Women Who Run With the Wolves
I finished reading the book Women Who Run with the Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. I had been recommended this book by several people and had been intending to order it off amazon, then by chance it landed, donated along with tons of nutrition books, into the Tree of Life’s guest library. Always a confirmation when those situations happen
It’s hard to write a review on a book that is so powerful I can’t recommend it just for “certain kinds of people who are looking for certain kinds of things and have certain kinds of interests”. I agree with Maya Angelou’s review of it, “Everyone who can read should read this book.” It is a book that goes into the feminine psyche and dialogue about the phases of spiritual and psychological growth deeper than most any I’ve read. It’s extremely potent, with no trace of the often airy-fairy ideas and writing that are present in the more popular spirituality books out there.
It takes spirituality, feminine power, and dialogue on life’s very, very important spiritual challenges to an honest and raw, sometimes gritty and often profoundly beautiful place. There was a great endorsement for the book I read, and agree with, which recommended the book “for men who run with women who run with wolves.” There is only so much I can write about this book without you having read it, but I will say, that I am a reader, I adore books and this is easily in my top 5 at this point. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart, however – it really asks one to be ready to experience a shift. You know it’s a good book when you keep thinking every couple pages, “I’m going to need to read this again. There are so many jewels!” I laughed and cried. And filled up a whole journal with quotes I liked.
Some of my favorite quotes:
“The desert is a place where life is very condensed. The roots of living things hold on to that last tear of water and the flower hoards its moisture by only appearing in late afternoon. Life in the desert is small but brilliant and most of what occurs goes on underground. This is like the lives of many women… Many of us have lived desert lives: very small on the surface, and enormous under the ground.”
“Like the wolf, intuition has claws that pry things open and pin things down, it has eyes that can see through the shields of mundane human hearing. With these formidable psychic tools a woman takes on a precognitive animal consciousness, one that deepens femininity and sharpens her ability to move confidently in the outer world.”
“A woman must be willing to burn hot, burn with passion, burn with words, with ideas, with desire for whatever it is that she truly loves. One will arrange that one’s creative life has consistent fire under it.”