Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype

by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Book Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - More than 2.7 million copies sold - "A deeply spiritual book that] honors what is tough, smart and untamed in women."--The Washington Post Book World

Book club pick for Emma Watson's Our Shared Shelf

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. For though the gifts of wildish nature belong to us at birth, society's attempt to "civilize" us into rigid roles has muffled the deep, life-giving messages of our own souls.

In Women Who Run with the Wolves, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Est s unfolds rich intercultural myths, fairy tales, folk tales, and stories, many from her own traditions, 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. Est s 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.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B00BG7EQTM
• ISBN13: 9780345409874
• Release Date: November 1996
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 608 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Never received this book.

I am very sad, I LOVE THIS BOOK! Iv ordered it several times and gift them to woman I know. This review isn’t about the book it’s about I ordered it over a month ago again, and it never came. I accidentally ordered the mass size and I wanted the regular size so I gifted the mass size to another friend of mine and way going to rebuy the regular size for myself. I don’t know how to make a return or get my money back since it never came to me…. HELP… or send me a regular size copy to replace the one I order and never got.

This book lives on my nightstand

I love this book so much. There’s a deep, bodily remembrance that comes alive when I read the introduction. Each myth is something that will resonate with your experience as a woman symbolically or metaphorically. This book also calls for reading it over a long period of time and that slowing down is so needed in today’s world

Mystic knowledge to tune into

Seems we have lost our connection to the wild, this storytelling way of writing and teaching makes you inquire within, and raises your voice and power in the evolution of the woman.

Took me 1 whole year to read this book.

And I’d highly recommend it to every woman. It’s a bit of a challenge to read - all the best books are. I can’t remember any specifics from this book - just a strong sense of empowerment as I read. Overall just a wonderful ode to women, and honoring the wild feminine underneath all those civilized layers.

If I had to only read one book for the rest of my life this would be it

This book holds so much power. I absolutely love this book and it’s one of the few that I can read over and over again. The author is a powerful woman and it’s clear she pours her heart and soul into her work.

Not impressed

I pushed myself to get to the halfway mark and made it but closed the book and put it on the shelf. It was easy to follow but I found it rather boring.

Beautifully written.

I connected with every single story. I’m buying another copy for my mom and sister!

Great condition

One of my favorite books of all time

Compelling Read

I would encourage everyone to read this book. It is a very compelling read - the stories are rich and varied, and the author does a very good breaking them down and explaining how they relate to each other, to us, and the world around us. Reading this book is a powerful reminder of where we come from and what we are capable of. I've reread it twice now and will continue to do so!

Best book I’ve ever read in my life

Book came bent up but intact and now it’s more beat up and highlighted than ever. I recommend this book to every single person in the planet. Get it.

Keep the wild in you.

I love this book it's so powerful to know the history and stories behind the beautiful strong women.

Every women should read this enchanting book

Great old folk tales, with deeper meaning for women's lives

First time buying. Absolutely perfect! Like brand NEW! Very pleasantly surprised. Thank you!

Excited to start reading. Have always wanted to read these stories.

A Brilliant woman writes about the exceptional in women

This book is so different, so astounding, that it defies catagorization. The concept of analyzing ancient legends and folk tales to reveal the inner nature of women and the patterns in womens' lives felt revolutionary to me when I first sat down with this book. But then, as I read each segment and digested the author's analysis and correlation with typical life patterns experienced by women, I realized that she tapped into truths which are as ancient as the folk tales and legends themselves. Besides that, she is one of the most ELOQUENT writers I've ever had the pleasure to read. Her observations and their resulting lessons are so profound, so insightful they take my breath away at times. I just have to sit back, take a deep breath, shake my head and reread the section that just overwhelmed me. My favorites are "Skeleton Woman" and "Baubo the Belly Goddess". I don't want to give away any surprises... so just get this wonderful book and read these chapters for yourself! I've read it straight through, and then gone back to re-experience my favorite chapters. This book can be enjoyed either way! I would so love to meet this woman at a booksigning.

