead regardless of expectation. Even if they are ignored, cast aside, or their work destroyed they will create and express their true selves and feed their souls (p. 3).
I’ve always loved femme fatales, “bad” women who survive and/or thrive in the world outside the parlor. Usually in places assumed only men can handle. She’s shrewd, smart, alert, and bests them at their game. Refuses to settle for scraps and pushes through despite being deprived of resources. I tried being “good”, following the rules and a neat, tidy path. I achieved but I didn’t live. I lacked experience and didn’t feed my curiosity. It made me vulnerable and foolish. I’m glad to now nourish my starved soul.
Intuition is natural, inherent. Being cut off from Wild Woman, psyche, and intuition leaves us unmoored and unsure. Investing in or holding on to what is not good for us, be that friends, family, lovers, or jobs. Disconnection from our deepest, instinctual parts is a physical feeling. Dr. Estés firmly states that wild is not a negative connotation. There is integrity. “It means to establish territory, to find one’s pack, to be in one’s body with certainty and pride regardless of the body’s gifts and limitations, to speak and act in one’s behalf, to be aware, alert, to draw on the innate feminine powers of intuition and sensing, to come into one’s cycles, to find what one belongs to, to rise with dignity, to retain as much consciousness as possible” (p.11). The stories compiled and explained in the text are how we reconnect and overcome.
Chapter 1 – The Howl: Resurrection of The Wild Woman
Wild Woman lives in a place we can only glimpse every so often. We are creators and when we are creating, sharing the creation, or expressing that’s when we can peek into her home. The Story of The Four Rabbinim (p. 30). shows how to handle a divine experience. The best way to live afterward is to let it inspire you to keep living. To see beauty in the seemingly mundane. Psychologist Carl Jung called it the “moral obligation”. Appreciation and admiration allow life to flow to and through you for all of your days.
Our work is that of La Loba (p.25), to bring ourselves back to life. La Loba sings over the bones, resurrecting the lives and will of women who were lost. Our job is to know which parts of us to nurture and which parts to prune. I’m reminded of a James Baldwin quote: “It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I’d been taught about myself, and half-believed, before I was able to walk on the earth as though I had a right to be here.” – They Can’t Turn Back (1960). To patch ourselves back together listen for and to La Loba, Wild Woman, the 2-million-year-old woman.
“You’re the magician. Pull me back together again, the way you cut me in half. “ – Beyoncé, “Redemption” – Lemonade (2016). I view this is as a conversation with self. I do not and will not place blame for harm on those who endured it. But we are the only ones who can rebuild ourselves. As we heal and come out of the darkness we find and define what will patch our cracks. When we start to patch, we may find ourselves in a desolate place, Dr. Estés calls it desert life (p. 36). The surface is sparse, the rush of life below the surface. Our lives may be similar, the fullness of ourselves forced underground. If we push forward from that place, there’s a refuge we can build from.
Chapter 2 – Stalking The Intruder: The Beginning Initiation
The refuge is where we move from naïve to knowing. Naïveté due to youth or ignorance. Here we meet Bluebeard (p. 39), the personification of contra naturam. An innate aspect that “opposes the positive it is against development against harmony and against the wild” (p.38). Is this the inner saboteur but worse? Why is it there? Who knows but it seems that its opposition is natural, inevitable. As is our battle against it. A version lives in everyone but that doesn’t excuse antagonism in others. Perhaps their predator is winning and directing their lives.
Like Bluebeard (p.39), this force is a predator. Of the steal, kill, and destroy variety. It’s a force that all genders face with no explanation for its existence. The archetype appears across cultures and always seeks “superiority and power over others” (p.44). This isn’t hard to accept. This is the underlying problem in the world, in my eyes. The delusional desire to control everything and everyone, bending all to their will. I’ve tried to start writing about it but it’s vast and I don’t know how to tackle it. I don’t have the range yet, but I see it clearly.
As women, we must embrace and learn our wild side. This means going into our dark places, brings to mind shadow work. Acknowledge and learn our most difficult parts to work with them. Knock the shame off to differentiate between the truth about yourself and lies. The predator shrinks as you learn and see it for what it is. We have to recognize the predator as a purely “malignant force” (p.45). When we’re young we try to see the good in the predator, there is good in everything, right? No, there is not.
The predator can be the lure of a person, vice, place, or experience, anything that cuts off our growth. Elders of a few to many years can easily spot the predator and are dismayed by the attempt to play fair (p.47). Unfortunately, not all express their desire to help in a tactful manner and are angered when rebuffed or dismissed. They return taunt the younger when they are put through the wringer. I see it in generational wars and the nasty attitudes toward any young, recognizable or famous woman. Teaching, guiding, and warning must be more constructive and patient. Lashing out in a panic only drives the younger to danger faster.
Other ways we lose and are turned into easy bait for predators include training to be “nice”. Being good and following the rules only helped me so much. Growing up in church questioning is frowned upon, just trust and believe and you’ll have the good life that good girls earn. That is a farce. Question everything, make noise, and disrupt. It’s the only way to arm yourself and find to the truth. Question for your whole life. Our curiosity has been belittled to nosiness (p.51) but we are not silly or foolish. We are powerful beyond measure and those who have given their predator control are determined to strip us of it and use it for their own gain.
Questions are essential! “Questions are the keys that cause the secret doors of the psyche to swing open” (p.52). An ornate red door became the focal point of my 2020 vision board. I wanted to know what was on the other side, what else my life could be. When we ask, we have to be ready to “stand what we see” (p.55). I look back at my lifetime up to where I am now and see rubble where things fell apart, or I stopped building. Glad I’m not too late, thankfully it’s never too late to begin again on yourself.
Wild Woman is made for this work, she isn’t afraid of the dark. Shining light in dark places and cultivating the land is how we learn to shape our lives and ourselves for our future. We must know ourselves and face our trauma (p.58 & 59). I faced the carnage of a past relationship and know what I will never do again. I will do better. This work is exhausting but do not give in, our psyche will not die here. One of my mantras for this year is to pick up my sword. A sword we all develop as we leave naivete behind is animus. It holds qualities such as aggression, that are “bred out of women” (p.63). Well-developed animus helps us to dismantle our inner predator’s power. We counter every lie the predator spews with the truth we gather. “You can’t be that smart if you stayed in that relationship.” “I am smart, I distanced myself after it was over and sought the healing I knew I needed.” We beat back the predator with each declaration and transform its energy into something useful (p.68). It’s formidable energy and when we control it we change the direction of our lives.
The predator can also appear in dreams (p.67), as an awakening, a warning, or wake up call. These dreams can relate to the many cultures we inhabit such as our towns, jobs, families, neighborhoods, religions or national culture. “We see from history that there are eras in cultures during which the predator is identified with and allowed absolute sovereignty until the people who believe otherwise become a tide” (p.70). Sound familiar? Knocked me over when I read it because a proven predator is ascending the highest office in the United States for the second time. But likeminded people can oppose the predator and all like them.
Wild Woman knows the predator well. So, ask your questions, rake through the muck to clean up your instinctive power. It’s thankfully a part of us and we can always return to it. Exciting isn’t it? Now it sounds well and good but how exactly does one clean up the psyche, listen to intuition, and connect with Wild Woman? I’m working my way through chapter three and will report back here when I finish.
