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Summary: Information all women should have
Review: Women Who Run With the Wolves was recommended to me in casual conversation by a woman I barely knew. I am so thankful that I wrote down the title and found it. Though I did not know what to expect when I started reading it, I quickly realized the amazing power of the messages it shares. I highly recommend this book and wish all women (and men, in fact) would read it and recommend it to their friends. You will be doing yourself and your friends a huge favor.
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Summary: Wishing for More
Review: I had such a hard time getting through "Women Who Run with Wolves," yet the struggle was so worth it. I discovered Estes' book after Jean Shinoda Bolen's "Goddesses in Every Woman" turned me onto Jungian archetypes. Unlike the Greek myths in "Goddesses," however, the stories Estes chooses to portray the lessons women need to learn to grown are much darker. Perhaps because Estes' writing requires so much emotional work from the reader, I took a very long time reading this. I would pick it up, read a chapter, put it down for sometimes a month or more, and then pick it up again. As I went through this process, I made an astonishing discovery: Somehow, what followed from the point where I had left off was EXACTLY what I needed when I picked up the book again. What a wonderful gift she has given us!
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Summary: "If a story is a seed, then we are its soil."--CPE
Review: Clarissa Pinkola Estes is a gifted storyteller--one who does not just love stories, but also recognizes their ability to stir the soul. She sees each story she shares as a cure for a spiritual deprivation, and so retells each one in her rich, soulful style, adding Latino ethnic twists to increase the illumination. Then, sounding like a village wise woman, she explains the effects of each type of deprivation in the souls and bodies of women. For instance, she interprets "The Little Match Girl" as a story about the necessity of putting one's creativity (represented by the matches) to good use: the failure to do so makes one freeze to death.Certainly, women need the sort of healing that stories can give them--but so does everyone in the world, male or female. Men just didn't happen to be part of Estes' "target audience" when she wrote "Women Who Run with the Wolves", I suppose. Yet it is precisely this book that encouraged me to read "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "The Selfish Giant" to my little brothers. The wondrous thing about this book is that it is only one person's opinion about the power of certain myths. Anyone is free to agree or disagree with Estes . . . to take or reject her advice . . . to give her chosen stories different meanings . . . to apply her meanings to different stories. For example, Estes used "The Ugly Duckling" to lament how a rigid, uncompromising society can oppress mothers into abandoning "unconventional" children. To that I add that if the ducklings had had a father duck around, then the ugly duckling would have had proper protection from the pond bullies and a lot more backbone. It is also delightful to recognize the archetypes playing hide-and-seek in the fairytales and myths of many cultures. Russia's "Vasalisa" is uncannily like "Snow White", except that the cottage in the woods houses a witch (Baba Yaga), rather than seven dwarves. Also, the colors white, red and ebony/black are not found in the features of the story's heroine, but are sewn into the dress of her doll. Then there are the striking similarities between "Bluebeard" and the Greek myth of Eros and Psyche. (Of course, the difference is that one ends happily and the other does not.) Finally, I love the way almost every sentence here rings with the kind of beauty and passion I have come to expect only in poetry, never in prose. For this reason, I can sit with this book and just dip into the paragraphs to be refreshed. The most potentially disturbing element in "Women Who Run with the Wolves" is Estes' firm faith in the Life/Death/Life cycle--something very pagan. If readers miss the point early in the book, all the references to long-gone goddess-based religions of the ancient world will certainly drive home the fact. Personally, I thought it less bothersome than all the psychological concepts she used--half of which I don't buy at all. I've found that it helps to remind oneself all throughout the story that even though Estes writes of something true and deep, it doesn't follow that all women must identify with wolves (I happen to relate to mice), or feel like wild women, in order to be healthy in spirit.
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Summary: A Classic work
Review: My sister Hannah gave me this book ages ago and it is one that I read and re-read a lot. Clarissa Pinkola Estes is so wonderful if for no other reason than she challenges women to be individulas and not worry about being a group. She speaks of the repressed instinctual elements of women and how we as women need to follow our own path whether it makes feminists or conservatives happy. And in an age when some woman seems to be trying to put me in a box, Estes keeps reminding me to fight back. Cammile Paglia, Susie Bright, and others are examples of what Ms Estes writes about. Or better yet rent the movie Auntie Mame with Roz Russell and see what I mean. Retrieval of intuition and Joyous Body the Wild Flesh, and Self Preservation: Identifying Leg Traps, Cages and Poisoned Bait are good reads. Trap #7 Faking It, Trying to be Good, Normalizing the Abnormal is refreshing. And as an artist and writer I relished Clean Water: Nourishing The Creative Life. Heat: Retrieving A Sacred Sexuality (ok sex is big with me) is something I think every over age 40 woman should read !
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Summary: A timeless masterpiece: the intuitive bible.
Review: I very rarely read and refer to a book time and time again. The exception being " Women who run with the wolves". Clarissa's writing is so clearly intuitive and knowing that I carry this book with me if I am going to be away from home for more than a couple of days.I can just open the book at any page and connect with her writing. The creativity is astounding. I have always thought and felt that there is not always answers or solutions, just but instead a way of knowing, feeling and loving. Of course it is hard to allow things to unfold at times and to lose "control"
Clarissa gives you the warning signs which amount to intuitive sense and gut feeling. She shows us that if we listen to ourselves more often we will develop this sense even further. She has given me a wonderful gift in this book and I know that there will never be another book for me that will surpass this one as for me, it
integrates all aspects of life, both internal and external, that develop our intuitive sense and way of knowing.
