Women who run with the wolves- myths and stories of the wild woman archetype
Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D.
gleanings adapted story from the wonderful book.
I call her Wild Woman, for those very words, wild and woman crate llamar o tocar a la puerta, the fairy-tale knock at the door of the deep female 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 wils and woman, intuitively.
When a woman hears those words an old memory is stired and brought back to life. The memory is of our absolute, undeniable, and irrevocable kinship with the wild femine, a relationship whichmay have become ghostly from neglect, buried by overdomestication, outlawedby the surrounding culture, or no longer understood anymore. We may have forgotten our names, we may not answer then when she calls ours, but in our bones we know her, we yearn towards her; we know she belongs to us and we to her.
La loba- she is circumspect., often hairy, always fat, and especially wishes to evade most company. She is both a crower and a cackler, generally having more animal noises than human ones.
Wandering the desert for bones to assemble a complete wolf skeleton, brings it back to life with her song. With each chorus meat and fur appear. When it run away the wolf, in a flash of moonlight turns to a laughing woman, who runs free to the horizon.
The 4 sisters
One nite 4 sisters were visited by a faerie and bestoed a great gift. They were able to visit neverland and were welcomed into the vale of the faeries. Somewhere along there return to earth from paradise each sister had to set about the way they would be effected by the experience. 1st. having whitnessed such spendor, lost her mind and wandered frothing and foaming until the end of her days. 2nd became extremely cynical refusing to believe, insisting that nothing really happened. 3rd carried on and on, sometimes talking to no one, for she was completely obsessed, and eventually betrayed the sacred gift. 4th was a painter and took up her brush and stood by the window, fully appreciating each beautiful moment, stars, moon and sky. It was she who lived better than before.
Doors-pg 52
Doors, in times, past, were made mostly of stone, but also of wood. The spirit of the stone or wood was thought to be retained in the door, and it too was called upon to act as guardian of the room. Early on there were more doors to tombs than to homes , and very image of a door meant something of a spiritual value was within, or there was something within which must be contained.
Instead of reviling the predator of the psyche, or running away from it, we dismember it. We accomplish this by not allowing ourselves divisive thoughts about our soul life ad our worth. We capture invidious thoughts before they become large enough to do any harm and dismantle them. To render parts of Bluebeard is like taking the medicinal parts of the deadly nightshade, or healing elements of the poisonous belladonna plant, and using them carefully for healing and helping. What ash of the predator is left, will indeed rise up again, but in smaller form, more recognizable, and with much less power to deceive and destroy. For you already have turned these powers towards useful and relevant so they are no longer a blind threat.
Vasalisa- pg 74
Dedicated storytellers are always off under some hill, up to their knees in story dust, brushing away centuries of dirt, digging under overlays of culture and conquest, numbering every frieze and fresco of story they can find. Sometimes the story has been reduced to powder, sometimes portions and details are missing or rubbed out, often the form is intact but the colouring destroyed. But even so, every dig holds hope for finding an entire body of story intact and unbroken.
Once there was, and once there was not, a young mother who lay on her death bed, face pale as white wax roses. Her daughter and husband sat on the edge of the wooden bed and prayed that god would guide her safely into the next world. She called to her daughter, who received a doll who was dressed the same as her, in red boots, black skirt and white apron. Her last words were to ask the doll for guidance and to feed her when she was hungry with that the mothers breath fell into the depths of her body where it gathered up her soul and rushed out from between her lips. They mourned greatly but like the field cruelly plowed under by war, the fathers life rose green from the furrows again, and he married a widow with 2 daughter. In isolations they tortured Vasalisa, but she answered their jealously with helpful smiles. They had conspired “let us make the fire go out, and send Vasalisa into the forest to Baba Yaga, the witch, to beg fire for our hearth. When she arrives she is certain to be killed and eaten” clapping ad squeaking like things from the darkness. So off she went into the darkness of the forest, obedient and innocent. When she became scared she reached into her pocket and felt better cluthing her mothers doll. She consulted the doll at every fork in the road, and the right direction was indicated. She feed the doll bits of bread and eventually came upon a man in white on a white horse. Farther on a man in red on a red horse brought with him the sun rise. Just as she arrived at Baba Yaga’s a 3rd rider in black on a black horse rode right into the hut. Swiftly it became night. There was a fence of bones and skulls which through a errie light on the forest clearing. Baba Yaga was very fearsome, she traveled in a cauldron shaped like a mortar and pestle, which fly along by itself. She had a long chin curved up and a long nose curved down which met in the middle. She a white goatee and warts on her skin from her trade in toads. Her brown stained finger nails were thick and ridged like roofs, and so curled over she could not make a fist. More strange was her house, which sat atop huge, scaly, chicken legs, and walked about by itself, twirling around like a ecstatic dancer. The bolts on the doors were made from human fingers and toes and the lock was a snout with sharp pointed teeth.
“What do you want?” called the witch to which the trembling girl replied “ I have come for fire, the house is cold and my people will die.. I need fire” Baba Yaga snapped “ oh yes, I know your people. And what makes you think I should give you the flame?” Vasalisa quickly consulted the doll and replied the correct answer of “ because I ask”
Then the threat “ I cannot give you fire until you perform tasks for me..(her eyes turn to red hot cinders) If you fail my child you shall die”
They rumbled into the hovel and Baba Yaga ate food for 10 people when Vasalisa had only a thimbal of soup. “wash my clothes, sweep the yard and house, prepare my food, and separate the good corn from the mildewed corn. I’ll return to see that everything is in order, if not you’ll be my feast.” On off she went with nose for a windsocka dn a sail of hair…it became night again. With the door shut, Vasalisa asked her doll for advice who assured her all would be fine and that she should rest. * much text missing******
