This forum was created to share this amazing book and to explore and build upon the lessons that are taught within these pages. I would highly recommend any woman who is finding herself feeling a little lost within herself to get a copy of this book, I am on my second copy, I gave my first book to a friend who was moving away to work in Sweden. I think the next time I by one it will be in hard back! lol I usually keep it close by, it is spectacularly written, Dr. Estes is a master story teller, she writes with such eloquence it takes you right into her world. This first piece is from a poster I have about the book, I will include other stories, my hope is that we can talk about some of these things. I believe these archetypal stories would be valuable to both men and women, I hope you'll agree. Sincerly, Ally Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD "THE WOLF PEOPLE LEARN FROM THE GODDESS When the world began, the people were in the form of wolves. They still didn't know how to change themselves permanently into humans. The wolves did ceremonies and had great shamanic poets. But they lacked the knowledge of how to make rain and grow corn. One day the Goddess, Tacutsi Nakawe, the creatoress of life, taught the wolves how to do this. She showed them the magical plants, how to seek visions, and taught them how to communicate with the fire, make religious shrines, and enter the spirit world. They followed her foot steps and learned the Huichol ways. Then they became the first humans, and the first Shamans. A healthy woman is much like a wolf - robust, inventive, loyal, fierce. Yet separation from her wildish nature causes a woman to become meager, ghostly, anxious about leaping, fearful to create a new life. With the wild nature as ally & teacher, we see not through two eyes only, but through the many eyes of intuition. With intuition we are like a starry night, we gaze at the world through a thousand eyes. The archetype of the Wild Woman carries los bultos, all the bundles for healing and meaning. She carries all the medicines of stories, words, and songs, all the mending tools of dances, signs and symbols. She is both vehicle and destination. She is the essence of the female soul. No matter how many times she is cut back, or called unsafe, dangerous, useless or mad, she rises through the psyche regardless. Even La sombre, the most restrained woman, keeps a secret place for the wild nature. Even La cautiva, the most captured woman, is waiting for an opportunity to hightail it to freedom. All woman are born gifted. To live close to the instinctual nature does not mean to become undone. It means to establish one's creative territory, find one's pack, be in one's body with certainty and pride. It means to act in one's behalf, to find what one belongs to. It means to rise with dignity, to proceed as a powerful being who is friendly but never tame. The Wild Woman is the one who thunders in the face of injustice. She is the one who keeps a woman going when she thinks she's done for. The Wild Woman is fluent in the languages of dreams, images, passion and poetry. No act of love or social justice occurs without her. She lives in women everywhere, in the barrios and in the bedroom, in the prison and on the mountain at the fire, in the penthouse suite and on the night bus to Brownsville. She is the mother of El duende, the goblin wind of creativity. She leaves footprints behind for us to try on for size. Whether you are possessed of a simple heart or the ambitions of the Amazons, whether you are trying to make it to the top or just make it through tomorrow, whether you be spicy or somber, regal or roughshod - the wild nature belongs to you. She truly belongs to all. Issue is simple. Without us Wild Woman dies. Without Wild Woman, we die. Para cida, for true life, both must live."