Women Who Run with the wolves

"Wildlife and the Wild Woman are both endangered species.
Over time, we have seen the feminine instinctive nature looted, driven
back, and overbuilt. For long periods it has been mismanaged like the
wildlife and the wildlands."
"A healthy woman is much like a wolf: robust, chock-full, strong life
force, life-giving, territorially aware, inventive, loyal, roving. Yet, separation
from the wildish nature causes a woman's personality to become
meager, thin, ghostly, spectral … When women's lives are in stasis, or
filled with ennui, it is always time for the wildish woman to emerge; it
is time for the creating function of the psyche to flood the delta."
"The modern woman is a blur of activity. She is pressured to be all
things to all people. The old knowing is long overdue."

Modern psychology does not really cater to the deeper side of
woman; it leaves no real explanation for her longings, it does
not shine light on her mysteries, it does not allow her time.
Estés has spent her life in the belief that the old stories from many cultural
traditions can reconnect women with their soul, their wilder
nature. She is what is known as a cantadora, a keeper of the old stories.
The title of the book came from the author's study of wolves, whom
she realized had much in common with women in their spiritedness,
their intuitive and instinctive nature, and their travails. Like wolves,
women have been demonized for any sign of wildness and their homelands
concreted over; but just as many wild wolf populations have been
re-established, it is about time that women regained access to their wild
spaces.
Women Who Run with the Wolves is, overall, a spectacular work
that has left many in its thrall. It has revolutionized many women's
lives in the way that Iron John has for men. With myths and tales for
every conceivable aspect of life, to say it is rich is an understatement.
We can only really gloss over its contents, but the following couple of
stories, abstracted from the book, may give you some idea.
The seal woman
Once, in a very harsh place, a hunter was out in his kayak. It was past
dark and he had not found anything. He came upon the great spotted
rock in the sea, and in the half-light the rock appeared to be full of
graceful movement. As he drew closer, he saw a group of stunningly
beautiful women, and in his loneliness he felt pangs of love and longing.
He saw a sealskin on the edge of the rock and stole it. As the
women donned their skins and swam back into their watery home, one
of them realized she was without her skin.
The man called out to her to "Be my wife, I am lonely" but she said, "Ican't, I am of the Temeqvanek, I live beneath." But he said this to her:
"Be my wife, and in seven summers I'll give you back your skin, and
you can do as you wish." Relunctantly, the seal woman agreed.
They had a much-loved child, Ooruk, whom she taught all the stories
about the creatures of the sea that she knew. But after a time her flesh
started to dry out, she turned pale and her sight began to darken. The
day came when she asked for her skin back.
"No," said the husband—did she want to leave the family motherless
and wifeless?
In the night Ooruk heard a giant seal calling in the wind, and he followed
the call to the water. In the rocks he found a sealskin and, on
smelling it, realized it was his mother's. Taking it to her, she was
delighted, and took him with her under the water where she introduced
the boy to the great seal and all the others.
She regained her color and her health, because she had returned
home. She became known as the seal no one could kill, Tanquigcaq,
holy one. After a while she had to return the child to land, but when
he grew up he was often seen communing with a particular seal near
the water.
The seal, Estés says, is an old and beautiful symbol of the wild soul.
Seals are generally comfortable with humans, but like young or inexperienced
women they are sometimes not aware of potential harm or the
intentions of others. All of us at some point will experience a "loss of
our sealskin," a robbing of innocence or spirit, a weakening of identity.
At the time it always seems horrible or at least difficult, but later you
will hear people say that it was the best thing that happened to them,
because it clarified who they are and what life is to them. It puts us in
touch with deeper things.
The story evokes the duality between the "above-water" world of
family and work, and the oceanic world of private thoughts, emotions,
and desires. The soul-home cannot be left unvisited for too long or, like
the seal woman, our personalities dry up and the body is leached of
energy. Many women lose their "soulskin" by giving too much or by
being too perfectionistic or ambitious, by constant dissatisfaction, or by
lacking the will to do anything about it.
Everyone wants a bit of the modern woman, but there has to be a
point where she says "no" and reclaims her soulskin. This might
involve anything from a weekend away in the woods, to a night withfriends, to setting side an hour a day when no one can ask for anything.
Others might not understand it, but in the long term it benefits
them as much as you, and you'll come back refreshed and psychically
refueled.
The skeleton woman
Once there was a lonely arctic fisherman who, one day, thought he had
hooked a big fish that would stop him having to hunt for a while. He
got excited when there was a big pull on the nets, but was shocked
when he saw what he'd pulled up: a woman's skeleton.
The woman had been thrown over the cliffs by her father, and she had
sunk to the bottom. Appalled at his "catch," the fisherman tried to
throw it back, but the skeleton came to some sort of life and pursued
him back to his ice-home.
He took pity on her and cleaned her up and let her rest, before falling
asleep himself. During the night she saw a tear coming from his eye,
and she drank and drank the tears, so thirsty was she. And in the night
she took his heart and used it to make her come alive again, as flesh
and blood. A person again, she crawled into his sack with him.
Thereafter, the couple were always well fed, thanks to the sea creatures
the woman knew when she was at the bottom of the sea.
Estés understands the story to be about relationships. When you are
single, you look for someone who is loving enough or rich enough so
that, like the fisherman, you "won't have to hunt for a while." You are
just after more life in your life, something enjoyable and fun.
However, once you get a good look at what you've pulled up
(maybe after the first flittery phase), like the fisherman you try to
"throw him or her back." You realize that you've got more than you
bargained for, that this is getting serious. The other person stops meaning
good times to you, they become the skeleton woman—the horror of
settling down, mortality, long-term commitment, ups and downs, age,
ending of the current life. Yet if you are lucky, the "skeleton" will not
accept your rejection but chase you to your home (your limits and insecurities).
In time you realize that this being has a lot to offer, attractive
even if scary; for some reason you want do something for this person.
In return the being gives you abundance, but of things and from
sources that you didn't know existed.The skeleton woman story is about what Estés calls the "life/death/
life" cycle. In modern cultures we are terrified of any sort of death,
whereas in older ones everyone was aware that new life came as the
companion to death. When we shy away from serious relationships, it
is never the other person we can't face up to, it is the unwillingness to
enter into the time-honored cycle. We will not grow in this relationship,
but seek another one and perhaps then another, so that we only experience
a continual high of "life." This shrinks the psyche. Every relationship
has many endings and beginnings within it, and what to our
horror may seem like the final end is much more likely to be a necessary
change so that the relationship can renew itself.
A woman, and indeed a man, must become aware of and willingly
embrace the life/death/life cycle if they are ever to be in touch with
their wild nature. Estés says of the skeleton woman:
"She surfaces, like it or not, for without her there can be no real knowledge
of life, and without that knowing, there can be no fealty, no real
love or devotion."
Final comments
Most people don't read this book as they normally read. You will find
yourself taking in a chapter at a time then going away to ruminate on
it. This is how it should be. It seems too big to tackle at first (over 500
pages), but treat it as a family of voices that you listen to one by one.
Let it sink in slowly and you will begin to understand why it has
inspired so many people, not only women.
A final word. You may be thinking: "If I embrace the wild nature in
me, I will turn my world and my family upside down!" Not so, Estés
says: Doing this brings more integrity to your personal life and your
existence, because you will not be trying to walk around in a disguise,
you won't be afraid of being a creator, a lover, someone who chases
after what is right, an intuition truster, a woman truly aware of her
power and attuned to nature. All these things are your birthright and
nothing to fear.