In the original printing of Women Who Run With the Wolves, the book ended with Chapter 15. Although I cannot find a record for her decision to add this chapter in subsequent editions, maybe she forgot she wrote the poem in 1970, or maybe she couldn’t find a way to fit in, but then the magic of her prose had to be shared or better yet the howl of the wolf had to heard.
If you don’t go out in the woods, nothing will ever happen and your life will never begin.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés – Chapter 16
The wolf’s eyelash can allow us to see truth -both unworthy and authentic – and it can also shift our perspective to see anew. We can also listen for the howl that cries:
“Where is the soul? Where is the soul?”
In looking for some clues to why she added it later, I found an article written by Dirk Johnson on February 28, 1993 and published by the New York Times titled: Conversations/Clarissa Pinkola Estes; A Message for All Women: Run Free and Wild Like the Wolf
Here are some highlights:
THE wildness of the wolf is not readily apparent in the easy manner of Clarissa Pinkola Estés, a cheerful, soft-spoken woman who wears a red ribbon in her hair and a medal of the Virgin Mary around her neck.
“Mary is a girl gang leader in Heaven,” said Dr. Estés, who has ordered the lunchtime special of meat loaf and mashed potatoes. “She is fuerte — strong, fierce. We have been given this cleaned-up, Anglicized version of her. But the saints had calluses on their hands.”
It was here in a quiet neighborhood bar and grill that Dr. Estés, a Jungian analyst for 20 years and a consummate cantadora, or storyteller, spent her afternoons writing “Women Who Run With the Wolves,” a book that was scarcely reviewed after publication but has become a best-seller.
(snip)
Dr. Estés defined wildness as not uncontrolled behavior but a kind of savage creativity, the instinctual ability to know what tool to use and when to use it.
“All options are available to women,” she said. “Everything from quiescence to camouflaging to pulling back the ears, baring the teeth and lunging for the throat. But going for the kill is something to be used in rare, rare, rare cases.” She smiled and took a sip from a diet soda.
“Women who have always been taught to be nice do not realize they have these options,” she said. “When someone tells them to stay in their place, they sit and stay quiet. But when somebody is cornering you, then the only way out is to come out kicking, to beat the hell out of whatever is in the way.”
(snip)
“The soul has no gender. I wrote a book about women because I am a woman. If I were a man, I would have written about that.”
CPE
While in her 20’s, she found herself divorced and struggling to raise three children in poverty. “I would get up at 5 A.M. and go bake bread to get money for my children,” Dr. Estés said. “There wasn’t anything else I could do. But all the time, I was planning my escape.” In “Wolves” she recalls difficult times, referring to “the song of the dark years, hambre del alma, the song of the starved soul.”
She put herself through Loretto Heights College in Denver and later earned a doctorate. Dr. Estés, who works as a psychoanalyst in private practice, has served as the executive director of the C.G. Jung Center here.
When she received the advance for “Women Who Run With Wolves,” one of the first checks she wrote was a donation to Su Teatro, a local Hispanic theater company. She also sent money to a group working with young, poor women and tries to persuade them not to have children until age 25. Another check went to Ms. magazine.
Margaret Maupin, a buyer for the Tattered Cover bookstore here, said “Wolves” has struck a chord among women who want to find more meaning in life. She calls it a self-help book, even though the author dislikes that description.
“People used to grow up in small communities where folk wisdom was passed down,” she said. “But we don’t live there anymore. We can’t go next door to your aunt and ask her for the answers.”
(snip)
During the 1991 Senate confirmation hearings on the nomination of Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court, she said, she looked on angrily at the treatment of Anita Hill, who charged him with sexual harassment.
“The denigrating way that these Anglo men treated her was so familiar to me,” she said. “It was familiar to my mother. It was familiar to my grandmother. It was familiar to my daughters.”
Dr. Estés said the strong, wild nature of women was revealed in the protests that surrounded the hearings. “I remember a photograph of Pat Schroeder and many other women marching to the Senate to tell these men what they thought of all this,” she said. “I saw their backs arched, and their legs climbing the steps. And I thought, ‘Ah, the pack is going after them.’ “
(snip)
After lunch, Dr. Estés strolled a block and a half down Gaylord Street, exulting in the sunshine on a surprisingly warm winter day.
“Here’s my house,” she said, pointing to a cream-colored brick and stucco home. “You know the best thing about having a house? You get to plant whatever you want in the yard and watch it grow.”
The Power of Story 