Women who run with the wolves

As I read ”Women who run with the wolves” I often get in contact with deeper layers within me. Sometimes it’s like Pinkola Estés talks about me and my experiences. And I guess, that If I would dive into the book for longer periods, and meditate a lot around what she says, I would learn even more about myself and other women. And I guess I would be even more encouraged to deep self exploration, leading to more self love.

Even if I don’t make a superficial reading, I know there are even more depts to be found in this rich book.

And now I felt an urge to show what sometimes happen.

I am reading Chapter 8, and this time we have read a folk tale about ”The red shoes” (new to me). And then she goes through the story, analyzing what happens and what we can learn about the wild woman, and ourselves.

In this chapter she talks about traps that could hinder us from getting in touch with the wilder parts of us. The sixth trap is named ”Cringing before the collective, shadow rebellion”. And as I read it I am transferred 50 years back in town. The time when I was bullied by the other girls, and the punsihment was that I wasn’t allowed to play with them. I was alone on the schoolyard. Luckily I still was sort of a princess in the classroom, since I really really loved learning! 

”If we cringe before the collective and acquiesce to pressureas for mindless conformity, we are protected from exile, but at the same time also treacherously endanger our wildish lives.”

Well that was what I did. I bent down. I accepted my position. And I searched ways to be accepted again. I hated being out in the cold.

”For a wild child born into a rigid community, the usual outcome is to experience the ignominy of being shunned. Shunning treats the victim as is she does not exist. It withdraws spiritual concern, love, and other psychic necessities from that person. The idea is to force her to conform, or else to kill her spirituality and/or drive her form the village to languish and die in the outback.”

That was sort of how it felt.

”If a woman is shunned, it is almost always because she has done or is about to do something in the wildish range, oftentimes something as simple as expressing a slightly diffferent belief…”

My crime was, as I see it in retrospective, that I loved school, learned easily and did my homework.

”.. Sometimes the only alternative to cringing before a parched collective is to commit an act drenched in courage.”

Well I stepped up, and had the courage to question our teacher on behalf on wishes from the others. And then I slowly started to be visible again.

”When the collective is hostile to a woman’s natural life /…/ she can and must /…/ hold on, hold out, and search for that which she belongs to - and preferably outlive, out-thrive and out-create those who vilified her.”

When the class met several years later, I learned that I led at far better life than the girls that bullied me. And I must admit, I felt triumphant.