In mythos and fairy tales, deities and other great spirits test the hearts of humans by showing up in various forms that disguise their divinity. They show up in robes, rags, silver sashes, or with muddy feet. They show up with skin dark as old wood, or in scales made of rose petal, as a frail child, as a lime-yellow… — Clarissa Pinkola Estes Copy Share
I call her Wild Woman, for those very words, wild and woman, create llamar o tocar a la puerta, the fairy-tale knock at the door of the deep feminine psyche. Llamar o tocar a la puerta means literally to play upon the instrument of the name in order to open a door. It means using words that summon up the… — Clarissa Pinkola Estes Copy Share
Asking the proper question is the central action of transformation- in fairy tales, in analysis, and in individuation. The key question causes… — Clarissa Pinkola Estes Copy Share Image
Though fairy tales end after ten pages, our lives do not. We are multi-volume sets. In our lives, even though one episode… — Clarissa Pinkola Estes Copy Share Image
Tell the truth about your wound, and then you will get a truthful picture of the remedy to apply to it. Don't pack whatever… — Clarissa Pinkola Estes Copy Share Image
“Whether you are possessed of a simple heart or the ambitions of an Amazon, whether you are trying to make it to the top… — Clarissa Pinkola Estés Copy Share Image
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. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life,… — Clarissa Pinkola Estes Copy Share
Friends who love you and have warmth for your creative life are the very best suns in the world. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes Copy Share Image
Creativity is not a solitary movement. That is its power. Whatever is touched by it, whoever hears it, sees it, senses it, knows it, it's fed. That is why beholding someone else's creative word, images, idea, fills us up, and inspires us to our own creative work. A single creative act has the potential to feed a continent. One creative… — Clarissa Pinkola Estes Copy Share
A healthy woman is much like a wolf: robust, chock-full, strong life force, life-giving, territorially aware, inventive, loyal, roving. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes Copy Share Image
Do not cringe and make yourself small if you are called the black sheep, the maverick, the lone wolf. Those with slow seeing say that a noncomformist is a blight on society. But it has been proven over the centuries, that being different means standing at the edge, that one is practically guaranteed to make an original contribution, a useful… — Clarissa Pinkola Estes Copy Share
Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us… — Clarissa Pinkola Estes Copy Share
“Being real doesn't mean being reckless, it means allowing La Voz Mitologica, The Mythological Voice, to speak. One does that by shutting off the… — Clarissa Pinkola Estés Copy Share Image
Without art we live under the illusion that there is only time, and not eternity. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes Copy Share Image
“Some psychological thinkers, including Freud and Bettelheim, have interpreted episodes such as those found in the Bluebeard tale as psychological punishments for women’s sexual curiosity.4 Early in the formulation of classical psychology women’s curiosity was given quite a negative connotation, whereas men with the same attribute were called investigative. Women were called nosy, whereas men were called inquiring. In reality,… — Clarissa Pinkola Estés Copy Share
