Tag: women who run with the wolves

Inner Visions | February 4, 2021

EleanorLeave a comment

Journal Date: February 4th, 2021

I had another reiki session with Angelic yesterday.

As usual, it was a good experience. I feel like it was very healing.

This time I also had very interesting and intense visions while she was doing the energy healing.

It began as it usually does.

At first, I didn’t see very much at all. 

Then, shifting colors began appearing in my field of inner vision.

After a few more minutes, a more definite image began to emerge.

It took me by surprise.

The first image that appeared was a crocodile. 

It was not what I expected.

But I decided to just stay with it, allow it, follow it and see where it took me.

I followed it down the banks of the Nile River and ended up in Ancient Egypt. I saw the great civilization, and all of the magic that went on there. I could see the great cities, and the temples lit up at night.

And I tried to look for myself, to see if I was there, how I fit into all this.

And with that, I found myself somewhere else.

This time, it was morning, and I was in a garden, somewhere in or near Mexico City.

I was wearing a flowing white knee length dress and gold sandals, and my dog Beso was there with me, with a white and gold collar and leash set.

We walked together along a garden path until we reached an elegant temple in the middle of the tropical garden we were in.

Together, we walked up the stairs and stepped inside.

The inside of this temple was dazzlingly beautiful, and with its high vaulted ceilings and long expanses of glass windows stretching up towards the sky, had the look and feel of a renaissance cathedral.

I walked, with Beso beside me on his leash, down the long aisle towards the beautifully decorated altar.

Once we arrived at the front of the cathedral, I noticed another section of this temple which had caught my attention. I turned to my left and began walking in this direction.

This section of the temple appeared to be a museum, and it was much darker here than the rest of the space, the only light coming from the glass box display cases.

Stepping inside, I realized that this museum was dedicated to me.

Looking closer, I could see, yes, each display case held items or photographs of events from my past. It was arranged chronologically, starting at birth.

My first thought on seeing this was, “Oh no… I can’t go through this again.”

I heard a voice (which would later speak to me at similar critical times) answer, “Yes, you can. You can do this. It’s safe to see what there is to be seen here.”

So I took a step forward, and I continued.

It was difficult to go back through this reliquary containing my past. 

So much suffering was contained within these displays.

But there was beauty, and there were tender moments, some measure of sweetness, and little bit of joy, as well.

As I walked, there were moments that overwhelmed me, and I felt that I could not go on.

But as before, a voice from beyond encouraged me. “Keep going. You can. There is nothing for you to fear within these walls.”

So I did.

I walked and I looked and I took the time to feel for everything that came up.

I cried, very often. So many tears had to be shed.

But this time, they were tears of compassion, sympathy and love, filled with sadness for the girl and the woman I’d once been (rather than of shame and bitterness, as they had often come before).

I won’t spend much time now on the specifics of what I saw there–it’s nothing new, nothing I haven’t known about or written extensively on before by now.

What is important here is the journey I made through this memorial of my self, and how I felt and reacted to what was there.

After maybe 20 minutes in this process, I finally made it to the last display case, to the present moment and the end of the museum.

When I had arrived at the end of the final exhibit, all of a sudden the dark wing of the temple containing this museum lit up, and was now brightly lit with hundreds of candles and torches illuminating the beautifully decorated walls.

And now I could see up to the ceiling of this cathedral, where uncovered windows showed the brilliant, burning stars shining down into my corner of the cosmos.

It was very late, maybe 4 or 5am – an entire night had passed during my descent into my own personal underworld.

It felt like a signal that my descent was over. And I felt I was being honored with this beautiful display for having made it through.

I knew that soon, the sun would be rising outside, and that my time in this temple of the past was near its end. I felt I was being asked, “Do you have anything you would like to say before you leave here?”

And before I could think twice, I heard myself answer, “Thank you.”

And then immediately, another part of me responded with something like, “Really?? Thank you? Are you kidding me?”

“Well, yeah…” I shyly responded. Then, a little more surely, “I guess I am grateful – it got me here, didn’t it? It made me who I am. And I’m proud of that.”

Though I was still tearful as I lay there on the table in Angelic’s office (the “real,” physical me) had to smile a little: it was true. I was grateful. And yes, I was proud. I had made it. I had made it through to the other side of all that.

And though it seemed enough to simply have survived, what’s more, I knew that one day, I would say that I had triumphed.

At that point, I looked down at my wrist, and I saw some markings appear there.

They were the two tattoos that I have wanted to get, the infinity symbol on my left wrist, and a small black skull on my right, both drawn in the style of the Smith-Waite tarot.

And I remembered what I had recently heard Clarissa Pinkola Estés say about the scars that people like me carried:

“It’s never going to look like you never suffered. Although I say, be proud of your scars. It has everything to do with your strength and what you’ve endured. It’s a map, so to speak, a treasure map to the self, the deepest self.”