Share with Your Daughters

I first read "Women Who Run With the Wolves" when I was a teenager. I was struck deeply by all of the stories. At the time, the stories that stood out the most in my mind were Bluebeard, Skeleton Woman, and Sealskin, Soulskin. They lived on, in my mind, as I grew, and I never forgot the messages I learned from the stories. That was an incredible influence on my life. The stories and Clarissa Pinkola Estes' descriptions were the wise women I needed to guide me away from allowing myself to be destructed and instead choosing to be aware. I highly recommend sharing this book with your teenage daughters, and talking with them about the messages. In addition this book helped me to view all the stories that I had enjoyed as a child as commentary on my survival (from sexual abuse).Now, ten years later, I pick the book up again, just as I have periodically throughout my life. Usually I would just re-read the stories, and not the analysis (I would make my own connections and understandings), but now I want to read the analysis again from my adult perspective. On the verge of motherhood I am longing for the voices of wise women to walk with me into the next phase of my life.

The Inner Wellspring

Reading the other customer reviews, I find it very interesting to see how different they are, and how different many of them are from my experience. I was surprised to read the review on this page by the woman who believes we ought to read Jung first (or instead). My experience is the opposite; when I've picked up Jung's original works I've found them tough to follow, but this book I found very accessible and useful. I don't think the comparison between the Bible and a tv evangelist is at all fair. It's more like the difference between Strunk & White and the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED is wonderful, but Strunk & White is the one that is most likely to help you become a better writer.Although I think of myself as a creative person, I tend to downplay that part of myself and to lead with my left brain, as it were. Reading this book I felt like I was being given a path to my inner wellspring. I felt that I had at last found water for a thirst I hadn't quite been able to identify until now.This book is about one's inner life. It is not a how-to book, it's not political (except in the sense that the personal is political), and I didn't feel that it over-emphasized "what's wrong with you," as another reader put it. It does continually nudge one to think about what might be wrong: many many women are cut off from their own preferences, their own inner selves, because they feel pressured to conform with societal norms. Many societal norms are, in my opinion, quite damaging and inappropriate. It is very easy in American society to get the impression that women should be seen and not heard. Women are still encouraged to focus on how we look, to be compliant, to act ladylike and be nice even when we are being denigrated, and to stand by our man no matter what. We are encouraged to help others at the expense of our own happiness, and many many of us fall into this trap without even realizing it. We think it is normal to put ourselves last, and we lose touch with the shames and the fears that keep us from being happy, wiping the subject of happiness off the table with a dismissive hand as something that is too indulgent or not important.This book helped me realize the ways in which I stand in my own way, and it gave me courage and inspiration. The author is not only a Jungian analyst, but a storyteller. She is steeped in the traditions of storytelling from both the Latin and the Hungarian sides of her family, and I very much enjoyed the ways in which she uses this legacy of the storyteller as healer to make her points. I never thought of storytelling in this way before, but reading this book I found it to be true. (I feel that her stories have helped heal me.) I am a storyteller myself, of a sort, so for me the book was a kind of homecoming. If you have ever wondered why fairy tales seem so cruel and peculiar, you will find the answers in this book. Fairy tales have been mangled in the tra

Not one-sided

I just want to say that this material is as valuable for the male as it is for the female. Just as the stories are timeless and archetypal, so are the messages contained within. I'd recommend WWRWW to anyone interested in inner work and understanding, and also the Theatre of the Imagination (two volumes) audio series, which doesn't suffer from the perception that it is for women (only).

A must for every woman who feels that she should "LIVE"

This is no miracle medicine book for an overnight turn over to a new you.... This book is certainly not prescribed for a person who does not have the courage to look with in. But for the woman no matter what she is, a house wife, a professional or an executive, as long as she accepts that she wants to be the woman the lord created her as and stop living the way soceity/ circumstances / culture dictates, this book is a friend who will wisper in your ear each time where to turn and where to look.I would not appreciate this book being used to be displayed on a book shelf as an indication of so called intellectual reading. It is not. This book is for every woman who likes to listen to tales, to think about these tales and to learn from these tales. Read it and ask your self, why is that so. Open the minds doors, stray into those corridors where you never wanted to go, never had the time/ inclination to go...... and you will in time, after reading/ rereading will find the graceful, fully alive, intutitive wolf woman with in. and she is the best friend you could have for the rest of your life..... and if you really love your daughter, show her the path.The womankind should thank Clarissa for this book.