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A Prayer Refuse To Fall Down If You Cannot Refuse To Fall Down, Refuse To Stay Down. If You Cannot Refuse To Stay Down, Lift Your Heart Toward Heaven, And Like A Hungry Beggar, Ask That It Be Filled. You May Be Pushed Down. You May Be Kept From Rising. But No One Can Keep You From Lifting Your Heart Toward Heaven Only You. It Is In The Middle Of Misery That So Much Becomes Clear. The One Who Says Nothing Good Came Of This, Is Not Yet Listening.

-Clarissa Pinkola Estes

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A Prayer Refuse To

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

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A Prayer Refuse To Fall Down If You Cannot Refuse To Fall Down, Refuse To Stay Down. If You Cannot Refuse To Stay Down, Lift Your Heart Toward Heaven, And Like A Hungry Beggar, Ask That It Be Filled. You May Be Pushed Down. You May Be Kept From Rising. But No One Can Keep You From Lifting Your Heart Toward Heaven Only You. It Is In The Middle Of Misery That So Much Becomes Clear. The One Who Says Nothing Good Came Of This, Is Not Yet Listening.

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Be Wild; That Is How To Clear The River.

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To Love Means To Embrace And At The Same Time To Withstand Many Endings, And Many Many Beginnings- All In The Same Relationship.

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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.

Wolves Never Look More Funny Than When They Have Lost The Scent And Scrabble To Find It Again: They Hop In The Air; They Run In Circles, They Plow Up The Ground With Their Noses . . . .

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We Are All Filled With A Longing For The Wild. There Are Few Culturally Sanctioned Antidotes For This Yearning. We Were Taught To Feel Shame For Such A Desire. We Grew Our Hair Long And Used It To Hide Our Feelings. But The Shadow Of Wild Woman Still Lurks Behind Us During Our Days And In Our Nights. No Matter Where We Are, The Shadow That Trots Behind Us Is Definitely Four-footed.

I Learned About The Sacred Art Of Self Decoration With The Monarch Butterflies Perched Atop My Head, Lightning Bugs As My Night Jewelry, And Emerald-green Frogs As Bracelets.

All Strong Souls First Go To Hell Before They Do The Healing Of The World They Came Here For. If We Are Lucky, We Return To Help Those Still Trapped Below.

The Predation Of Wolves And Women By Those Who Misunderstand Them Is Strikingly Similar.

The Quintessential Feminine Self Stands At The Center Of The Psyche And It Is Wild, Meaning Natural And Free, And Utterly Wise. It Is Not 'something' We Must Strive To Create. This Self Is Already Fully Present, Burning Strong And Waiting For Us To Come Into Its Presence.

So, Let Us Push On Now, And Remember Ourselves Back To The Wild Soul. Let Us Sing Her Flesh Back Onto Our Bones.

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I Hope You Will Go Out And Let Stories Happen To You.

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A Prayer Refuse To Fall Down If You Cannot Refuse To Fall Down, Refuse To Stay Down. If You Cannot Refuse To Stay Down, Lift Your Heart Toward Heaven, And Like A Hungry Beggar, Ask That It Be Filled. You May Be Pushed Down. You May Be Kept From Rising. But No One Can Keep You From Lifting Your Heart Toward Heaven Only You. It Is In The Middle Of Misery That So Much Becomes Clear. The One Who Says Nothing Good Came Of This, Is Not Yet Listening.

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The Wild Woman Is Fluent In The Language Of Dreams, Images, Passion, And Poetry.

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Sometimes The One Who Is Running From The Life/death/life Nature Insists On Thinking Of Love As A Boon Only. Yet Love In Its Fullest Form Is A Series Of Deaths And Rebirths. We Let Go Of One Phase, One Aspect Of Love, And Enter Another. Passion Dies And Is Brought Back. Pain Is Chased Away And Surfaces Another Time. To Love Means To Embrace And At The Same Time To Withstand Many Endings, And Many Many Beginnings- All In The Same Relationship.

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Suppose... The Body Is A God In Its Own Right, A Teacher, A Mentor, A Certified Guide? Then What? .... Are We Strong Enough To Refute The Party Line And Listen Deep, Listen True To The Body As A Powerful And Holy Being?

It's Not The Failure That Holds Us Back But The Reluctance To Begin Over Again That Causes Us To Stagnate.

