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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.

-Clarissa Pinkola Estes

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Do Not Cringe And

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

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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.

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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 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.

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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

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.

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.

When You Feel Bad, Find A Person To Talk To And Cry With, To Tell Of Your Anger And Other Helpless Feelings.

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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.

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.

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Positive Thinking

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

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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.

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

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

When Seeking Guidance, Don't Ever Listen To The Tiny-hearted. Be Kind To Them, Heap Them With Blessing, Cajole Them, But Do Not Follow Their Advice.

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.

Artfulness Is Not Simple Entertainment, Especially During Upheaval, Unleashing Creative Life Is Sacred Duty.

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

Mend The Part Of The World That Is Within Your Reach.

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The Soul Has No Gender.

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.

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.

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.

Nurture Is Like Psychic Wheaties.

When Women Reassert Their Relationship With The Wildish Nature, They Are Gifted With A Permanent And Internal Watcher, A Knower, A Visionary, An Oracle, An Inspiratrice, An Intuitive, A Maker, A Creator, An Inventor, And A Listener Who Guide, Suggest, And Urge Vibrant Life In The Inner And Outer World.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Three Things Differentiate Living From The Soul Verses Living From The Ego Only: The Ability To Sense And Learn New Ways, The Tenacity To Ride A Rough Road, And The Patience To Learn Deep Love Over 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.

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

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.

Latina Women Are Proud To Be Called Mrs. That Simply Means That We Have A Family.

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.

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.

If Logic Was Anything, All Men Would Ride Sidesaddles.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

What Is That Which Can Never Die It Is That Faithful Force That Is Born Into Us That One That Is Greater Than Us That Calls New Seed To The Open And Battered And Barren Places So That We Can Be Resown. It Is This Force In Its Insistence In Its Loyalty To Us In Its Love Of Us In Its Most Often Mysterious Ways That Is Far Greater Far More Majestic And Far More Ancient Than Any Heretofore Ever Known.

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

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.

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

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

If Women Were In Charge Of Everything, There Would Be Women Tyrants. If Black People Were In Charge, There Would Be Black Tyrants. If Hispanics Were In Charge, Then Hispanic Tyrants.

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

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.

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

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.

Art Is Not Meant To Be Created In Stolen Moments Only.

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.

Be Wild; That Is How To Clear The River.

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.

To Create One Must Be Able To Respond. Creativity Is The Ability To Respond To All That Goes On Around Us, To Choose From The Hundreds Of Possibilities Of Though, Feeling, Action, And Reaction And To Put These Together In A Unique Response, Expression Or Message That Carries Moment, Passion And Meaning. In This Sense, Loss Of Our Creative Milieu Means Finding Ourselves Limited To Only One Choice, Divested Of, Suppressing, Or Cendoring Feelings And Thoughts, Not Acting, Not Saying, Doing, Or Being.

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

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.

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.

Writing, Real Writing, Should Leave A Small Sweet Bruise Somewhere On The Writer . . . And On The Reader.

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.

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.

A Runner Is Real When She Takes The First Step.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

We All Begin The Process Before We Are Ready, Before We Are Strong Enough, Before We Know Enough; We Begin A Dialogue With Thoughts And Feelings That Both Tickle And Thunder Within Us. We Respond Before We Know How To Speak The Language, Before We Know All The Answers, And Before We Know Exactly To Whom We Are Speaking.

Stories Set The Inner Life Into Motion, And This Is Particularly Important Where The Inner Life Is Frightened, Wedged, Or Cornered. Story Greases The Hoists And Pulleys, It Causes Adrenaline To Surge, Shows Us The Way Out, Down, Or Up, And For Our Trouble, Cuts For Us Fine Wide Doors In Previously Blank Walls, Openings That Lead To The Dreamland, That Lead To Love And Learning, That Lead Us Back To Our Own Real Lives As Knowing Wildish Women.

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.

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.

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.

The Body Is Like The Earth ... As Vulnerable To Overbuilding, Being Carved Into Parcels, Cut Off, Overmined, And Shorn Of Its Power As Any Landscape.

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

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.

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

Asking The Proper Question Is The Central Act Of Transformation!

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Failure Is A Greater Teacher Than Success

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