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Summary: Wonderful myths
Review: I'm an EQ coach and also help people develop their right-brain functioning, and I use these stories over and over, and recommend this book to my clients. Myths tell us of the collective unconscious and lead us into symbolic thinking, and this book has so much to offer. I've read it more than once! It's one of those books that the more you bring to it, the more you get out of it.
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Summary: YOU WILL BE CHANGED FOREVER FOR THE BETTER !!!
Review: THIS AUTHOR HAS GREAT INSIGHT AND THROUGH HER WRITING TALENTS SHE IS ABLE TO WALK THE READER THROUGH A JOURNEY OF SELF EXPLORATION. YOU WILL FIND YOURSELF IN THIS BOOK AND BEFORE YOU FINISH READING IT YOU WILL DISCOVER YOUR NEW SELF, BUT AMAZINGLY YOU WILL REALIZE THAT YOUR NEW SELF ALREADY EXISTED AND ALL YOU NEEDED TO DO TO FIND YOURSELF WAS OPEN UP YOUR EYES AND SEE THAT WHICH HAS ALWAYS BEEN PRESENT CALLED THE "WILD-WOMAN" AND SIMPLY SET HER FREE. THIS BOOK IS FULL OF STORIES FROM ALL CULTURES AND THROUGH THE STORIES ONE IS EDUCATED ABOUT LIFE,LOVE,DEATH,SPIRIT,INNER STRENGHTHS,AND WEAKNESS.THIS IS THE BEST BOOK I'VE EVER READ AND AS A MATTER OF FACT THE FIRST TIME I READ IT WAS 7 YEARS AGO (WHILE I WAS IN MY MID THIRTIES)AND I WAS SO FLOODED WITH INSIGHT INTO MY OWN PSYCHE THAT I WAS ABLE TO LIVE HAPPIER ,LOVE DEEPER, AND LET GO OF MANY NEGATIVE ASPECTS OF MY LIFE AFTER READING THIS BOOK.THEN I RE-READ THE BOOK AGAIN THIS YEAR (2001)AND I WAS AMAZED AT HOW MUCH MORE I WAS ABLE TO GRASP AND LEARN ALL THE MORE. I RECOMMEND THAT ANY WOMAN WHO NOT ONLY LOVES TO READ, BUT ALSO LOVES TO LEARN SHOULD READ THIS BOOK. BE PATIENT IN THE FIRST COUPLE CHAPTERS OF THE BOOK AS YOU MAY POSSIBLY FIND IT DIFFICULT TO FOLLOW THE JOURNEY THE AUTHOR IS ABOUT TO TAKE YOU ON, BUT WITH PATIENCE YOU WILL SOON DISCOVER A WORLD IN WHICH YOU NEVER KNEW EXISTED AND THAT WORLD IS LOCATED WITHIN YOUR OWN SELF/PSYCHE/ID. BLESS CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTE'S FOR SHARING HER 20 YEARS OR MORE OF EXPERIENCES WITH THE WORLD OF READERS.
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Summary: This book is for anyone who is sick of being tame!
Review: This is one of my all time favorite books. I have underlined parts that made me say "A-ha!" out loud and the parts that made me question...parts that helped me work through things. There are also numerous notes in the margins. To say it's dog-eared would be an understatement... If you love myths and folklore this book is for you. If you feel lost this book is for you. If you are suffering from the too-nice syndrome this book is for you. This book will challenge you to let out the fierce creature that is inside. Do you dare?
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Summary: FINALLY! Now I understand.
Review: I recommend this book to ANY woman. For the strong, it is a confirmation. For the not so strong, you'll realize the answers have always been with you. Thank you Clarissa for reacquainting me with our very old and lifelong friend, La Que Sabe'.
Rating: 
Summary: I want to rave, but...
Review: I agree with the reviewer who said the book lacks practical advice, real applications to everyday life. I find Estes' connection of fairytales to the psyche intriguing and powerful, but something is lacking. An example: There is the story of the seal woman who skin is "captured" by a man, who is forced to marry him, and then eventually escapes back to the sea. Estes connects this story to loss of one's true self, and equates this with clients she's had who have experienced a major sense of theft in their lives, as in theft of opportunity, for example. She talks about visiting a prison and finding that nearly every woman she worked with had experienced a soul theft and was in the processing of reclaiming her true self. Powerful stuff. She promises through the subsequent tales to show how a woman can "come home". I eagerly read through, but was disappointed to find that the advice boiled down to: read a favorite poem, sit in a favorite rocking chair. Advice that would work for healing everyday stress, but not for the kinds of "soul-thefts" she originally discussed. In other words, no meat. There is another problem as well, and that is the lack of feminist analysis of fairytales, which were often coded stories of oppression. The seal woman's marriage is a good example. She interprets this as the marriage of the soul to the practical everyday world. However, it also obviously speaks to another, more painful reality of women's lives: forced and/or abusive marriage. And the child who results, the "soul-child" is also the child who helps his mother escape and return to freedom. This consciousness is entirely lacking in her analysis, and helps crystalize what I feel is lacking in the book.
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