Within Every Woman There Is A Wild And Natural Creature, A Powerful Force, Filled With Good Instincts, Passionate Creativity, And Ageless Knowing.

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My Brain Has No Heart, And My Heart Has No Brain. That's Why When I Speak My Mind, I Appear Heartless And When I Do What's In My Heart I Seem Thoughtless.

Tears Are A River That Takes You Somewhere…tears Lift Your Boat Off The Rocks, Off Dry Ground, Carrying It Downriver To Someplace Better.

In Any Dark Time, There Is A Tendency To Veer Toward Fainting Over How Much Is Wrong Or Unmended In The World. Do Not Focus On That. Do Not Make Yourself Ill With Overwhelm. There Is A Tendency To Fall Into Being Weakened By Perseverating On What Is Outside Your Reach, By What Cannot Yet Be. Do Not Focus There. That Is Spending The Wind Without Raising The Sails.

Positive Thinking

I Call Her Wild Woman, For Those Very Words, Wild And Woman, Create Llamar O Tocar A La Puerta, The Fairy-tale Knock At The Door Of The Deep Feminine Psyche. Llamar O Tocar A La Puerta Means Literally To Play Upon The Instrument Of The Name In Order To Open A Door. It Means Using Words That Summon Up The Opening Of A Passageway. No Matter By Which Culture A Woman Is Influenced, She Understands The Words Wild And Woman, Intuitively.

Failure Is A Greater Teacher Than Success

Freud's Translator Accidentally Omitted 'fashion' In The Psychoanalytic List Of Primary Instinctual Drives; Along With The Drive To Sexuality There Is The Drive To Wear Odd Garments That May Cut Off Circulation, Occlude Vision, Make Toes Grow Sideways, Cause Riots.

Go Out In The Woods, Go Out. If You Don't Go Out In The Woods Nothing Will Ever Happen And Your Life Will Never Begin.

We All Wish To Be Brave And Strong In The Face Of Disaster. We All Wish To Be Looked Up To For Our Endurance And Efforts To Help Others.

Ritual Is One Of The Ways In Which Humans Put Their Lives In Perspective, Whether It Be Purim, Advent, Or Drawing Down The Moon. Ritual Calls Together The Shades And Specters In People's Lives, Sorts Them Out, Puts Them To Rest.

When You Focus With Soul Eyes, / You Will See Home In Many, Many Places.

Ours Is Not The Task Of Fixing The Entire World All At Once, But Of Stretching Out To Mend The Part Of The World That Is Within Our Reach. Any Small, Calm Thing That One Soul Can Do To Help Another Soul, To Assist Some Portion Of This Poor Suffering World, Will Help Immensely. It Is Not Given To Us To Know Which Acts Or By Whom, Will Cause The Critical Mass To Tip Toward An Enduring Good.

A Runner Is Real When She Takes The First Step.

Story Is A Medicine Which Strengthens And Arights The Individual And The Community.

Friends Who Love You And Have Warmth For Your Creative Life Are The Very Best Suns In The World.

To Love Pleasure Takes Little. To Love Truly Takes A Hero Who Can Manage His Own Fear.

Wolves And Women Are Relational By Nature, Inquiring, Possessed Of Great Endurance And Strength. They Are Deeply Intuitive, Intensely Concerned With Their Young, Their Mate And Their Pack. Yet Both Have Been Hounded, Harassed And Falsely Imputed To Be Devouring And Devious, Overly Aggressive, Of Less Value Than Those Who Are Their Detractors.

Tell The Truth About Your Wound, And Then You Will Get A Truthful Picture Of The Remedy To Apply To It. Don't Pack Whatever Is Easiest Or Most Available Into The Emptiness. Hold Out For The Right Medicine. You Will Recognize It Because It Makes Your Life Stronger Rather Than Weaker.

At Bottom Is The Best Soil To Sow And Grow Something New Again. In That Sense, Hitting Bottom, While Extremely Painful, Is Also The Sowing Ground.

To Adjoin The Instinctual Nature Does Not Mean To Come Undone, Change Everything From Left To Right, From Black To White, To Move The East To West, To Act Crazy Or Out Of Control. It Does Not Mean To Lose One's Primary Socializations, Or To Become Less Human. It Means Quite The Opposite. The Wild Nature Has A Vast Integrity To It

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.