And then I heard a voice say, “You have nothing to be ashamed of anymore. You can leave all of that behind. It was never truly yours to carry in the first place.”

I acknowledged this was true. This is a major part of what the inner work of the last year has shown me: most of the shame I carried came from things which had been done to me, not by me. 

I carried the shame of my abusers, of my attackers, and those who had committed crimes against me.

I carried the burden of guilt that properly belong to those who had hurt me, the mother who hated me, the father who had refused to protect me from harm. 

I had created this structure of lies about myself and my life, all resting upon this false foundation: “It’s because you deserved it. If you had simply been better, they wouldn’t have ‘had’ to…”

Well, now I know better. Now I knew that the failings were not mine. I did not bear the responsibility, and I could not account for these sins of theirs.

The voice spoke again.

“There is nothing to fear here. You don’t have to be afraid any longer. You may return whenever you want to, and you will find only peace here.”

And with that, I was ready.

With little Beso next to me, I stepped outside the temple door into the early morning light.

The sun had not come fully over the horizon yet, but the sky was becoming lighter with each passing second.

Beso and I walked down the rear temple stairs, both of us now dressed in new clothes: he was in an adorable little white doggie tuxedo with a gold leash, while I now stood in a flowing floor length chiffon gown with a light white cape, all with gold details, as well as a golden necklace decorated with pearls, and similarly made matching earrings.

After walking down the stars, we stepped onto a garden path that first led to a fountain filled with flowing water.

I walked to it, and dipped my hands into the running water and brought it to my face, and with a white towel, cleansed myself before continuing down the garden trail.

It was here that I stepped onto what was now a grass-covered path with my bare feet. The sun was shining down on the earth, and the grass felt both warmed by the sun while retaining a certain earthy coolness belonging to the morning.

From there on, I walked barefoot on the grass with little Beso by my side until I reached a throne, also gold and ivory and decorated with pearls to match the clothes I was already wearing.

I sat down, and it was here that my gold and white crown appeared on my head.

I had made it.

I was now sovereign, ruler of my own kingdom.

I had learned how to belong to myself, discovered my own agency, and the right and ability to make decisions that would serve me and all that I oversaw.

Once I had been crowned and was comfortably seated on my throne, people began to arrive.

They were all dressed mostly in white, along with the addition of one bright primary color as an accessory (like a royal blue belt or a red scarf).

When all of the guests had arrived for the celebration we were to have, it made for a very vibrantly colorful and energetic garden party.

As they arrived, the guests spoke to me.

They welcome me to my kingdom.

They told me, “You made it.”

“We’ve been waiting for you.”

“We’re so glad you’re finally here.”

They were all so happy to see me.

And it turns out they had expected me, had wanted to spend time with me, had been waiting just for me.

So when everyone arrived, we had our celebration.

It was a very peaceful, calm and relaxed garden lunch. We sat at a table set in the grass, covered in white linen with gold place settings, and ate healthy fruit and salads, drinking only water, juice and green tea.

The conversation lasted long into the afternoon, and nothing very much in particular happened. We just laughed and smiled and talked and enjoyed each other’s company.

Around this point, I left the perspective of being in my own body within the vision, and the scene seemed to zoom out until I could see the entire globe, spinning slowly in the void of space. 

As it spun, day shifted into night and then again to day and back again, and the people continued on, with no interruption to the rhythm of their peaceful daily happenings. All was calm, all continued with grace, and a gentle and reassuring order prevailed.

I saw myself again (this time, in a new change of clothes–a white button down shirt and pants) go on to interact with new people, and take on the role of a healer and helper.

And this, too, like day and night, alternated in a graceful rhythm, becoming part of the pattern of a new life of purpose and contentment.

Personal Mythology: Beauty and the Beast

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Journal Date: February 2, 2021

In contrast to the first myth I wrote about, my second (and earlier one) is much more fun. 

As a little girl, my favorite movie was Beauty and the Beast. I was literally obsessed with Belle (though I wouldn’t call her my favorite princess– for the purpose of this exercise, let’s say favorite Disney “archetype”).

To go back and look at this story and the character of Belle is both endearing and amusing to me.

I hadn’t thought about this movie or how much I loved it in years, maybe decades, even.

So it was pretty amazing to me to discover that my adult self had turned out to be so similar to this character I’d admired so much as a child.

