What do You think about Women Who Run With The Wolves: Myths And Stories Of The Wild Woman Archetype (1996)?
This is one of those books I hope I'll read again, maybe in five years or so. The reason is that I'm sure I would have gotten something different from it at 20 than I would have at 25, at 50 than I did at 55. If it had been published then and I'd first read it at 20, I can see how it would have been helpful to make reading it a ritual every few years of my adult life. Every woman has lived at least one of these stories. (Some of them men will have lived as well.) These are the stories that our life paths tunnel through, containing the archetypes that both drive us and grow us. What I love most is how the author illustrates that even the most painful experiences can also be necessary healing and growing experiences, all somehow folded together like one of those delicate pastries which, the whole time you're eating it, you puzzle over where the crust ends and the filling begins. That is not to say this book is all sweet dessert. In fact, there's a lot of darkness here, and that's an important aspect of it. It's been a life-changing book for me, and has come at a time of deep introspection (which is the reason I picked it up). This isn't light reading. It isn't really heavy reading either, but it pays to stop and digest each chapter.There was a rather uncanny thing that happened to me while reading it, some of the chapters seemed to open up for me at times when I was dealing with, or was about to deal with, just those issues. I joked to friends that on Halloween I was reading the chapter on Skeleton Woman. It inspired me to commemorate the Day of the Dead this year, to honor my loved ones who've passed on. Shortly after that I learned of the violent death of someone I knew, and it seemed that reading that chapter had been just the dark medicine needed at that time. A few of the other chapters seemed to parallel similar stories in my life as well, though not with quite with that same impact. It's been a few days since I finished, and I still have this book resonating in my mind.
—Barbara Klaser
Let me just start with saying that there are two kinds of people who would NOT like this book: 1- chauvanistic men/pigs(hehe), and 2- women who are uptight with their religious and social beliefs (and the stepford housewives type).This book is for all women, who struggled through life because of the pressures and pre-tailored expectations of their families, socieities, religious leaders, husbands, children, etc, and finally saw the light of the moon and could not fight the urge to howl (owwwwwwwwwwwwww).This book contains fairy tales and folklore stories which we were told as children, but never thought about as a tool for empowering women or entering their psyche. I did not give it five stars because the parts after each story in which the author explains the folkloric symbols, the achtypes, and the psychological implications, sometimes were too unneccessarily elaborate. In general, nevertheless, it is a very empoweing book.The basic concept is that everything that goes wrong in women's lives in the modern world is that they have forgotten their wild nature, that place inside their mind which still leads with an animal instict that makes women strong and with much power. The Wild Woman is between bars inside each one of us, howling and scratching her way out, demanding that she has time to create art, to heal, to protect her territory, to guide, to give life, to mourne, to make love, to laugh scandelously with no shame, to live with no boundries, to teach, to carry wisdom, and to trust her intuition and instincts.As a child, hearing the traditional fairy tales and reading Russian children's books, I remember never caring for the handome king, or the beautiful maiden, or the innocent mother; i was always obsessed with the evil charachters: the wolf, the vampire, the witch (especialy Baba Yaga), and the devil. I remember thinking of how strong they are, how wise, and how cunningly smart, and wanting to be like them, and not like the weak princess who's waiting in her stupid castle for some idiotic rich man with an ugly haircut to come and do all the work. After reading this book i realized that even as a child, my wild nature was healthy and active, and I did base so many decisions in my life as a kid and now as an adult on it...i sniff and see if something smells fishy, and i listen for the crack of broken twigs. I have to say though, that i still sometimes forget my canines and my claws, and start to drift into the appropriateness of the mainstream, but now I know how to always pounce right back into my furry, four-legged state with all its glory and pride. And i am thankful that I have a man who would not be surprised if i peed around a tree to mark it mine!! (just a figure of speech, don't ge any ideas, mia :-P)Ladies, go find your inner animal and live free... following but the laws of the wild...
—Lamski Kikita
This book saved my life. I was seriously struggling with an enormous amount of class-related stress, centered around a completely unsuspected attack on my creative potential. After a few months of being shredded mentally and creatively by the people I'd expected to lean on for support and physically by the demands of moving to a new country, I was at a horrible place, alternating between periods of blind rage and near suicidal depression, and for the first time in my life I was watching my ability to create dim and all but vanish. I had two weeks to pull together a film shoot with a script that I needed to edit and then direct, I knew no one, I had no idea what I was doing and felt like I was running into a brick wall with everyone but one of my tutors, a woman who I've subsequently given a copy of WWRWW (she loves it).This book brought me through that time. My level of self-awareness as both a woman and a product of my culture has reached a new peak, and through Estés' writing I have made one of the most difficult and empowering decisions of my life. This is a book for anyone who has ever asked why, and then shushed themselves. This book is a loud, shameless 'prayer for the wild at heart still kept in cages' (thank you Tennessee Williams), and as it boldly refutes the constraints imposed upon a wild nature by propriety, society, and that nature itself it cannot help but resemble a tall glass of water in the middle of the desert. Buy this book. Read it. If it offends with cliché, force yourself to ignore it and take in the message anyway.
—Lilith