Solitude Is Not An Absence Of Energy Or Action, As Some Believe, But Is Rather A Boon Of Wild Provisions Transmitted To Us From The Soul. In Ancient Times, Purposeful Solitude Was Both Palliative And Preventative. It Was Used To Heal Fatigue And To Prevent Weariness. It Was Also Used As An Oracle, As A Way Of Listening To The Inner Self To Solicit Advice And Guidance Otherwise Impossible To Hear In The Din Of Daily Life.

A Lover Cannot Be Chosen A La Smorgasbord. A Lover Has To Be Chosen From Soul-craving. To Choose Just Because Something Mouthwatering Stands Before Ou Will Never Satisfy The Hunger Of The Soul-self. And That Is What The Intuition Is For; It Is The Direct Messenger Of The Soul.

The Way To Maintain One's Connection To The Wild Is To Ask Yourself What It Is That You Want. This Is The Sorting Of The Seed From The Dirt. One Of The Most Important Discriminations We Can Make In This Matter Is The Difference Between Things That Beckon To Us And Things That Call From Our Souls.

Though Her Soul Requires Seeing, The Culture Around Her Requires Sightlessness. Though Her Soul Wishes To Speak Its Truth, She Is Pressured To Be Silent.

Be Proud Of Your Scars. They Have Everything To Do With Your Strength, And What You've Endured. They're A Treasure Map To The Deep Self.

Like Night Dreams, Stores Often Use Symbolic Language, Therefore Bypassing The Ego And Persona, And Traveling Straight To The Spirit And Soul Who Listen For The Ancient And Universal Instructions Imbedded There. Because Of This Process, Stories Can Teach, Correct Errors, Lighten The Heart And The Darkness, Provide Psychic Shelter, Assist Transformation And Heal Wounds.

The Psyches And Souls Of Women Also Have Their Own Cycles And Seasons Of Doing And Solitude, Running And Staying, Being Involved And Being Removed, Questing And Resting, Creating And Incubating, Being Of The World And Returning To The Soul-place.

Asking The Proper Question Is The Central Action Of Transformation- In Fairy Tales, In Analysis, And In Individuation. The Key Question Causes Germination Of Consciousness. The Properly Shaped Question Always Emanates From An Essential Curiosity About What Stands Behind. Questions Are The Keys That Cause The Secret Doors Of The Psyche To Swing Open.

In This Tradition A Story Is 'holy,' And It Is Used As Medicine," She Told Radiance Magazine. "the Story Is Not Told To Lift You Up, To Make You Feel Better, Or To Entertain You, Although All Those Things Can Be True. The Story Is Meant To Take The Spirit Into A Descent To Find Something That Is Lost Or Missing And To Bring It Back To Consciousness Again.

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 Recognize The Greatness Of Soul In All Its Varying Forms.

If You Have Ever Been Called Defiant, Incorrigible, Forward, Cunning, Insurgent, Unruly, Rebellious, You're On The Right Track.

The Body Remembers, The Bones Remember, The Joints Remember, Even The Little Finger Remembers. Memory Is Lodged In Pictures And Feelings In The Cells Themselves. Like A Sponge Filled With Water, Anywhere The Flesh Is Pressed, Wrung, Even Touched Lightly, A Memory May Flow Out In A Stream.

The Body Is A Multilingual Being. It Speaks Through Its Color And Its Temperature, The Flush Of Recognition, The Glow Of Love, The Ash Of Pain, The Heat Of Arousal, The Coldness Of Nonconviction. . . . It Speaks Through The Leaping Of The Heart, The Falling Of The Spirits, The Pit At The Center, And Rising Hope.

Ours Is Not The Task Of Fixing The Entire World At Once, But Of Stretching Out To Mend The Part Of The World That Is Within Our Reach.

Dogs Are The Magicians Of The Universe.

As Long As A Woman Is Forced Into Believing She Is Powerless And/or Is Trained To Not Consciously Register What She Knows To Be True, The Feminine Impulses And Gifts Of Her Psyche Continue To Be Killed Off.

When Women Hear Those Words, An Old, Old Memory Is Stirred And Brought Back To Life. The Memory Is Of Our Absolute, Undeniable, And Irrevocable Kinship With The Wild Feminine, A Relationship Which May Have Become Ghostly From Neglect, Buried By Over-domestication, Outlawed By The Surrounding Culture, Or No Longer Understood Anymore. We May Have Forgotten Her Names, We May Not Answer When She Calls Ours, But In Our Bones We Know Her, We Yearn Toward Her, We Know She Belongs To Us And We To Her.