Here are some examples of the similarities that I had a good laugh about while I listened to the song called Belle from the original movie:

LYRICSCOMMENTARY
[BELLE]
There goes the baker with his tray, like always
The same old bread and rolls to sell
Every morning just the same
Since the morning that we came
To this poor provincial town		Me complaining about living in Eastvale, or about “normal” day-to-day life in general.
[TOWNSFOLK]
Look there she goes, that girl is strange, no question
Dazed and distracted, can’t you tell?
Never part of any crowd’
Cause her head’s up on some cloud
No denying she’s a funny girl, that Belle		Accurate. This is how I live my life, with my head in a book.
Look there she goes, that girl is so peculiar
I wonder if she’s feeling well
With a dreamy, far-off look
And her nose stuck in a book
What a puzzle to the rest of us is Belle		How often have I heard people wonder why I’m so different from everyone else?
Now it’s no wonder that her name means “Beauty”
Her looks have got no parallel
But behind that fair façade
I’m afraid she’s rather odd
Very diff’rent from the rest of us is Belle		It’s true. People usually do seem to perceive me this way.
Look there she goes
The girl is strange but special
A most peculiar mademoiselle!
It’s a pity and a sin
She doesn’t quite fit in
‘Cause she really is a funny girl
A beauty but a funny girl
She really is a funny girl
That Belle!		Seems to be the general consensus about me…

It might seem a little silly at first, but I think there’s something to this idea of having a personal myth that your soul wants to follow. 

I’m tempted to say that the movie had a big influence on me, but in reality, I think it may have been the other way around. I think I was so drawn to it because there was something in me that recognized itself this story.

“Stories like that are the stories that lead us to developing our intuition, and using it, and saying, ‘This is right, this is my life, this is the way it should be,” Estés says. “Think of the story or movie or book or dream that you’re really taken with: it’s because it resonates to the deepest symbols within your own psyche.”

So maybe this is it. Maybe I don’t need to go back and make all these revisions to the later myths of mine, because I had it right with the first and original one I chose as a little girl to begin with.

And believe it or not, Belle does share some essential characteristics with characters like Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina.

At the root of their personalities is the tendency to be a dreamer, and a certain dissatisfaction with living a quotidian existence they are told they are supposed to want.

They all dare to go against conventions and imagine something more for themselves.

Maybe the only difference is, Belle stays true to herself, and true to her integrity. She’s different in that she has faith that she can have what she desires without violating her principles. 

Her compassionate and loving nature does not become a liability, but is in fact the essential key to achieving her dreams.

Most importantly, she belongs to herself. She honors herself and makes choices for herself that reflect that.

As an example, she doesn’t give in and marry Gaston, no matter what a prize he seems to be in the eyes of the townspeople. 

She doesn’t back down and diminish who she is or compromise her values, no matter how weird or strange anyone else thinks she is.

Her peculiarities do, in fact, make her ill-suited to achieving the kind of success the townspeople would recognize.

However, it is these very same qualities that make her the only one who is capable of lifting the curse put on the prince by the witch and restoring harmony and beauty to the castle. 

It is through her stubborn desires and continued capacity to dream and love that she is able to achieve her dreams and bring healing to where it is needed most.

So that’s it.

That’s the new ending to my story.

This is how I will reclaim my original guiding mythology.

May I find that I too be able to live like Belle, may I always remember it is truly possible to create what I dream of.

And the best part?

I don’t have to change or alter anything about me.

I just have to let the true self emerge.

That is enough.

Maybe it always has been.

Personal Mythology: Tragic Women in Literature

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Journal Date: February 2, 2021

The second practice Estés recommends in Warming the Stone Child is this:

“Remember back to childhood, your favorite fairytale, and consider that that fairytale actually became your myth, the guiding light of your life. And if that fairytale had a really rotten negative ending on the end of it, then you may wish to choose a new ending. You may wish to actually sit down and write, to play, to act, to mask-make, to dance a new ending to that fairytale. If the fairytale had a positive ending, then see what you can do to live that out. See what you can do to make that true in your own life.”

When I heard this, I didn’t have to think twice, I knew immediately exactly what my two myths were.

I’ll start with the more difficult of the two first.

When I was in high school, I loved literature about tragic women.

The stories I loved were always about women who dared to resist the rules and limitations placed upon them. They were women who paid dearly for it, each of them ultimately paying the greatest price of all in the end. 

Yes, Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, and Edna (from Kate Chopin’s The Awakening) all paid for the price of their liberation with their lives. Sadly, each one committed suicide before the novel was over. 

Each had left their stifled, boring and restrictive roles as wives and mothers, left to look for true love and sincere pleasure. 

And each of them was punished greatly for it. There could be no other ending for any of them, it seems.

I, too, felt myself involved in a struggle for my own life.

I, too, wanted to reclaim my existence for myself, to wrench my destiny out of the hands of society, and claim myself for me.

Clearly, I identified with these women who felt trapped in their given roles.

What I failed to see was the moral lesson these stories now seem intended to impart.

I’d always thought the authors had portrayed these women sympathetically.

And yet, each of them had sentenced their protagonists to an early death.

