Michelle: You know that feeling of being 'lost' or 'not enough'? The self-help industry tells you to fix yourself. But what if the problem isn't you at all? What if you're not broken, just... tamed? And the cure is buried in the world's darkest fairy tales. Mark: That is a much more interesting diagnosis. It’s also a relief. Instead of another five-step plan to optimize my life, you’re telling me I just need to get a little wilder and maybe re-read some Grimm’s? I’m in. Michelle: Exactly. And that's the radical idea at the heart of Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. Mark: Right, and Estés isn't just a writer; she's a senior Jungian psychoanalyst and a "cantadora"—a keeper of old stories in the Latina tradition. She spent decades working as a post-trauma specialist, which gives this book a layer of clinical depth you don't often see. This isn't just literary analysis; it's soul medicine. Michelle: It absolutely is. The book was a cultural phenomenon when it came out in the 90s, on the bestseller lists for years. And it all starts with this powerful, almost primal concept she calls the Wild Woman. Mark: Which, I have to admit, sounds a little intimidating. Am I picturing someone literally running with wolves? What are we talking about here?

Michelle: It's less about literal wolves and more about the wolf-like nature within the human psyche. Estés defines the Wild Woman as the instinctual, untamed, wise, and life-giving part of ourselves. She's the soul. And for centuries, culture has tried to domesticate her, to put a collar on her, to make her "nice." Mark: So when we feel that sense of being 'ghosty' or 'meager,' as she puts it, that's a symptom of this inner wildness being caged? Michelle: Precisely. Estés says that when a woman's connection to her wild nature is severed, her personality becomes thin and spectral. She feels dry, fatigued, confused, uninspired. It's a spiritual malnourishment. She has this incredible story that serves as the central metaphor for how to heal this: the story of La Loba, the Wolf Woman. Mark: La Loba. Okay, tell me about her. Michelle: Picture an old woman living deep in the desert, in a cave filled with bones of all kinds of creatures, but her specialty is wolves. She is the gatherer of bones. She creeps and crawls through the mountains and dry riverbeds, collecting wolf bones until she has assembled an entire skeleton. Mark: That's a very vivid, and slightly creepy, image. What does she do with a full wolf skeleton? Michelle: This is where the magic happens. She builds a fire, stands over the pristine white bones, and she begins to sing. She sings over the bones. And as she sings, the bones begin to flesh out. The wolf's skeleton is covered with sinew, then fur. The creature begins to breathe. Mark: Wow. Michelle: And as La Loba sings louder and deeper, the wolf's heart starts to beat. It leaps up and runs out of the cave, down the canyon. And as it runs, its form changes, and it transforms into a laughing woman, running free toward the horizon. Mark: Okay, that’s beautiful. So, La Loba is a metaphor for the part of our psyche that can resurrect our own deadened instincts? The bones are the indestructible parts of our soul that we've lost, and the 'singing' is the act of bringing them back to life? Michelle: You've got it. The 'singing' is using our soul-voice, speaking our truth, pouring our creative energy over the parts of us that have died. Estés argues that our work is to become La Loba. To gather the bones of our own wild selves—our forgotten dreams, our silenced intuition, our buried passions—and sing them back into existence. Mark: It sounds like a form of psychic CPR. It also reminds me of her parallel between the inner and outer world. She says, "It’s not by accident that the pristine wilderness of our planet disappears as the understanding of our own inner wild natures fades." The caging of one leads to the destruction of the other. Michelle: It's a powerful connection. She sees the plundering of women's spiritual lands as mirroring the destruction of the actual wildlands. Both have been paved over, forced into unnatural rhythms, and misunderstood. Mark: Okay, so we need to 'sing over the bones.' But how? It sounds so abstract. Where do we find the sheet music for that song?

Michelle: That's the perfect question. And Estés' answer is fascinating. She says the instructions, the sheet music, are hidden in plain sight—inside myths and fairy tales. She calls them 'psychic-archeological' maps. Mark: So these aren't just bedtime stories for kids. They're survival guides for the soul. Michelle: Exactly. And one of the most powerful examples she uses is the story of Bluebeard. We all know the basic tale: a mysterious, wealthy man marries a young woman, gives her a set of keys to his castle, but forbids her from using one tiny, ornate key. Mark: And of course, she uses it. Curiosity is a powerful force. Michelle: It is. She opens the door and finds a cellar filled with the corpses of Bluebeard's previous wives. The key falls, gets stained with blood, and the blood can't be washed off. When Bluebeard returns, he knows her secret. Mark: It’s a terrifying story. How does this map onto our psyche? Michelle: Estés' interpretation is brilliant. She says Bluebeard isn't just some external monster. He is the innate natural predator of the female psyche. He is that internal voice of self-doubt, that destructive force that wants to keep us naive and obedient. He represents the part of our own minds that says, "Don't look there. Don't be curious. Don't ask questions. Just be nice." Mark: Wow. So the key isn't just a key; it's our intuition, our curiosity. And opening that forbidden door is an act of rebellion against the part of us that wants to keep us small and safe. Michelle: It's the beginning of initiation. The blood on the key that can't be washed off symbolizes a truth that, once you know it, you can't un-know it. You've seen the predator. You've seen the danger. And that knowledge changes you forever. You can no longer pretend to be naive. Mark: This is where some critics, particularly folklorists, pushed back, right? They argued she mashes up different versions of tales to fit her psychological theory. It's a common critique of the Jungian approach. Michelle: Absolutely. And it's a valid point from a folklorist's perspective. Estés’ approach isn't strict folklore; it's archetypal psychology. She's using the story as a diagnostic tool for the soul, not as a historical document. She’s looking for the universal pattern, the psychic truth that resonates across cultures, even if the details of the story change. Mark: So she’s using it like a psychological X-ray. The story of Vasalisa the Wise is another one she uses, right? It feels like the flip side of Bluebeard. Michelle: It is. If Bluebeard is about identifying the predator, Vasalisa is about actively cultivating intuition. Vasalisa is sent by her cruel stepmother into the forest to get fire from the fearsome witch, Baba Yaga. Her only guide is a tiny doll her dying mother gave her, which represents her intuition. Mark: The doll in her pocket. Michelle: Yes. And to get the fire, Vasalisa has to perform a series of impossible tasks for Baba Yaga—sorting poppy seeds from dirt, cleaning the entire hut. The doll does the work for her while she rests. Estés says these tasks are metaphors for the work of intuition: sorting good from bad, truth from falsehood, life-giving from life-draining. It's about learning to trust that inner 'doll' to do the work. Mark: So while Bluebeard's wife learns by breaking a rule, Vasalisa learns by serving a powerful, wild, and non-rational feminine force—Baba Yaga. It's a different path to the same goal: reclaiming inner knowing. Michelle: And once you've faced that inner predator and learned to trust your intuition, that knowing changes you physically and emotionally. It brings us to the body and to powerful emotions like rage.

