A book opens a universe before the reader. When we think of the Universe, our imagination soon takes us to the sky, with the planets, the Earth, to a wide place... But this one, from “Women who run with the wolves”, will transport us to another type of universe, a very close to us, but as immense and as unknown as that one – that of the female mind. Find out with us!
Introducing the book – “Women Who Run With Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype”
With more than 550 pages, the book “Women who run with the wolves” is presented in 19 chapters. They contain researched and selected myths and stories from various cultures, which support the subjects addressed to reveal to the reader the archetype of the wild woman, who, for thousands of years, has been “tamed”.
After each story, the writer's archetypal analysis is included, who, throughout the work, proposes the rescue of the feminine essence in its original and wild form, understood as primordial. It is the essence of a free woman, strong and capable of living her principles and her will, exploring her own nature, far removed from the conventions imposed by patriarchal, conservative and misogynist societies.
It was published in 1992 and spent about 70 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, a true bestseller despite its dense volume and complexity of reading. You should read it carefully and at your own individual pace, preferably performing the exercises proposed by the author at the end of each chapter.
It is a timeless work, written based on extensive research by author Clarissa Pinkola Estés, a renowned Jungian psychoanalyst. She brought together the ancestral wisdom of the oral tradition of fairy tales with the analytical psychology of Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), a Swiss physician and psychiatrist, founder of this theory, in a rich and transformative work of self-knowledge.
The title of the book refers to the wolves Canis lupus and Canis rufus, which, according to Clarissa, are like women in terms of energy and work, with common psychological characteristics, such as active perception, a cheerful spirit, a high capacity for dedication. , intuition, endurance and strength. She also highlights the community nature, caring for the family, adaptive capacity, courage and determination.
Clarissa gathers and analyzes the archetypes linked to women that are harmful in the sense of making them believe in fragility, hindering inner strength, self-esteem, creativity and allowing depression, fear and psychological blocks.
Reasons to read “Women who run with the wolves”
The first reason is to know the author's thinking and approach, a woman who runs with the wolves. Clarissa graduated with a degree in Psychology and Psychotherapy from Colorado Heights University in 1976. She received a PhD in Ethnic-Clinical Psychology from the Union Institute & University in Cincinnati, focusing on indigenous history and psychological and social patterns of groups and tribal cultures in 1981. Completed a post-doctorate at The Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts, Switzerland, in 1984. He worked as a psychoanalyst specializing in post-traumatic recovery in places of natural disasters and massacres between 1993 and 2003 and taught creative writing in several United States prisons.
The book "Women who run with the wolves" is an excellent tool for rescuing the strength, instinct and deepest intuition of the female mind, lost at the end of matriarchal societies where the sacred feminine was valued. According to the author, in order to make way for patriarchal societies and control female sexuality and strength, the wild archetype of women was curtailed.
It is impossible not to have a self-identification at some point in the book. Both women and men are faced with the woman they know or once knew, grandmothers, mothers, sisters, friends, etc.
The stories, myths, tales and legends from various parts of the world that make up the book “Women who run with the wolves” are a powerful strategy to show how women connected to their own nature and to the model of freedom and self-love emerge from overcoming social and cultural conditioning. Thus, they rescue their dormant essence for various subjects, such as self-knowledge, love, sexuality, forgiveness, creativity, care, life, death, rebirth and so many others.
The recognition of one's own identity, without masks and artifices that make a woman socially accepted, are addressed in the book and help women free themselves from the desire to please to give way to the desire to please themselves, allowing for truer relationships.
By reading “Women who run with the wolves”, we will find a way to overcome the fear of losing control, listen to the voice of intuition and unclog self-confidence. The work also allows us to access the undesirable aspects of our personality, our wounds. It is possible to get in touch with one's own history and accept the opportunity for transformation that is achieved by the end of the book. Reading is revolutionary!
“Women who run with wolves” and what it means when the blood is dark
Seeking self-knowledge and evolution means identifying one's own shadows and acting in the darkest and, at times, painful depths, courageously challenging oneself to bring out the strength of self-love, one's own salvation. This is the hidden context in the short story “The Bluebeard”, by Charles Perrault, part of the book “Women who run with the wolves”.
In the short story “The Bluebeard”, briefly, a very rich count, nicknamed with the name of the title, had already been married before, and his women had disappeared without anyone knowing their whereabouts. Married to a naive girl, he decides to travel and gives his wife the keys to the castle where they live and allows her to invite her brothers to stay with her. Taken by curiosity to know the whole place, together with her older sisters, she goes on testing the keys and intuitively finds the room with the smallest and most different key of all. Upon opening, however, she comes across the remains of her husband's ex-wives. Even after locking the door, she notices that the key won't stop gushing dark red blood. The husband, returning from a trip, discovers what the girl has found and, infuriated, expects her to prepare for death. She apparently accepts it with resignation.
The tale is full of symbolism: what does it mean when the blood is dark in the key that spurts out non-stop, as well as in the room that the protagonist finds, which soils her dress? When the blood is dark, it represents, in the archetypal analysis, the consciousness that, once accessed, has no way of retroacting and calls for decision-making.
When blood is dark in the context of the story, it dominates the room, the key, the dress, the wardrobe. Just like the consciousness that expands. The protagonist begins a process of maturation and loses her naivety about the restraints imposed on her inner strength, begins to make full use of her intelligence and sees the truth about her predator, who, although personified by Bluebeard, also represents everything that prevents her from realizing her nature of freedom and power. She went through an initiation.
What is contained in dark red blood?
In the book “Women who run with the wolves”, the author analyzes the wild female archetype hidden in the short story “O Barba Azul” and clarifies what is contained in the dark red blood that pours from the key, alerting to the fact that it represents the remembrance of the discovery of what imprisons, patterns, and inhibits the power of the wild woman. It proves that awareness has begun, it is visible and uncontrollable, there has already been a process of understanding allowed by questioning and maturation. The proper questions were asked, the answers to which are contained in dark red blood: What do I know about myself that I'd rather not know? What in me no longer lives? What only appears to be, but is not really? What are my real weaknesses, which, in the shadows or darkness of my conscience, are actually my strengths?
Self-knowledge and clarity of potentialities is what is contained in dark red blood. In it is the wisdom about everything that patriarchal society has restricted from women over time: intuition, strength, cunning, justice and kindness insofar as she is neither foolish nor loses her affection.
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Here we bring just a few aspects of the wonderful work done in the book “Women who run with the wolves”. If you want an awakening of the wild woman who bravely faces her evolution, freely, on a journey of respect for her own nature and individuality, this is a good opportunity. Be enchanted by the possibility of expanding consciousness! Run with the wolves, strong and true to your true identity.