Each died by her own hand for having disobeyed the laws of the land, the unwritten laws that required women to be docile, submissive, and in never-ending servitude to children and to men.

It seems to me now that these were in fact cautionary tales. While they depicted an alternative route a woman could take, it warned us all that it was only a dangerous dead end to be avoided. 

They seemed to say, “Don’t ask questions. Don’t get any ideas. Don’t stray, or else.”

It took me years to realize I’d internalized these stories about women and what we deserved.

And to recognize that I had been living them out myself, in my own way.

I too felt that I had strayed. That I had chosen myself and my own desires over what men or the world wanted for me as a woman.

And I could, even now, feel the specter of death lingering near me. 

For so many years, I suffered under the weight of feeling I had gone too far, that all hope was gone, and that death, yes, my own death, by my own hand, was the only “honorable” and “right” resolution to this story I was living.

Now that I see this, I’m ready to let it go. 

Now I am willing to release this internalized demand for punishment, this death wish that exists for women who dare to belong to themselves.

In all honesty, I struggle even now to imagine a different outcome for any of the women from these novels of the 19th century. I don’t know if much else would have been possible, at least, without having these women face some other equally awful consequence.

But I don’t need to redeem them.

It is me, a woman living right now, that requires redemption.

And not through punishment or penitence.

No, the way I will tell my story from now on, those things aren’t required.

So what happens at the end of this story?

In this version, the woman realizes she had the right idea.

She has not only a right, but a responsibility, to belong to herself. To live her own life, for herself, as she sees fit.

This doesn’t have to mean choosing one of the two standard options offered to us. There are more choices to be had than blind submission or careless rebellion.

I can choose instead to live with integrity, to honor myself without putting myself in dangerous situations. 

I can now choose a life that truly benefits me, because I finally believe that I have a right to.

Inner Beso Dream

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Journal Date: February 2, 2021

At the end of the collection of short stories in Warming the Stone Child, Clarissa Pinkola Estés offers a couple tips for continuing the healing journey on your own.

The first one is this: “Pay attention to your dreams. Your dreams will tell you everything. In terms of injured instinct, dreams that are about animals that are injured or not acting properly are very good clues to what is hurt or what is injured in the deep unconscious.”

It’s funny, because just days before I heard this in this book, I had a very intense dream which fits what Estés is describing here perfectly.

From what I can remember, I had been struggling inside of this dream for a while before the parts that I became more directly conscious of occurred.

I remember that in this dream, I had been at a party for quite some time, feeling more and more frustrated as it went on.

Both my best friend and my ex-boyfriend were there. In this dream, we were still dating, but I could tell that he was losing interest, and not wanting to be with me.

Then my best friend showed up, and somehow it became known that she intended to sleep with him.

I tried to convince her not to do that, but apparently I didn’t do a very good job, because that’s exactly what happened next.

And in the dream, I just could not get over it.

I held on to that so tightly, with so much resentment and bitterness. I just couldn’t let it go. I told everyone I met. It was the only thing I wanted to talk about in my dream, really.

It just went on and on like that, endlessly, without reprieve.

It was like I had to convince anybody who would come near me how wrong it was. How it was something which could never be forgiven, which I had to hold onto forever.

This went on for a frustratingly long amount of time.

Until suddenly, I found that I was no longer at the party, but back on the streets of Whittier, making my way back towards my childhood home on Friends Ave.

And I had a little baby Beso in a wrinkled up, used and old plastic bag inside of my black backpack, just like the one I had in middle school.

Baby Beso was very sick.

I had fed him something toxic without knowing it was poisonous to him.

And so now I was trying to make my way back to this house, thinking that it was here that I would be able to take Beso out of the old bag in the backpack. 

I knew that he was suffering in there, it was dark and poorly ventilated, and I could only rarely look inside to check on him and see if he was even still alive.

And on top of this, I kept getting distracted, caught up again and again in telling everyone I encountered what a victim I was, and how I would never forgive them for what they had done to me.

This went on until I found myself on a street near Uptown Whittier, one which was on the other side of the alley where I had often walked through on my way to another friend’s house.

I took one last look inside of my backpack to check on baby Beso–and he was not doing well.

His eyes were red, deeply irritated all around the edges, and it was clear that he was suffering, struggling and very much in pain.

I was worried that he may not make it all the way to my mother’s house.

But I was convinced, for some reason, that there was nothing I could do until I reached this place, so I put him in my backpack again, and kept on walking.

And then I woke up.

I thought about that dream quite a bit that day. Clearly, there seemed to be a significant connection between what went on in my dream and in my world.

I remembered how my therapist has started calling the part of me that still needs mothering, the child within that requires loving attention and care, my “Inner Beso.”

