The Power of Story

Introduction: “Singing Over the Bones”

Within every woman there lives a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing. She is the Wild Woman, who represents the instinctual nature of women. But she is an endangered species. In Women Who Run With the Wolves, Dr. Estés unfolds rich intercultural myths, fairy tales, and stories, many from her own family, in order to help women reconnect with the fierce, healthy, visionary attributes of this instinctual nature. Through the stories and commentaries in this remarkable book, we retrieve, examine, love, and understand the Wild Woman and hold her against our deep psyches as one who is both magic and medicine. Dr. Estés has created a new lexicon for describing the female psyche. Fertile and life-giving, it is a psychology of women in the truest sense, a knowing of the soul.  (Clarrisa Pinkola Estés website)

🐺   What this is?

  • A journey that takes place monthly on the second Tuesday at 5pm PST/8pm EST 
  • We will begin with the INTRODUCTION: “Singing Over the Bones”.
  • For 60 minutes, we will set the stage for creating a suit for our SoulCollage® decks that is inspired by Clarissa Pinkola Estes (CPE).
  • I will play the part of guide for this first session, but we will all create this space together. 
  • We will gather to share our insights on the text through discussion and the sharing of SoulCollage® cards we already had or made after reading.
  • Maybe we will be inspired to add to existing cards or make new ones after our time together. 
  • We will continue to meet on the 2nd Tuesday of the month (except Valentine’s Day we will meet 2/7). 

☺️  I am not …

  • A trained SoulCollage® facilitator (stay tuned until April 2023). 
  • A Jungian Psychoanalyst (like Seena Frost or CPE)
  • An expert on the book, nor do I have a suit made…yet.  
  • Keeping track of who does and does not show up. Come when you can. No need to RSVP each month. 

☑️   Guidelines

  1. Be familiar with SoulCollage®
  2. Read the text before the gathering and find a card in your deck that comes to mind or make a new card.
  3. Send Mary your card(s) by noon on the day of the meeting by email
  4. Log in on the 2nd Tuesday of the month at 5pm PST.

ACTIVITY: Bibliomancy

I recently downloaded a new audio class by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés from Sounds True entitled The Beginner’s Guide to Dream Interpretation.  In the class, she teaches that “a dream is a letter from home”. 

I think it could also be used for Bibliomancy which is a method of “foretelling the future by interpreting a randomly chosen passage from a book”. We can randomly open a page and point with our finger to see what messages we need from the text of a book. 

Check out this quick and fun method to use with any dream, quote, or text. Just like “I am one who”… it is a first thought-right thought kind of journaling.

The Psychoanalytic Method of Dream Interpretation (Audio Section 4) adapted for text

  1. Record the dream or quote
  2. Write it down
  3. Look at the “nouns” in the dream or quote that are Persons, Places or Things
  4. Make a list of those “nouns”
  5. What images, ideas, feelings, or thoughts come to me when I think of that noun
  6. Write down the association of the “images, ideas, feelings, or thoughts” 
  7. Associate with the next noun
  8. We can now begin to find the essence in our life. Where can we find these associations in our current life? Where is it happening in my life? Or where should it be happening in my life?

My example from Chapter One: The Howl: Resurrection of the Wild Woman

La Loba sings over the bones she has gathered. To sing means to use the soul-voice. It means to say on the breath the truth of one’s power and one’s need, to breath over the thing that is ailing or is need of restoration. Ch 1, Page 24

  • La Loba she is the wild part of me that can bring my authentic purposeful life into full technicolor awareness.
  • Bones the foundation of my own personal story that was once influenced by the myths society told me my worth was wrapped in marriage and motherhood. I need to collect all the other bones of my own self-story so I can lay it out to create the Skeleton that can run free as who I am destined to be. 
  • Soul-Voice that part of me that was once contained and bottled up that is now ready to break open and speak freely. It is my authentic voice that was suppressed because when I was growing up girls were told to stay quiet and look pretty. 
  • Truth that is found in my heart, my core, my belief structures.
  • One’s Power and Needs the real stuff that was hidden if it didn’t please others or would have made waves or challenged authority. 
  • Breath take charge of one’s own life and destiny. Give life to the authentic, creative, vibrant and gifted individual we were all born to be. 
  • Thing Ailing or in need of Restoration the part of me that was hidden and in need of some self care and time for healing.

LAST STEP: How do these associations show up in my current life or where should they show up? I come away from this analysis with confidence that I need to continue to break down and unlearn many of the myths and stories that were told to me in society’s overculture. I need to continue to sing over my collections. I will encourage and nurture myself to shine, and in telling my truth, I can share and model this method for others. 

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