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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. That Is Creative Life. It Is Made Up Of 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.

-Clarissa Pinkola Estes

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Be Wild; That Is

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

...

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. That Is Creative Life. It Is Made Up Of 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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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Long Ago The Word Alone Was Treated As Two Words, All One. To Be All One Meant To Be Wholly One, To Be In Oneness, Either Essentially Or Temporarily. That Is Precisely The Goal Of Solitude, To Be All One.

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.

The Deterioration Of Symbols Is Natural. They Wear Out, Needing To Be Reclaimed, Recreated; Returned To The Spirit.

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

Story Is Far Older Than The Art Of Science And Psychology, And Will Always Be The Elder In The Equation No Matter How Much Time Passes.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

We Practice Conscious Forgetting By Refusing To Summon Up The Fiery Material, We Refuse To Recollect. To Forget Is An Active, Not A Passive, Endeavor. It Means To Not Haul Up Certain Materials, Or Turn Them Over And Over, To Not Work Oneself Up By Repetitive Thought, Picture, Or Emotion.

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Dogs Are The Magicians Of The Universe.

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.

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.

A Runner Is Real When She Takes The First Step.

A Woman Who Is Starved For Her Real Soul-life May Look 'cleaned Up And Combed' On The Outside, But On The Inside She Is Filled With Dozens Of Pleading Hands And Empty Mouths.

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

There Will Always Be Times When You Feel Discouraged. I Too, Have Felt Despair Many Times In My Life, But I Do Not Keep A Chair For It; I Will Not Entertain It. It Is Not Allowed To Eat From My Plate.

Forgiveness Is An Act Of Creation. You Can Choose From Many Ways To Do It. You Can Forgive For Now, Forgive Till Then, Forgive Till The Next Time, Forgive But Give No More Chances It’s A Whole New Game If There Is Another Incident. You Can Give One More Chance, Give Several More Chances, Give Many Chances, Give Chances Only If. You Can Forgive Part, All, Or Half Of The Offense. You Can Devise A Blanket Of Forgiveness. You Decide

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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.

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.

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

Be Wild; That Is How To Clear The River.

The Point Of Art Is Not Simply To Express Ourselves, But To Create An External, Concrete Form In Which The Soul Of Our Lives Can Be Evoked And Contained.

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.

Modern Storytellers Are The Descendants Of An Immense And Ancient Community Of Holy People, Troubadours, Bards, Griots, Cantadoras, Cantors, Traveling Poets, Bums, Hags And Crazy People.

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.

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.

When A Woman Is Frozen Of Feeling, When She Can No Longer Feel Herself, When Her Blood, Her Passion, No Longer Reach The Extremities Of Her Psyche, When She Is Desperate; Then A Fantasy Life Is Far More Pleasurable Than Anything Else She Can Set Her Sights Upon. Her Little Match Lights, Because They Have No Wood To Burn, Instead Burn Up The Psyche As Though It Were A Big Dry Log. The Psyche Begins To Play Tricks On Itself; It Lives Now In The Fantasy Fire Of All Yearning Fulfilled. This Kind Of Fantasizing Is Like A Lie: If You Tell It Often Enough, You Begin To Believe It.

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.

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. Struggling Souls Catch Light From Other Souls Who Are Fully Lit And Willing To Show It.

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

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.

Anytime We Feed Soul, It Guarantees Increase.

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. That Is Creative Life. It Is Made Up Of 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

It Makes Utter Sense To Stay Healthy And Strong, To Be As Nourishing To The Body As Possible. Yet I Would Have To Agree, There Is In Many Women A 'hungry' One Inside. But Rather Than Hungry To Be A Certain Size, Shape, Or Height, Rather Than Hungry To Fit The Stereotype; Women Are Hungry For Basic Regard From The Culture Surrounding Them. The 'hungry' One Inside Is Longing To Be Treated Respectfully, To Be Accepted And In The Very Least, To Be Met Without Stereotyping.

It Is That Holy Poetry And Singing We Are After. ... It Is The Wild Singing We Are After, Our Chance To Use The Wild Language We Are Learning By Heart Under The Sea. When A Woman Speaks Her Truth, Fires Up Her Intention And Feeling, Staying Tight With The Instinctive Nature, She Is Singing, She Is Living In The Wild Breath-stream Of The Soul. To Live This Way Is A Cycle In Itself, One Meant To Go On, Go On, Go On.

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.

Our Own Sorrows Seem Heavy Enough, Even When Lifted By Certain Long-term Joys. But Watching Others Hurt Is The Breaker Of Most Any Heart.

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.

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

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

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 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

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.

Among Wolves, No Matter How Sick, No Matter How Cornered, No Matter How Alone, Afraid Or Weakened, The Wolf Will Continue.she Will Lope Even With A Broken Leg. She Will Strenuously Outwait, Outwit, Outrun And Outlast Whatever Is Bedeviling Her. She Will Put Her All Into Taking Breath After Breath. The Hallmark Of The Wild Nature Is That It Goes On.

How Does One Know If She Has Forgiven? You Tend To Feel Sorrow Over The Circumstance Instead Of Rage, You Tend To Feel Sorry For The Person Rather Than Angry With Him. You Tend To Have Nothing Left To Say About It All.

When A Woman Is Exhorted To Be Compliant, Cooperative, And Quiet, To Not Make Upset Or Go Against The Old Guard, She Is Pressed Into Living A Most Unnatural Life- A Life That Is Self-blinding.. . Without Innovation. The World-wide Issue For Women Is That Under Such Conditions They Are Not Only Silenced, They Are Put To Sleep. Their Concerns, Their Viewpoints, Their Own Truths Are Vaporized.

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.

Nurture Is Like Psychic Wheaties.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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