Women who run with wolves

This book matters if you feel hollowed out by being reasonable, agreeable, and endlessly productive. Estés gives you myths as diagnostic tools: a story about a bleeding key or a doll in a pocket can name what a lecture never could. Read it if you want permission to trust your gut, set boundaries, and stop trading your soul-skin for approval.

1. 1Introduction; Chapter 1

   Sing Over the Bones: The Wolf Woman's Resurrection

   La Loba (The Wolf Woman) is an old woman who lives in a hidden place in the desert, collecting and reassembling wolf bones, especially those at risk of being lost. When she has assembled a whole skeleton, she sits beside it and sings. The bones flesh out, the wolf breathes, and it runs off into the desert, where it transforms into a laughing woman. Estés learned the story from her aunt in the Mexican borderlands oral tradition and calls the singing 'the soul's voice.' Estés interprets the bones as the 'bare bones of the soul' and says the story teaches that women can recover their wild selves by gathering and singing over what is left of their instinctual life. Her warning frames the whole book: 'Wildlife and the Wild Woman are both endangered species.'

   The idea

   The book concerns the wildish nature in women — the source of creativity, intuition, and deep knowing, often buried under layers of domestication; Estés describes it as 'a psychic entity' and 'an instinctual nature'. Estés writes: 'To adjoin the instinctual nature does not mean to come undone, change everything from left to right, from black to white, to move the east to the west, to act crazy or out of control. It does not mean to lose one's primary socializations, or to become less human. It means quite the opposite.'

   Try this: List three instincts you buried to stay acceptable — a hobby, a hunger, a way of speaking. Pick one and give it thirty minutes this week.

2. 2Chapter 2

   The Bleeding Key: Bluebeard and the Inner Predator

   Bluebeard: a wealthy man with a blue beard marries a young woman (in one version, three sisters in turn, the youngest surviving). He gives her the keys to the castle but forbids her to open one door. She opens it and finds the dismembered bodies of his previous wives, all in various states of decay. The key begins to bleed, and the blood will not come off, revealing her disobedience. Her brothers arrive just in time to kill Bluebeard before he beheads her; she inherits his wealth, uses it to marry a kind man, and brings her sisters to live with her.

   The idea

   Estés identifies the 'predator' of the psyche as the natural enemy of the wild woman — an inner force that seeks to destroy a woman's instinctive, creative life, symbolized by Bluebeard. The predator uses charm, flattery, and the woman's own curiosity to gain access; the story warns against naive trust.

   Try this: Name one person or habit that flatters you into ignoring your gut. Write down what your gut said the last time, and reread it before you see them again.

3. 3Chapter 3

   The Doll in the Pocket: Feeding Your Intuition

   Vasalisa the Wise: a young girl's dying mother gives her a doll. Her stepmother sends her to the witch Baba Yaga's hut — a hut that spins round and round on chicken legs — to fetch fire. Baba Yaga sets tasks like separating poppy seeds from dirt; the doll whispers 'I will help you' and completes them. Vasalisa returns with a skull full of fire, which burns the stepmother and stepsisters to ashes.

   The idea

   The doll in Vasalisa's pocket symbolizes a woman's deep intuition, which must be fed and listened to in order to navigate the dark forest of the psyche.

   Try this: Before a decision this week, write the answer your gut gives in one sentence, then check it against the facts a day later.

4. 4Chapter 5

   Untangling the Skeleton: Love That Restores

   Skeleton Woman (an Inuit tale): a fisherman accidentally hooks a skeleton — the hook catches in her ribs. He runs in terror; she follows him to his snowhouse. There he untangles her bones, bone by bone, lays her out carefully, and falls asleep. As he sleeps, a tear falls on the skeleton's breastbone; her heart grows back, she sings flesh onto her bones, and she becomes a living woman again. Estés reads it as a map of how love requires facing the deathly, tangled aspects of relationship and untangling them with patience and presence.

   The idea

   The tale argues that love requires facing the deathly, tangled aspects of relationship and untangling them with patience and presence.

