Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman ArchetypeNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • More than 2.7 million copies sold! • “A deeply spiritual book [that] honors what is tough, smart and untamed in women.”—The Washington Post Book World Book club pick for Emma Watson’s Our Shared Shelf Within every woman there lives a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing. She is the Wild Woman, who represents the instinctual nature of women. But she is an endangered species. For though the gifts of wildish nature belong to us at birth, society’s attempt to “civilize” us into rigid roles has muffled the deep, life-giving messages of our own souls. In Women Who Run with the Wolves, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés unfolds rich intercultural myths, fairy tales, folk tales, and stories, many from her own traditions, in order to help women reconnect with the fierce, healthy, visionary attributes of this instinctual nature. Through the stories and commentaries in this remarkable book, we retrieve, examine, love, and understand the Wild Woman, and hold her against our deep psyches as one who is both magic and medicine. Dr. Estés has created a new lexicon for describing the female psyche. Fertile and life-giving, it is a psychology of women in the truest sense, a knowing of the soul. |
Contents
SINGING OVER THE BONES | 1 |
RESURRECTION OF THE WILD WOMAN | 21 |
THE BEGINNING INITIATION | 35 |
THE RETRIEVAL OF INTUITION | 70 |
UNION WITH THE OTHER | 111 |
WHEN THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER | 127 |
BELONGING AS BLESSING | 164 |
THE WILD FLESH | 197 |
RETRIEVING A SACRED SEXUALITY | 334 |
THE BOUNDARIES OF RAGE | 346 |
MEMBERSHIP IN THE SCAR CLAN | 374 |
INITIATION IN THE UNDERGROUND | 387 |
CANTO HONDO THE DEEP SONG | 456 |
THE WOLFS EYELASH | 462 |
ADDENDUM | 474 |
A BIBLIOGRAPHY | 507 |
IDENTIFYING LEG TRAPS CAGES | 213 |
RETURNING TO ONESELF | 255 |
NOURISHING THE CREATIVE LIFE | 297 |
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS | 514 |
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Common terms and phrases
ability able ancient archetypal aspects bear beautiful become begin body bones bring called carry causes child close comes create creative creature culture cycles dance dark dead death deep door dreams energy eyes face fairy fear feel feminine fire follow force girl give hair hands healing hear heart hold human ideas initiation inner instincts intuition keep kind land leave light lives look lost maiden matter means mother names nature never night once one's person predator psyche psychic psychological rage relationship represents river secret sense shoes sometimes soul speak spirit stand stay story symbol tale tell things thought trees true trying turn understand Vasalisa wild Wild Woman wildish woman women Yaga young