Summary
"Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype" is a profound exploration of the feminine psyche, drawing upon a rich tapestry of myths, fairy tales, and stories from various cultures. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, a Jungian psychoanalyst, poet, and cantadora, guides readers through the ruins of the female underworld, seeking to restore women's flagging vitality by reconnecting them with their instinctive selves.
The book argues that the wild and instinctual nature of women has been suppressed and mismanaged throughout history, leading to a disconnection from their deepest knowing. Estés uses the archetype of the Wild Woman as a symbol of this untamed, authentic self, urging women to reclaim their inner strength, creativity, and freedom. Through extensive "psychic-archeological" digs, she unveils the ways and means of a woman's deepest nature, offering insights into the challenges and triumphs of the feminine spirit.
Estés delves into the psychic characteristics shared by healthy wolves and healthy women: keen sensing, playful spirit, and a heightened capacity for devotion. She illustrates how both have been unfairly targeted and misunderstood, their natural instincts falsely portrayed as dangerous. By examining various fairy tales and myths, she decodes the messages embedded within them, providing a framework for women to retrieve their wildish nature and navigate the complexities of life.
The book also addresses the feeling-toned symptoms of a disrupted relationship with the wildish force in the psyche, such as feeling extraordinarily dry, fatigued, frail, depressed, confused, gagged, muzzled, unaroused, frightened, halt or weak, without inspiration, without animation, without soulfulness, without meaning, shame-bearing, chronically fuming, volatile, stuck, uncreative, compressed, or crazed. It emphasizes the importance of self-decoration, joyful expression, and resistance to societal pressures that seek to confine women's spirits.
Ultimately, "Women Who Run With the Wolves" is a call to women to reassert their relationship with their wildish nature, to become gifted with a permanent and internal watcher, a knower, a visionary, an oracle, an inspiratrice, an intuitive, a maker, a creator, and a listener who guides, suggests, and urges vibrant life in the inner and outer worlds. The journey involves understanding the language of dreams, embracing the beauty of nature, and reclaiming the power of story as medicine. The title comes from my study of wildlife biology, wolves in particular, the studies of the wolves Canis lupus and Canis rufus are like the history of women, regarding both their spiritedness and their travails.