01c. 1945 ADStories set the inner life into motion, and this is particularly important where the inner life is frightened, wedged, or cornered. Story greases the hoists and pulleys, it causes adrenaline to surge, shows us the way out, down, or up, and for our trouble, cuts for us fine wide doors in previously blank walls, openings that lead to the dreamland, that lead to love and learning, that lead us back to our own real lives as knowing wildish women.Clarissa Pinkola Estés / quote ↗
02c. 1945 ADEvery creature on earth returns to home. It is ironic that we have made wildlife refuges for ibis, pelican, egret, wolf, crane, deer, mouse, moose, and bear, but not for ourselves in the places we live day after day. We understand that the loss of habitat is the most disastrous event that can occur to a free creauture. We fervently point out how other creatures' natural territories have become surrounded by cities, ranches, highways, noise, and other dissonance, as though we are not affected also. We know that for creatures to live on, they must at least from time to time have a home place, a place where they feel both protected and freeClarissa Pinkola Estés / quote ↗
03c. 1945 ADWhen we accept our own wild beauty, it is put into perspective, and we are no longer poignantly aware of it anymore, but neither would we forsake it or disclaim it either. Does a wolf know how beautiful she is when she sleeps? Does a feline know what beautiful shapes she makes when she sits? Is a bird awed by the sound it hears when it snaps open its wings? Learning from them, we just act in our own true way and do not draw back from or hide our natural beauty. Like the creatures, we just are, and it is right.Clarissa Pinkola Estés / quote ↗
04c. 1945 ADTo be strong does not mean to sprout muscles and flex. It means meeting one's own numinosity without fleeing, actively living with the wild nature in one's own way. It means to be able to learn, to be able to stand what we know. It means to stand and live.Clarissa Pinkola Estés / quote ↗
05c. 1945 ADThe most important thing is to hold on, hold out, for your creative life, for your solitude, for your time to be and do, for your very life.Clarissa Pinkola Estés / quote ↗
06c. 1945 ADBeing real doesn't mean being reckless, it means allowing La Voz Mitologica, The Mythological Voice, to speak. One does that by shutting off the ego for a while and letting that which wishes to speak, speak.Clarissa Pinkola Estés / quote ↗
07c. 1945 ADThe 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.Clarissa Pinkola Estés / quote ↗
08c. 1945 ADI hope you will go out and let stories happen to you, and that you will work them, water them with your blood and tears and laughter 'til they bloom, 'til you yourself burst into bloom.Clarissa Pinkola Estés / quote ↗
09c. 1945 ADI hope you will go out and let stories, that is life, happen to you,and that you will work with these stories from your life--not someone else's life--water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom. That is the work. The only work.Clarissa Pinkola Estés / quote ↗
10c. 1945 ADPractice listening to your intuition, your inner voice; ask questions; be curious; see what you see; hear what you hear; and then act upon what you know to be true. These intuitive powers were given to your soul at birth.Clarissa Pinkola Estés / quote ↗
12c. 1945 ADWe can see that for the deep work to continue, trying to prove one's worth to the chorus of jealous hags is pointless.Clarissa Pinkola Estés / quote ↗
13c. 1945 ADAll creatures must learn that there exist predators. Without this knowing, a woman will be unable to negotiate safely within her own forest without being devoured. To understand the predator is to become a mature animal who is not vulnerable out of naivete, inexperience, or foolishness.Clarissa Pinkola Estés / quote ↗
14c. 1945 ADSometimes a woman is afraid to be without security or without certainty, for even a short time. She has more excuses than dogs have hairs. She must just simply dive in and stand not knowing what will happen next.Clarissa Pinkola Estés / quote ↗
15c. 1945 ADTo be poor and be without trees, is to be the most starved human being in the world. To be poor and have trees, is to be completely rich in ways that money can never buy.Clarissa Pinkola Estés / quote ↗