   Try this: Pick one tangled issue you keep avoiding with someone. Spend twenty minutes untangling only one knot of it, out loud, without leaving the room.

5. 5Chapter 6

   The Ugly Duckling Was Never a Duck

   The Ugly Duckling (Andersen): a cygnet hatches in a duck's nest and is ridiculed for its appearance. It endures a brutal winter alone, and in spring discovers it is a swan, welcomed by a flock of its own kind. Estés uses it to show that a woman's 'ugliness' is often a mismatch of environment, not a defect, and that women must not let others define their true nature. Estés uses the 'Wolf's Eyelash' as a symbol of seeing the true nature of others, and discusses how a woman finds her 'pack,' her soul-kin — the group that recognizes her wild nature, 'the ones who run with you.' A woman without a pack is 'lone' and vulnerable.

   The idea

   The tale shows that a woman's 'ugliness' is often a mismatch of environment, not a defect, and that women must not let others define their true nature. Estés discusses how a woman finds her 'pack,' her soul-kin — the group that recognizes her wild nature, 'the ones who run with you.' A woman without a pack is 'lone' and vulnerable.

   Try this: Write down the three people who make you feel most like yourself, and schedule real time with one of them this week.

6. 6Chapter 8

   The Red Shoes That Would Not Stop Dancing

   The Red Shoes (Andersen): a girl named Karen becomes obsessed with a pair of red shoes and wears them when she should not (to church). The shoes force her to dance uncontrollably until an executioner cuts off her feet, and the shoes dance away with the severed feet still inside. Estés interprets the Red Shoes as a warning against a woman's addiction to over-civilization, overwork, or any compulsion that severs her from her instinctual life — a 'demon' of compulsion that 'dances' a woman until she is exhausted.

   The idea

   Estés interprets the Red Shoes as a warning against a woman's addiction to over-civilization, overwork, or any compulsion that severs her from her instinctual life — a 'demon' of compulsion that 'dances' a woman until she is exhausted.

   Try this: Track one activity you 'can't stop' this week. Note when you wanted to stop and didn't; that gap is your compulsion's size.

7. 7Chapter 8

   The Match Girl's Mistake: Spending Your Warmth

   The Little Match Girl (adapted): a poor girl, cold and hungry, lights matches on New Year's Eve that show her visions of warmth and her grandmother, and freezes to death. Estés reads the matches as 'tiny lights of life' given away one at a time — 'the mistake of the match girl' — instead of protecting her own warmth and life.

   The idea

   The matches are 'tiny lights of life' given away one at a time — 'the mistake of the match girl' — instead of protecting her own warmth and life.

   Try this: List the small comforts you give away to keep others comfortable — your rest, your opinion, your plans. Keep one back this week, deliberately.

8. 8Chapter 9

   The Hidden Seal Skin: You Cannot Keep the Wild Captive

   Seal Skin, Soul Skin (selkie tale): a fisherman finds a seal woman's skin on the shore and hides it, forcing her to marry him and live on land. Years later (in one version, her child finds the hidden skin and returns it), she puts the skin on and returns to the sea, leaving her human family behind. Estés reads the seal skin as a woman's wild nature: its hiding is the suppression of that nature, and her return is not a betrayal of her family but a return to her own skin — the wild self cannot be kept captive forever. Estés writes: 'To lose one's soul skin means to lose the protective covering of the wild and instinctual self, to be left exposed and drying out in a world not one's own.'

   The idea

   The seal skin represents a woman's wild nature: its hiding is the suppression of that nature, and her return is not a betrayal of her family but a return to her own skin — the wild self cannot be kept captive forever.

   Try this: Identify your 'seal skin' — the one place, practice, or pursuit that makes you feel like yourself. Put it on the calendar this week, uncancelled.

9. 9Chapter 4

   Guessing the Secret Names: Manawee and the Two Sisters

   'Manawee' — a man courts twin sisters whose father sets him the task of guessing their secret names; his dog overhears the names and tells him, allowing him to marry the sisters, but the dog is killed for revealing the secret. 'The Man Who Didn't Know Women' — a man finds a woman's body in a river, revives her, and they marry; he hides her pelt, she withers until their children find it and return it, and she leaves, howling.

