253 Quotes by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

As a woman lives them, she will understand more and more of these interior feminine rhythms, among them the rhythms of creativity, or birthing psychic babies and perhaps also human ones, the rhythms of solitude, of play, of rest, of sexuality, and of the hunt.

Wolves and women have much in common. Both share a wild spirit. Women and wolves are instinctual creatures, able to sense the unseen. They are loyal, protective of their packs and their pups. They are wild and beautiful. Both have been hunted and captured. Even in captivity, one can see in the eyes of a woman, or a wolf, the longing to run free, and the determination that should the opportunity arise, whoosh, they will be gone.

To love pleasure takes little. To love truly takes a hero who can manage his own fear.

Three things differentiate living from the soul versus living from ego only. They are: the ability to sense and learn new ways, the tenacity to ride a rough road, and the patience to deepen love over time. The ego, however, has a penchant and proclivity to avoid learning. Patience is not the ego's strong suit. Enduring in relationship is not Raven's forte. So it is not from the ever-changing ego that we love another, but rather from the wild soul.

...stories that rise from deep suffering can provide the most potent remedies for past, present, and even future ills.

It is worse to stay where one does not belong at all than to wander about lost for a while and looking for the psychic and soulful kinship one requires

If you have attempted to fit whatever mold and failed to do so, you are probably lucky. You may be an exile of some sort, but you have sheltered your soul.

The word pneuma (breath) shares its origins with the word psyche; they are both considered words for soul. So when there is song in a tale or mythos, we know that the gods are being called upon to breathe their wisdom and power into the matter at hand. We know then that the forces are at work in the spirit world, busy crafting soul.

Go out in the woods, go out. If you don't go out in the woods nothing will ever happen and your life will never begin.