The Wild Woman Archetype

I found this in an old post, while looking for something else. It is from Clarissa Pinkola Estes' book, Women Who Run With The Wolves. To explain the Wild Woman:

The archetype of Wild Woman resides in the guts, not in the head. She can track and run and summon and repel. She can sense, camouflage, and love deeply. She is intuitive, typical, and normative. She is utterly essential to women's mental and soul health.
She is the female soul. Yet she is more; she is the source of the feminine. She is all that is of instinct, of the worlds both seen and hidden -she is the basis.
She is intuition, she is far-seer, she is deep listener, she is loyal heart. She encourages humans to remain multilingual; fluent in the languages of dreams, passion, and poetry.
She is the voice that says, "This way, this way."
She is the one who thunders after injustice. She is the one we leave home to look for. She is the one we come home to. She is the things that keep us going when we think that we're done for.

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 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 wild nature has a vast integrity to it.
It means to establish territory, to find one's pack, to be in one's body with certainty and pride regardless of the body's gifts and limitations, to speak and act in one's behalf, to be aware, alert, to draw on the innate feminine powers of intuition and sensing, to come into one's cycles, to find what one belongs to, to rise with dignity, to retain as much consciousness as we can.

20 comments:

Jenn in Holland said...

Wild woman sounds like you Teri.

cathouse teri said...

Sounds like you too, Jenn.

Stacey said...

Was this written about me ?
:)

I think it sounds like many of us strong females out here in the blogoshpere!

Jami said...

Any woman strong in herself and especially in her confidence in herself, her abilities and her accomplishments in her life is a Wild Woman!

ZoeyBella said...

Hehe... wild women... nice touch :) Yay strong women ;)

Dan said...

Wild women are awesome. The wilder the beter ... wait a second ... are we talking about the same thing?

By the way, I posted. You asked twice and so I finally did! :)

cathouse teri said...

Yes, ladies, the Wild Woman live inside of each and every woman. We (most of us) have lived in a society which has suppressed her practically to extinction! Cheers for the Wild Woman!

Dan: Good boy! You get a nice rubdown on your smarting ass for that!

Brillig said...

*Brillig bows in the presence of all the Might Wild Women, and prays that she too can join the club*

Very cool post. I'm busy looking for my inner wild woman...

Ms. Annie D said...

What about the *Wild Man* in men?

I like that, you know ;-)

The picture in the right sidebar of your eyes with the glasses is wonderful, by the way...

eyes_only4him said...

I am a wild woman, but not so wild that I have arm pit hair or dirt under my nails;)

robkroese said...

Ok, ok, I'll call my mom already. Geez.

Vixen said...

m, I have to read this book.

The Exception said...

I love it! Need to find that book.

Willow said...

I have this book, and started to read it, it's one of those on my book shelf that I always intended to return to. You've just inspired me to pick it back up.

jennifer said...

Hi Teri- I've been lurking around for a while, and today I want to thank you for this post. I read that book years ago and have forgotten how much I loved it. You also have THE best blog title. My compliments

Real Life Drama Queen said...

Teri as usual, I just adore stopping by. Loved this post and now I think because if it.. I need to get more in touch with my wild woman.

Jenn said...

Great book!

Anonymous said...

do you ever drink your beer on ice? I"m going outside now to vacuum my car

anno said...

This sets the bar pretty high. Some days I am some of these things; others, I'm just aiming for it. It's good to have a creed, though. Thanks for posting this.

Fourier_Analyst said...

Well from what I've read so far (I'm a newbie here) and from the comments you've gotten, I'd say you have the "thundering after injustice" part down pat. And you definitely seem to have "found your pack". I've been telling jenn-in-holland that she's a "Wild Woman" for some time now! Glad to see it so well-defined. (Note to self: Must get that book...)