I Hope You Will Go Out And Let Stories Happen To You, And That You Will Work Them, Water Them With Your Blood And Tears And You Laughter Till They Bloom, Till You Yourself Burst Into Bloom.

We Wish To Make Rage Into A Fire That Cooks Things Rather Than A Fire Of Conflagration.

The Doors To The World Of The Wild Self Are Few But Precious. If You Have A Deep Scar, That Is A Door, If You Have An Old, Old Story, That Is A Door. If You Love The Sky And The Water So Much You Almost Cannot Bear It, That Is A Door. If You Yearn For A Deeper Life, A Full Life, A Sane Life, That Is A Door.

A Healthy Woman Is Much Like A Wolf: Robust, Chock-full, Strong Life Force, Life-giving, Territorially Aware, Inventive, Loyal, Roving.

Rather Than Chairs And Tables, I Preferred The Ground, Trees, And Caves, For In Those Places I Felt I Could Lean Against The Cheek Of God.

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.

I Have To Go To The Woods, And I Have To Meet The Wolf, Or Else My Life Will Never Begin.

The Soul Has No Gender.

Anything You Do From The Soulful Self Will Help Lighten The Burdens Of The World. Anything. You Have No Idea What The Smallest Word, The Tiniest Generosity, Can Cause To Be Set In Motion...mend The Part Of The World That Is Within Your Reach.

When A Great Ship Is In Harbor And Moored, It Is Safe, There Can Be No Doubt. But That Is Not What Great Ships Are Built For.

Ours Is Not The Task Of Fixing The Entire World All At Once, But Of Stretching Out To Mend The Part Of The World That Is Within Our Reach... One Of The Most Calming And Powerful Actions You Can Do To Intervene In A Stormy World Is To Stand Up And Show Your Soul. Soul On Deck Shines Like Gold In Dark Times. The Light Of The Soul Throws Sparks, Can Send Up Flares, Builds Signal Fires, Causes Proper Matters To Catch Fire.

Just Because A Woman Is Silent Does Not Mean She Agrees.

The Craft Of Questions, The Craft Of Stories, The Craft Of The Hands - All These Are The Making Of Something, And That Something Is Soul. Anytime We Feed Soul, It Guarantees Increase.

I Come From A Long Line Of Tellers: Mesemondok, Old Hungarian Women Who Tell While Sitting On Wooden Chairs With Their Plastic Pocketbooks On Their Laps, Their Knees Apart, Their Skirts Touching The Ground... And Cuentistas, Old Latina Women Who Stand, Robust Of Breast, Hips Wide, And Cry Out The Story Ranchera Style. Both Clans Storytell In The Plain Voice Of Women Who Have Lived Blood And Babies, Bread And Bones. For Them, Story Is A Medicine Which Strengthens And Arights The Individual And The Community.

It's Not By Accident That The Pristine Wilderness Of Our Planet Disappears As The Understanding Of Our Own Inner Wild Nature Fades.

Stories Are Medicine. They Have Such Power; They Do Not Require That We Do, Be, Act Anything - We Need Only Listen.

The Desire To Force Love To Live Only In Its Most Positive Form Is What Causes Love Ultimately To Fall Over Dead.

If You Have Yet To Be Called An Incorrigable, Defiant Woman, Don't Worry, There Is Still Time

If Logic Was Anything, All Men Would Ride Sidesaddles.

It Is Not Given To Us To Know Which Acts Or By Whom, Will Cause The Critical Mass To Tip Toward An Enduring Good. What's Needed For Dramatic Change Is An Accumulation Of Acts, Adding, Adding To, Adding More, Continuing. We Know That It Does Not Take 'everyone On Earth' To Bring Justice And Peace, But Only A Small, Determined Group Who Will Not Give Up During The First, Second, Or Hundredth Gale.

Without Art We Live Under The Illusion That There Is Only Time, And Not Eternity.

To Be Ourselves Causes Us To Be Exiled By Many Others, And Yet To Comply With What Others Want Causes Us To Be Exiled From Ourselves.