I think it’s because I talk about my dog all the time, and how much I love being his “mom,” and how much I’ve learned from caring for him. I think he keeps saying that to encourage me to do the same for myself, to transfer my Beso-mothering skills into inner child, self-mothering skills.

What I got from analyzing my dream was this:

Maybe the bitterness and resentment I’ve been feeling towards my family aren’t serving a purpose anymore.

Maybe they are poisonous, maybe they are the toxic food that I have unknowingly been feeding my “inner Beso.”

And maybe I’m just going in the wrong direction entirely.

Why go revisit that old place in Whittier? 

Why go “home”?

There was nothing nourishing in that place to begin with. To keep returning there no longer makes any sense to me.

Maybe it’s just a distraction, a dangerous lie putting my inner child at further risk of being harmed.

Maybe the thing to do is attend to my “inner Beso” now, right where I’m at, as imperfect as that may be.

And please, take him out of that dirty old bag in your backpack immediately!

There is no reason to hide him away anymore.

All of this is to say, I need to turn and start heading in the other direction now.

This return to the childhood home, the return to the past, has served its purpose and outlived its usefulness. 

I’ve learned what I came to learn. Now is the time to move beyond it.

And I don’t need to wait to start caring for myself. I can start feeding my “inner Beso” healthy, nourishing food. 

I can give myself experiences that fill me up and nourish my soul.

I don’t have to wait anymore.

The Little Match Girl

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A sad little girl with black hair holding matches out in the snow

Journal Date: November 28, 2020

This morning, I was trying to keep reading. I didn’t know what else to do.

So I picked up Women who Run with the Wolves again, and opened it where I’d left off at Chapter 10.

This turned out to be a chapter that had more than one story in it.

So I finished the first part, with the story of “La Llorona,” and kept reading into the next one.

This one was called “The Little Match Girl.”

It was not what I expected it would be.

I’d heard of it, and even read it once before (as part of an assignment Mama Gena had included as part of our homework in GPS).

But this time, it shocked me. Because I saw that this story was about me.

It told of a poor little girl who lived alone in a dark forest. She had no mother and no father. She had no money or possessions, either, except for a few matches that she bought for half a penny and sold for one.

Winter came, and the cold weather, and she tried to go sell the matches in the nearby town. 

“She wandered the streets and begged strangers, would they please buy matches from her? But no one stopped and paid her any attention.”

One night, suffering from the cold, she decided to light her matches to warm herself, though she had no wood and no kindling.

Every time she lit a match, she found herself immersed in some fantasy, only to awaken again colder than ever.

She struck the third and final match, and in her fantasy her grandmother appeared, “so warm and so kind, and the child felt so happy to see her…” But then the grandmother began to fade, as the little match girl felt herself rise up into heaven.

The story ends sadly, with the little match girl found cold and dead between the houses the next morning.

It wasn’t this telling of the story that resonated with me so much as the commentary that followed.

Here is the first paragraph of interpretation after the story:

“This chid lives in an environ where people do not care. If you are in one of these, get out.”

Hm. Well, that was pretty direct. 

She continues: “This child is in a milieu where what she has, little fires on sticks–the beginnings of all creative possibilities–are not valued. If you are in this predicament, turn your back and walk away.”

Estes seems to feel pretty strongly about this. She goes on to say, “This child is in a psychic situation in which there are few options. She has resigned herself to her ‘place’ in life. If this has happened to you, unresign yourself and come out kicking ass.”

I feel that this has been where I have been most of my life. I had resigned myself to place for so long. I had come to believe that there was no other way for me.

“She cannot awaken to a life with a future because her wretched life is like a hook upon which she hangs daily. In initiations, spending a significant amount of time under difficult conditions is part of a dismemberment that severs one from ease and complacency. As an initiatory passage, it will come to a conclusion, and the newly ‘sanded down’ woman will commence a refreshed and enwisened spiritual and creative life. 

However, women in the Match Girl condition could be said to be involved in an initiation that has gone awry. The hostile conditions do not serve to deepen, only to decimate. Another venue, another environ, with different supports and guides, must be chosen.”

I think this is why I have been so focused on wanting to move to Mexico City. I have intuited the fact that this is not an environment where I will ever be able to grow. I’m 32, and it still seems impossible. I don’t think the conditions around me will ever change. So I’ve decided I must go somewhere else.

“The Match Girl wanders the streets and she begs strangers to buy matches from her. This scene shows one of the most disconcerting things about injured instinct in women, the giving of light for little price… Bad lovers, rotten bosses, exploitative situations, wily complexes of all sorts tempt a woman to these choices.”

This has been true about me. It has been the saddest thing about me, about my life: my willingness to lower the price, to just give myself away to anyone, to beg them to accept me. 

But how was I supposed to know better? I was always taught (by words and by force) that this was the only way.

