The Emotionally Healthy Woman

There are some serious misconceptions about what an emotionally healthy woman is.

"Protect your creative life, If you would avoid habre del alma, the starved soul, name the problem for what it is-and fix it. Practice your work every day. Then, let no thought , no man, no woman, no mate, no friend, no religion, no job, and no crabbed voice force you into a famine. If necessary, show your incisors." Clarissa Pinkola Estes PHD

Clarissa wrote the world renowned book “Women who Run with Wolves.” This book has changed women’s lives the world over and has become one of the most authoritative books defining an emotionally healthy woman.

A healthy woman is much like a wolf ~ robust, inventive, loyal, fierce. Yet separation from her wildish nature causes a woman to become meager, ghostly, anxious about leaping, fearful to create new life. With the wild nature as ally and teacher, we see not through two eyes only, but through the many eyes of intuition. With intuition we are like the starry night; we gaze at the world through a thousand eyes.

The archetype of the Wild Woman carries los bultos, all the bundles for healing and meaning. She carries all the medicines of stories, words and songs, and the mending tools of dances, signs and symbols. She is both vehicle and destination. She is the essence of the female soul.

No matter how many times she is cut back, called unsafe, dangerous, useless or mad, she rises through the psyche regardless. Even La Sombre, the most restrained woman, keeps a secret place for the wild nature. Even La Cautiva, the most captured woman, is waiting for an opportunity to hightail it to freedom.

She defines her destiny – no one else’s words or actions define who she is as a person. She sets the boundaries in her home. Her mate is ‘her’ mate. She does not belong to Him. He may be leader, but it is established that it is by her choice – not threat or social restraint.

All women are born gifted. To live close to the instinctual nature does not mean to become undone. It means to establish one's creative territory, find one's pack, be in one's body with certainty and pride. It means to act in one's behalf, to find what one belongs to. It means to rise with dignity, to proceed as a powerful being who is friendly but never tame.

When women deny their gifts, they deny themselves. They become too tired to reach out. Their work takes up all their energy. The expression of art and dance feeds the woman’s soul. Her spiritual side needs to express love or else she withers. Like grapes in fall, she may look fine to the uninitiated, to those who do not know her intimately, but to the initiated she is only ripe and vibrant in appearance.

The Wild Woman is the one who thunders in the face of injustice. She is the one who keeps a woman going when she thinks she is done for. The Wild Woman is fluent in the languages of dreams, images, passion and poetry. No act of love or social justice occurs without her.

Through history you see this woman taking a stand. There have been very few cultures that do not record the passion and power of these women. An emotionally healthy woman does not fear. She constantly learns and improves her skills. She is involved in everything that touches her world.

She lives in women everywhere; in the barrios and in the boardroom, in the prison and on the mountain at the fire, in the penthouse suite and on the night bus to Brownsville. She is the mother of El Duende, the goblin wind of creativity. She leaves footprints behind for us to try on for size.

Not poverty, geographical location, nor social status holds her back. Her mark is left on the souls and environment wherever she lives. Her touch is expressed in the flowers planted, or the shape of the garden path worn by her footsteps. The faded paint on the barn door or the flowers painted on the bathroom door is her signature.

She does not thrive in a sterile environment. Something holds her signature. A woman can look back through her environment and see the imprint of the women who went before her, a sisterhood that attests to the importance of women in today’s society.

Whether you are possessed of a simple heart or the ambitions of an Amazon, whether you are trying to make it to the top or just make it through tomorrow, whether you be spicy or sombre, regal or roughshod ~ the wild nature belongs to you. She truly belongs to all.

The issue is simple: Warrior or healer, creator or commander, mother or old matriarch, no man will tame her. No man can destroy her. No trial can defeat her. No opposition can block her.
Without us Wild Woman dies.
Without Wild Woman, we die.
Para vida, for true life, both must live.