Do Not Cringe And Make Yourself Small If You Are Called The Black Sheep, The Maverick, The Lone Wolf. Those With Slow Seeing Say That A Noncomformist Is A Blight On Society. But It Has Been Proven Over The Centuries, That Being Different Means Standing At The Edge, That One Is Practically Guaranteed To Make An Original Contribution, A Useful And Stunning Contribution To Her Culture.

To Be Poor And Be Without Trees, Is To Be The Most Starved Human Being In The World. To Be Poor And Have Trees, Is To Be Completely Rich In Ways That Money Can Never Buy.

For Myself, Solitude Is Rather Like A Folded-up Forest That I Carry With Me Everywhere And Unfurl Around Myself When I Have Need.

There Is A Time In Our Lives, Usually In Mid-life, When A Woman Has To Make A Decision - Possibly The Most Important Psychic Decision Of Her Future Life - And That Is, Whether To Be Bitter Or Not. Women Often Come To This In Their Late Thirties Or Early Forties. They Are At The Point Where They Are Full Up To Their Ears With Everything And They've "had It" And "the Last Straw Has Broken The Camel's Back" And They're "pissed Off And Pooped Out." Their Dreams Of Their Twenties May Be Lying In A Crumple. There May Be Broken Hearts, Broken Marriages, Broken Promises.

Since Time Out Of Mind, A Considered Act Of Heroism Has Been The Cure For Stultifying Ambivalence.

If You've Lost Focus, Just Sit Down And Be Still. Take The Idea And Rock It To And Fro. Keep Some Of It And Throw Some Away, And It Will Renew Itself. You Need Do No More.

I Became Married At A Young Age And Had Two Daughters And Divorced At 26. I Had To Go On Welfare To Make Ends Meet. I Had No Way To Support Myself.

When Women Are Relegated To Moods, Mannerisms, And Contours That Conform To A Single Ideal Of Beauty And Behavior, They Are Captured In Both Body And Soul, And Are No Longer Free.

I Am Built Close To The Ground And Of Extravagant Body.

Mindful Choosing Of Friends And Lovers, Not To Mention Teachers, Is Critical To Remaining Conscious, Remaining Intuitive, Remaining In Charge Of The Fiery Light That Sees And Knows.

Stories Are Medicine.

Any Time I Find Medicine That's Helpful, I Share It With Everyone I Know.

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.

Asking The Proper Question Is The Central Act Of Transformation!

If You Have Never Been Called A Defiant, Incorrigible, Impossible Woman… Have Faith. There Is Yet Time.

Anytime We Feed Soul, It Guarantees Increase.

With The Wild Nature As Ally And Teacher We See Not Through Two Eyes But Through The Many Eyes Of Intuition. With Intuition We Are Like The Starry Night, We Gaze At The World Through A Thousand Eyes. The Wild Woman Is Fluent In The Language Of Dreams, Images, Passion, And Poetry.

When A Women Speaks Her Truth, Fires Up Her Intention And Feeling, Stays Tight With The Instinctive Nature, She Is Singing, She Is Living In The Wild Breath-stream Of The Soul.

Like All Other Lonely Or Hungry Things, Ego Loves The Light. It Sees Light, And The Possibility Of Being Close To The Soul, And It Creeps Up To It And Steals One Of Its Essential Camouflages. In A Hunger For Soul, Our Own Ego-self Steals The Pelt

All That You Are Seeking Is Also Seeking You. If You Lie Still, Sit Still, It Will Find You. It Has Been Waiting For You A Long Time.

The Most Important Thing Is To Hold On, Hold Out, For Your Creative Life, For Your Solitude, For Your Time To Be And Do, For Your Very Life.

This Kind Of Forgetting Does Not Erase Memory, It Lays The Emotion Surrounding The Memory To Rest.

Bone By Bone, Hair By Hair, Wild Woman Comes Back. Through Night Dreams, Through Events Half Understood And Half Remembered.

When We Accept Our Own Wild Beauty, It Is Put Into Perspective, And We Are No Longer Poignantly Aware Of It Anymore, But Neither Would We Forsake It Or Disclaim It Either. Does A Wolf Know How Beautiful She Is When She Leaps? Does A Feline Know What Beautiful Shapes She Makes When She Sits? Is A Bird Awed By The Sound It Hears When It Snaps Open Its Wings? Learning From Them, We Just Act In Our Own True Way And Do Not Draw Back From Or Hide Our Natural Beauty. Like The Creatures, We Just Are, And It Is Right.

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