“The Match Girl lights more matches. Each fantasy burns out, and again the child is in the snow and freezing. When the psyche freezes, a woman is turned toward herself and no one else.”

And it was all for no use. Every shitty boss, emotionally abusive partner, it all ended the same. With me left even more out in the cold, again. Everything I did to hold on to the fantasy ensured my own future end.

“It is a psychic fact that when libido or energy wanes to the point where its breath no longer shows on the mirror, some representation of the Life/Death/Life nature shows up, here portrayed by the grandmother. It is her work to arrive at the death of something, to incubate the soul that has left its husk behind, and to care for the soul till it can be born anew.”

I’m at that point now. I’ve spent this past year in surrender, dying to everything I’ve ever known or believed to be true. 

I’m ready to move forward. I’m dying to be reborn.

A sad little girl with black hair out in the snow

“And that is the blessedness of everyone’s psyche. Even in the event of such a painful ending as the Match Girl’s, there is a ray of light. When enough time, discontent, and pressure have been brought to bear, the Wild Woman of the psyche will hurl new life into a woman’s mind, giving her opportunity to act in her own behalf once more. As we can see from the suffering involved, it is far better to heal one’s addiction to fantasy than wait around wishing and hoping to be raised from the dead.”

Encountering the Animus

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Journal Date: November 25, 2020

I decided to do some reading for fun, for myself, so I picked up Women who Run with the Wolves again. 

I’m picking up where I left off, in the chapter on nurturing the creative life.

And once again, I’m finding that it’s exactly what I needed, exactly when I needed it.

As I picked up where I’d left off, the theme of the chapter turned to the nature of the animus in a woman’s psyche.

This is something that has long interested me. I knew my inner masculine was far from healthy, but I was lost as to what to do about it. I think here, I have found a way to start.

“Animus can best be understood as a force that assists women in acting on their own behalf in the outer world. Animus helps a woman put forth specific and feminine inner thoughts and feelings in concrete ways.”

“He brings ideas from ‘out there’ back into her, and he carries ideas from her soul-self across the bridge to fruition and ‘to market’. Without the builder and maintainer of this land bridge, a woman’s inner life cannot be manifested with intent in the outer world.” 

Furthermore, Estes speaks of the distrust many women feel for the masculine, even within themselves.

“Generally, this wariness comes from barely beginning to be healed traumas from family and culture during times previous, times when women were treated as serfs, not as selfs.”

And it is not even “previous times” for all. Not for me. This treatment was for me, in my time.

I think that’s the core of the issue: I was denied the right to have a self. 

I was forbidden from myself.

I felt I existed only as a reflection, as a means to another’s end.

“It is still fresh in wild woman’s memory that there was a time when gifted women were tossed away as refuse, when a woman could not have an idea unless she secretly embedded and fertilized it in a man who then carried it out into the world under his own name.”

This has been the most painful part of it all: my alienation from self. My disconnection from my own body, mind, heart and soul. My self-betrayal and self-abandonment, based only on the assumption that I had less of a right (to think, to act, to be) than anyone else.

“The key aspect to a positive animus development is actual manifestation of cohesive inner thoughts, impulses and ideas.” 

The positive animus appears to be action oriented, concerned with bringing form to the ideal. It is practical, not simply theoretical.

“Archetypally, the King [representing the Animus] symbolizes a force that is meant to work in a woman’s behalf and for her well-being, governing what she and soul assign to him, ruling over what psychic forces are granted to him.”

Unfortunately, the masculine as I have come to know it is not this way.

I have experienced the masculine not as protector, but as perpetrator. As the source of violence and fear. As that which seeks to control, and to silence me. 

Even if only my own inner masculine, the animus which rules my terrorized interior world with an iron fist.

“But what if something takes over the creative flow, making it muddier and muddier? What if we become trapped by that, what if we somehow perversely begin to derive issue from it, to not only like it but rely on it, make a living by it, feel alive through it? What if we use it to get us out of bed in the morning, to take us somewhere, to make us a somebody in our own minds? Those are the traps that wait for all of us.” –Clarissa Pinkola Estes

It is definitely a trap that I have fallen into. 

And haven’t really gotten out of.

Honestly, I’m still here, wallowing in it as we speak.

I think it’s a great question to ask: What purpose is your illness/inferiority complex/lack of creativity serving for you?

Because it does serve some purpose at this point.

First, it’s a great excuse.

It gives me all the reasons I could ever need for why I can’t do x, y or z.

It allows me to tell myself, “Well, my unhappiness/lack of success/whatever is because I’m not really trying. If it weren’t for this, it would all be different…”

It allows me to avoid taking responsibility for my own life.

I can keep blaming it all on someone else, and keep away from the recognition of how I continually give away my power.

Because yes, I do have power. Even now.

I don’t have to wait until everything is “perfect,” until I’m “fully healed” or have gained approval or validation or whatever it is I’ve been waiting for.

