Clarissa Pinkola Estes (2008 [1992]) Women Who Run With The Wolves: Contacting the Power of the Wild Woman.

Maya Angelou’s front-cover endorsement of Women Who Run With the Wolves is one of the most famous blurbs in publishing history.

‘Everyone who can read should read this book.’

I can read and I read the book. Around 2.7 million copies sold. But one of those best-selling books I’d never heard of.  I’m not sure why. Probably because I’m a guy.

‘Stories are medicine.’ Strong medicine. Healing medicine. Clarissa Pinkola Estés is a cantadora (a keeper of old stories) and a Jungian psychoanalyst. She treats myths and fairy tales not as bedtime stories, but as psychic blueprints.

‘Stories are medicine. They have such power; they do not require that we do anything, be anything, become anything—we eventually just need to listen.’

Both Estes and Angelou demand nothing more than women listen to themselves. Not just surface, but going deeper.

Angelou’s memoir. Angelou’s life. A testamonial to the power of finding one's inner voice after trauma. Women Who Run With the Wolves spends a lot of page-time discussing the ‘Injured Instincts’ and how to recover them. The body remembers.

The book teaches readers how to integrate their ‘dark’ or ‘shadow’ sides rather than suppressing them.

Estés’ belief is that modern life suppresses the instinctual, intuitive, creative part of the psyche — what she calls the Wild Woman archetype. Angelou, who often wrote about reclaiming voice, dignity, and inner strength, recognised this as powerful psychological and cultural work.

The Wild Woman finds herself be being true to her creative urges. That might be writing, painting, dancing, singing. The list is endless as the numbers of ways in which women’s lives are gated and kept shut.

Narrative restores balance. A kind of ancient wisdom that runs bone deep. And must be true to itself.

A guide to courage and authenticity.

Each chapter begins with a myth, folktale, or fairy tale, drawn from global traditions, such as Blue Beard. I didn’t really get it at first

Estés then offers a Jungian analysis, unpacking the symbols as aspects of the female psyche. Blue Beard is a killer that offers the dream. Perhaps Melinda Trump should stop pontificating and start thinking.

Each story corresponds to a developmental task — intuition, creativity, boundary setting, love, danger, rebirth. Life/Death/Life. Nothing stays forever. Nothing stays the same.

At almost 500 pages, several chapters are structured like initiatory rites — tasks, trials, symbolic challenges. A how-to manual reflecting Estés’ view that women must undergo inner initiations to reclaim their instinctual nature.

This is explicit in tales like Vasalisa, where each task is a metaphor for developing intuition.

Each chapter typically follows a specific, three-part rhythm that mimics the process of psychoanalysis:

The Story (The Artifact).

Estés retells a folk tale or myth for different countries or belief systems (e.g., Bluebeard, The Red Shoes, or Vasalisa the Wise). This provides the raw, symbolic material.

The Interpretation (The Dissection)

She cuts through knots of symbols. In this section, she acts as the cantadora (storyteller). The Jungian analyst, explaining what the forest, for example, or the predator, represents in a woman’s psyche (and in real life).

The Application (The Medicine)

She bridges the gap between the ancient story and modern (fucked-up) life, offering practical guidance on how to apply the story’s lessons to current emotional or spiritual struggles.

The wolf must find its pack. And they must watch its back and vice-versa. Read on-if you must.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CVBVVGD6