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.  For several thousand years, as soon and as often as we turn our backs, it is relegated to the poorest land in the psyche.  The spiritual lands of Wild Woman have, throughout history, been plundered or burnt, dens bulldozed, and natural cycles forced into unnatural rhythms to please others.

It's not by accident that the pristine wilderness of our planet disappears as the understanding of our own inner and wild nature fades.  It is not so difficult to comprehend why old forests and old women are viewed as not very important resources.  It is not such a mystery.  It is not so coincidental that wolves and coyotes, bears and wildish women have similar reputations.  They all share related instinctual archetypes, and as such, both are erroneously reputed to be ingracious, wholly and innately dangerous, and ravenous...

Healthy wolves and healthy women share certain psychic characteristics: keen sensing, playful spirit, and a heightened capacity for devotion.  Wolves and women are relational by nature, inquiring, possessed by a great endurance and strength.  They are deeply intuitive, intensely concerned with their young, their mates and their pack.  They are experience in adapting to constantly changing circumstances; they are fiercely stalwart and very brave.

Yet both have been hounded, harassed, and falsely imputed to be devouring and devious, overly aggressive, of less value than those who are their detractors.  They have been the targets of those who would clean up the wilds as well as the wildish environs of the psyche, extincting the instinctual, and leaving no trace of it behind.  The predation of wolves and women by those who misunderstand them is strikingly similar.


-Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D.,Women Who Run With the Wolves

My brother and me on Parenthood

George, my brother, was holding our 1 year old baby cousin when I realized what a great father he will be one day. I told him so and he replied with a thank you. We were taking our other cousin downstairs to look for a movie when I told him I thought I would make a horrid mother.

My other cousin, Sophie, was trailing down the stairs after me at that point and while I was distracted she yelled "Hey wait for me!"

Case in point: I practically forgot she was there. I'll be a typical Aquarian mother I figure: leaving the kid's toys in the freezer and worrying more about my dogs than my kids.

I was afraid to be alone. Now I’m scared that’s how I like to be.

It’s been close to 10 months that I’ve been living alone.  My apartment goes in phases of cleanliness and complete and utter disorder.  I like to measure my mental states by it sometimes. 

Things I’ve learned these past ten months:

• Singing and playing my guitar whenever I want is worth the extra cash in rent.
• Occasional insomnia bothers a lot less people when you live alone.
• Drinking wine alone while drawing is okay; drinking whiskey, however, is not.
• I can become much like a hermit and not see people for days (aside from work) and retain about 60% of my sanity, which in my book is pretty damn good considering it’s probably only 65% at best.
• I’ve developed a closer relationship with my plants than I ever thought possible.
• No Jen, you do not need to purchase a box of mangos because of a really good deal. Food spoils a lot faster when you live alone.
• All those dishes piled in the sink ARE all really yours.
• Cooking is a lot less fun when you know you’re the only one that will partake in eating the meal.
• No checking with the roomies to see if the TV will be free when you’re in the mood for a flick is awesome. J
• No one to watch the movie with is slightly less awesome.  L
• Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches are nutritious and delicious and make for a great breakfast, lunch or dinner!

You can go a little further in extremes when you live alone with no one to draw you back or remind you that you are not an island.  My tendency to float off on boats to the exotic islands in my head is quite impressive.  I forget there’s a huge land mass I live on called CHICAGO and that accepting phone calls from friends might be a good idea before getting all Tarzan-like: having existential conversations with volleyballs (Wilson), or thinking your pet fish is really a prophet born into a fish-like body and he’s been trying to tell you about some world disaster for weeks now.  Tragically, you don't speak fish and when you watch the news and learn about the tornadoes taking over Kansas your prophet-fish gives you that all-knowing look while you sink into an uncontrollable guilt for not speaking fish.

Like they say, everyone should live alone at least once and perhaps, have a dog instead.

Hija de la Luna - theme

In honor of tonight's full moon...

I am having a love affair with the moon

How I wish I could make her grow round and swollen at will

She births my creativity – longing and desire illuminated under her soft gaze

She can swell up slowly until so full she might burst, then a gradual deflation, like sighing.

Exhaling softly, then silent into the dark of the night.

I will write her my poetry and sing her essence as wolves howl their praise,

As the frogs gleam a tinted green, while oceans reflect her full splendor.

I am silent and still, humbled to bear witness to her cycles

In sync with my own, what is it to grow? 

I am but only her mere daughter birthing nothing more than words.

Freckles lie.

I used to love being held, but now each embrace leaves me anxious. I am waiting for the seconds to span faster; not wanting to study a new face.  Staring at strange eyes peering back and not knowing what they see; the iris a façade, while pupils focus in on the countless freckles across my cheeks, oh so many, still unbeknownst to me. 

I pull away abruptly.  Trying to find some excuse to leave, but you’ve seen my kind before, the ones who memorize each room if only for the door.  You’re anticipating, whispering: "it’s alright" to the lobe of my ear, as though it’s exactly what you think I want to hear. Funny thing about that is you don’t know what “it” is. You’re assuming you know exactly what I need– like the freckles on my face somehow told on me, like the taste of my neck was that revealing.  Before you fake some consolation both my feet are on the floor, my keys are in my hand, I’m swiftly out the door.

The smell of midnight on an open city road, the sound of my engine roar…I leave the quiet alone, my sobbing breaking the silence; my stream of tears soaking the dashboard.

Oh what is it to be alone?

My empty apartment doesn’t speak such silly things – the artwork on my walls don’t try to console me and so I lean into them, my arms around my legs, breathe in deep and fall asleep there to awaken by the sun pouring in.  I’m still on the floor, now kneeling, giving thanks for awakening to the Sun’s warm embrace and not some stranger who thinks he knows my face.

This is how I need to be living

No joke.  I could do this and be quite happy and guess what?  MOUNTAINS!

You'd never think I was such a city girl from these pictures, would you?

Gorgeous moon...
Colorado 2009  

Hopefully my little adventure to Wisconsin this weekend will give me a good dose of country so I could love Chicago again.

Downtown

Walking around downtown today to meet with my friend for lunch and I realized how dead the city feels to me sometimes.  Everyone going about the same old business, the same restaurants, same routine, day after day...

Routine sucks the soul out of me and maybe I didn't mind so much when I was living in the mountains of New Mexico - everything around me was alive - the earth, the plants, the water...

It's summer in Chicago and I should be grateful considering the winter, but the concrete and steel buildings are robbing my creativity, one floor at a time.  I happen to work on the 16th floor.  My soul is being sucked out of me.  Ode to the mountains: I should be with you instead.