Mark: This feels like where the theory gets really grounded. How does the Wild Woman show up in our bodies? Michelle: Estés argues that one of the most direct attacks on the Wild Woman is the attack on the female body. When a culture dictates a single, narrow ideal of beauty, it's an attempt to tame the glorious, messy, diverse reality of female bodies. She tells the story of La Mariposa, the Butterfly Woman, from the dances of the desert tribes in New Mexico. Mark: The Butterfly Woman. I'm picturing someone delicate and ethereal. Michelle: That's what the tourists in the story expect. But who appears is Maria Lujan, an old, large woman. She hops and stomps, her flesh jiggling, waving a feather fan. She's not a delicate butterfly; she's the embodiment of the fertilizing force of nature. She is powerful, grounded, and utterly real. For Estés, this is the joyous, wild body—a body that feels and does, rather than one that is simply looked at. Mark: So attacking a woman's body, shaming it for not being a certain way, is a method of caging her wildness. And telling her not to be angry is another. It's all part of the same taming process. Michelle: Exactly. Rage is another core territory of the Wild Woman. It's often seen as an 'unladylike' emotion to be suppressed. But Estés reframes it as a teacher. She uses the Japanese tale of the Crescent Moon Bear. A wife's husband returns from war filled with a destructive, silent rage. To heal him, a wise woman tells the wife she must bring back a hair from the fearsome crescent moon bear on the mountain. Mark: Another impossible task. Michelle: It seems so. The wife patiently leaves food for the bear night after night, getting closer and closer, until the bear trusts her enough to let her take a single hair. When she brings it back, the healer throws it in the fire and says, "The task is done. Go home and use the same patience and respect you showed the bear to approach your husband's rage." Mark: The hair was never the point. The process was the cure. The rage isn't a monster to be slain, but a wild creature to be understood and respected. Michelle: Precisely. It’s about learning to sit with that powerful, dangerous energy—in another or in yourself—without trying to destroy it or letting it destroy you. And this leads to her ideas on forgiveness. Mark: Which I imagine is also not as simple as we're taught. Michelle: Not at all. She says forgiveness isn't a single act, like flipping a switch. It's a creative process with four distinct stages. First is to fore-go—to let it go, to stop picking at the wound. Second is to forebear—to abstain from punishment, to let go of the desire for revenge. Third is to forget—not amnesia, but a conscious refusal to dwell on the memory. And the final stage is to forgive—to cancel the debt, to truly pardon. Mark: Four stages. I always thought of forgiveness as a single, often impossible, demand. But this makes it sound like a creative project, a journey. It’s about reclaiming your own territory from the person or event that hurt you. Michelle: It is. And she says you don't have to complete all four stages. Sometimes just fore-going is enough. It's about what you need to do to be free. She calls the women who have endured these things members of the "Scar Clan," and their scars are not signs of damage, but marks of survival and wisdom.

Mark: So after all this—the wild woman, the dark fairy tales, the rage, the scars—what's the one big takeaway? Where does this leave us? Michelle: I think it's that your instincts are not your enemy. That feeling of longing, that flicker of rage, that deep curiosity—that's not a flaw to be fixed. It's the Wild Woman knocking on the door of your psyche. Estés' work is a powerful reminder that to be whole, we don't need to add something new to ourselves; we need to reclaim something ancient and essential that's already inside us. Mark: It’s a profound shift in perspective. The goal isn't self-improvement, it's self-remembrance. It really makes you ask yourself: which parts of my own wild nature have I been told to lock away? Michelle: A powerful question. And as Estés concludes, "Without us, Wild Woman dies. Without Wild Woman, we die. Para Vida, for true life, both must live." Mark: We'd love to hear what resonates with you all. Find us on our socials and share the one 'wild' instinct you plan to listen to this week. What part of you are you going to let run free? Michelle: This is Aibrary, signing off.