I could start now if I wanted to. If I chose to. 

I’m starting to suspect that I’ve always had more power than I think I do.

I must stop assuming otherwise. 

It’s not just out of fear, but laziness, that I do this.

Because assuming I am powerless amounts to an act of surrender.

By refusing to look at all the options I have to create and influence change, it is as if I were just handing over my life and my self to whatever it is outside of me that would have me in subservience.

It’s time for me to remember: I don’t have to do that anymore.

Descansos

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Journal Date: Thursday, November 5, 2020

I just finished an exercise Estés suggested we do in this chapter on rage in Women who Run with the Wolves. It’s called “Descansos,” and here we are to mark all the little (and large) deaths of our lives.

“Descansos are symbols that mark a death. Right there, right on that spot, someone’s journey in life halted unexpectedly. To make descansos means taking a look at your life and marking where the small deaths, las muertes chiquitas, and the big deaths, las muertes grandotas, have taken place.”

Estés encourages us to make our own descansos, to sit down and examine our lives, our losses, all the places which must be remembered and at the same time, put to rest.

I had a lot of crosses to mark.

My life has been filled with losses. One right after another, with little chance to recover in between.

At this point, I have between 25-30 crosses marked down to represent what I have lost.

Descansos

It’s a lot, but somehow it still doesn’t feel like enough.

I don’t even think my greatest losses are even on here.

My deepest pain comes from having missed something more intangible than a job or a boyfriend or anything I listed here before.

Maybe my greatest loss is actually me. My own self.

To have grown up never knowing (not to mention never liking) myself.

To never have felt at home. Not even in my own body. 

Especially not in my own body. This was a source of shame, and where I could locate all of my pain. Better just to not be here. To escape, by whatever means necessary.

And not just my body. I was estranged from all of me.

Always looking outside of myself for the “right” answer. 

The “right” way to look, think, feel, act, be.

I didn’t even know what I was looking for.

I just knew that I was doing it wrong.

I was just wrong, period.

I never belonged to myself. 

That’s the worst part.

I was in such a rush to give myself away. I would sell myself off to the lowest bidder. I was constantly in a rush to find the quickest way to betray myself next.

It’s very sad.

Looking back on all of this, I feel so tired. 

Exhausted. 

What was the meaning behind all of this?

It’s hard to understand.

But I’m starting to feel ready to grieve my losses. To grieve, and to let go.

“Remember in ‘The Crescent Moon Bear’ the woman said a prayer and laid the wandering orphaned dead to rest. That is what one does in descansos. Descansos is a conscious practice that takes pity on and gives honor to the orphaned dead of your psyche, laying them to rest at last.

“Be gentle with yourself and make the descansos, the resting places for the aspects of yourself that were on their way to somewhere, but never arrived. Descansos mark the death sites, the dark times, but they are also love notes to your suffering. They are transformative. There is a lot to be said for pinning things to the earth so they don’t follow us around. There is a lot to be said for laying them to rest.”

The Wisdom of the Crescent Moon Bear

EleanorLeave a comment

Journal Date: 10:15am – Thursday, November 5, 2020

I’ve been reading a chapter in Women Who Run with the Wolves today. This one is on rage, something I do need guidance on at this moment in my life.

Here, she tells the story of the “Crescent Moon Bear” as a way to show us how we can deal with our anger.

The story starts with a woman preparing for her husband to come back from the war. She goes shopping and cooks meals for him and does everything she can to please him and make him happy.

But when she goes to him and offers him what she has made, he gets angry and flips over the trays, sending everything she has worked so hard to prepare onto the floor.

The pattern repeats itself over many nights. The man is still in a state of shock, and will not be consoled. His mind is still preoccupied with the images of violence and fear he has seen and experienced in the war he’s only just returned from.

So the woman, in a state of distress, goes to seek out the healer on the outskirts of the village.

The healer tells her to go climb to mountain and bring her back one hair from the throat of the Crescent Moon Bear.

So the woman ascends the mountain by herself to meet the bear.

As she walks the trail up the mountain among the rocks and under the trees, she says, “Arigato zaisho,” a way of thanking the mountain for allowing her to walk on her body and to pass safely.

Getting to even higher ground, she surprised by the birds which fly out at and then past her, these birds representing the spirits of the dead with no family, the muen-botoke.

She tells them, “I will be your relative. I will lay you to rest.”

The muen-botoke symbolize the parts of ourselves which we may have abandoned during times of distress.

These can be thought of as the difficult emotions and experiences which we may have repressed or dissociated from during any incident which was traumatic or otherwise overwhelmed our body’s capacity to cope.

The woman promises them that she will be their family, she will bury them. With this, it is as if she is saying, “I will recognize you as my own, I will honor you and put you to rest.”