   The idea

   Both tales are about union with the other: Manawee wins by learning the sisters' secret names, and 'The Man Who Didn't Know Women' shows what happens when a partner is kept from her own nature.

   Try this: Ask someone close to you one question about their inner life you have never dared to ask — then just listen.

10. 10Chapter 4; Chapter 1

    The Life/Life Nature: The Creator Who Destroys

    Estés writes: 'The dual nature of the Wild Woman, the one who creates and the one who destroys, is the life/life nature.' Estés writes: 'To adjoin the instinctual nature does not mean to come undone, change everything from left to right, from black to white, to move the east to the west, to act crazy or out of control. It does not mean to lose one's primary socializations, or to become less human. It means quite the opposite.'

    The idea

    The Wild Woman's dual nature — the one who creates and the one who destroys — is the life/life nature. Estés also warns that adjoining the instinctual nature does not mean acting crazy or out of control; it means quite the opposite.

    Try this: Name one project, habit, or self-image that needs to end this season. End it on purpose, in writing, and note what space opens.

11. 11Chapter 15 (also Chapter 16)

    The Wolf's Eyelash: Seeing the Sacred in the Ordinary

    The Wolf's Eyelash: a woman who has lost her joy is told by a crone to find a wolf's eyelash. She searches the forest, observes wolves, and eventually a wolf blinks and leaves an eyelash on a branch. The crone tells her the eyelash lets her see the truth of things, and the woman's sight is restored to see the sacred in the ordinary. Estés also recounts giving a 'wolf's eyelash' (a curled wood shaving) to a woman who needed to see her own situation clearly.

    The idea

    The eyelash lets the woman see the truth of things and the sacred in the ordinary; Estés's wood shaving shows the talisman can be any small object committed to as a lens for clear sight.

    Try this: Choose one small object as this week's 'eyelash.' Hold it before any situation you need to see clearly, and write what you actually see.

12. 12Chapter 12 (also Chapter 5)

    The Crescent Moon Bear: Turning Rage Into Understanding

    The Crescent Moon Bear: a woman must bring a single hair from the throat of a bear to a healer (in one version, a bear that has killed her husband; in another, her ill mother needs a bear's liver). She spends months feeding and soothing the injured bear until it trusts her enough to let her pluck the hair; the bear says, 'You have tended me... I will give you what you need,' and gives her a piece of his own liver. In the process her rage transforms into understanding.

    The idea

    In the tale, rage transforms into understanding through months of patient tending of the wounded bear.

    Try this: Pick one recurring anger. Feed it attention for ten minutes daily this week — write what it is protecting, not who it is blaming.

13. 13Chapter 14

    The Handless Maiden: When the Hands Grow Back

    The Handless Maiden: a miller's deal with the devil costs his daughter her hands (her father cuts them off). She wanders into the forest, where an angel appears, says 'I will care for you,' and builds her a cottage. She is helped by a king, marries him, and after seven years of wandering in exile with her child her natural hands are restored.

    The idea

    The tale maps harm done by those who were supposed to protect you — the father's bargain — and shows that what was taken can be restored in natural form after a long exile.

    Try this: Write down one way someone's bargain cost you something. Name what a seven-year regrowth of it would look like, and take the first step this week.

14. 14Chapter 13

    The Scar Clan: Your Wounds Are Doors

    The Scar Clan: 'All women have battle scars. Some are visible, some are not.' Estés writes, 'The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door.' An elder tells her, 'You are a member of the Scar Clan... You have earned your stripes.'

    The idea

    A deep scar or an old story is one of the few precious doors into the wild Self; membership in the Scar Clan is a clan to belong to, not a shame to hide.

    Try this: Write the one-sentence version of your oldest, hardest story. Tell it once, out loud, to someone who has earned it.

Women who feel domesticated, overworked, or cut off from their own instincts, and anyone who loves myths used as psychological instruments. Also for therapists, writers, and readers of Jungian ideas who want old tales doing new diagnostic work.

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