Finally, after continued struggling up the mountain, the woman finds the tracks of the crescent moon bear. She hides near the entrance of her cave, and every morning, she leaves food out for the bear to discover upon waking in the morning.

Slowly, with patience, she gets closer and closer to the Crescent Moon Bear, until one day she finds herself directly underneath it.

She tells the bear of her situation, about her angry husband who has come back from the war traumatized and upset, and asks the bear for a single hair from its throat which she needs to heal her husband.

The bear, taking pity on her, consents to let the woman take one hair from the shining silvery crescent on her throat.

Having received the white hair from the crescent moon on the throat of the bear she rushes down the mountain through the Village to the house of the healer.

She rushes up to present the single white hair to her. The healer then smiles and throws the hair into the fire.

The woman cries out in despair, having lost the one ingredient she had struggled so much to obtain in order to heal her husband.

The healer reassured her, telling her the hair itself was not necessary. In learning how to approach the Crescent Moon Bear, win its trust and receive its message, she had learned what she must do to heal her husband as well.

“Now you know what you need to do. Go home, and repeat everything you have just done here with your husband. That is how you can heal this rage and find love again.”

In this story, we can take each character be a part of the woman’s own psyche.

The husband represents animus, the masculine inside of us, in this case the part which has been wounded. Normally, it is responsible for outer directed activity, for creating structure and boundaries and pursuing ambition and achievements in the world.

However, when wounded, it may have a tendency to respond by being either shut down, pushing others away, or with senseless rage and aggression. These responses are typical of the “fight-flight-freeze” trauma responses that are activated after periods of great stress or danger.

The woman here stands for the anima, or the emotional, feminine part of our psyches. This is the part which loves, which strives for union and ultimately seeks healing by going to find the healer outside of the village.

The bear can be thought to represent the wisdom of rage itself. The Crescent Moon Bear, and the primal power of sacred rage which she represents, are something which many of us fear and reject, but which, when approached with the proper care and respect, can ultimately serve as one of our greatest teachers.

The woman’s interactions with the bear and the environment around her along with her journey up the mountain show us a way in which we can start to come to terms with these difficult and troubling feelings.

With caution, with respect, with care, understanding and a little bit of fierceness, we can find the wisdom we need to release our pain while preserving our natural instinct to protect.

The bear teaches “that one can be fierce and generous at the same time. One can be reticent and valuable. One can protect one’s territory, make one’s boundaries clear, shake the sky if need be, yet be available, accessible, engendering all at the same time.”

In fact, I believe that in many ways it is the “NO” which makes the “YES” possible. If we are unable to communicate the points which are our limits, we will never be able to feel truly comfortable expressing the fullness of our power and can never express the fullness of our generosity, as well.

When we have discovered how to approach the tender, hurting parts of ourselves which we have previously sought to disown, we can begin the journey of healing and learning from our rage.

Our anger and our pain are worthy of being treated with respect. To push them away, or to ask that they simply “be nice” and act as if nothing has happened, is to do ourselves a disservice.

It is understandable to be wary of such a powerful and potentially explosive current of raw energy within ourselves. But there is a message waiting for us if we can sit quietly and let it speak to us.R

Repression or denial is hardly effective. In fact, it only makes the denied energy louder and more destructive, as it struggles to get us to pay attention to pain which needs tending to.

There is inestimable hope and healing available to those who turn towards the powerful sacred rage of the Crescent Moon Bear.

As Clarissa Pinkola Estes says, “Women who are tortured often develop a dazzling kind of perception that has uncanny depth and breadth. Although I would never wish anyone tortured in order to learn the secret ins and outs of the unconscious, the fact is, having lived through a gross repression causes gifts to arise that compensate and protect.

In that respect a woman who has lived a torturous life and delved deeply into it definitely has inestimable depth. Though she came to it through pain, if she has done the hard work of clinging to consciousness, she will have a deep and thriving soul-life and a fierce belief in herself regardless of the occasional ego-waverings.”

I know that this is true about me. This has been my path. What was once my shame is becoming my strength, and of that I am proud.

EleanorLeave a comment

“This is our meditation practice as women, calling back the dead and dismembered aspects of ourselves, calling back the dead and dismembered aspects of life itself. The one who re-creates from that which has died is always a double-sided archetype. The Creation Mother is always also the Death Mother and vice versa. Because of this dual nature, or double-tasking, the great work before us is to learn to understand what around and about us and what within us must live, and what must die. Our work is to apprehend the timing of both; to allow what must die to die, and what must live to live.”

Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run with the Wolves

This is what I must do now.

This is a turning point for me, and I must choose what will fall away, and what I will carry forward with me into the future.

I’m starting to come to terms with what has happened to me. I’m starting to be ready to see where I need to go next. And who I need to be, in order to get there.