The body is like an earth

The body is like an earth. It is a land unto itself. It is as vulnerable to overbuilding, being carved into parcels, cut off, overmined, and shorn of it's power as any landscape. The wilder woman will not be easily swayed by redevelopment schemes. For her, the questions are not how to form but how to feel. The breast in all its shapes has the function of feeling and feeding. Does it feed? Does it feel? It is a good breast. 

The hips, they are wide for a reason, inside them is satiny ivory cradle for new life. A woman's hips are outriggers for the body above and below; they are portals, they are a lush cushion, the handholds for love, a place for children to hide behind. 

 The legs, they are meant to take us, sometimes propel us; they are the pulleys that help us lift, they are the anillo, the ring for encircling a lover. They cannot be too this or too that. They are what they are. 

There are no 'supposed to be' in bodies. The question is not of size of shape or years of age, or even having two of everything, for some do not. But the wild issue is, does this body feel, does it have right connection to pleasure, to heart, to soul, to the wild? Does it have happiness, joy? Can it in it's own way move, dance, jiggle, sway, thrust? 

Nothing else matters.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes 
Women Who Run with the Wolves 
Page 210

Thoughts for Today

We are all filled with a longing for the wild.
There are few culturally sanctioned antidotes for this yearning. We were taught to feel shame for such a desire. We grew our hair long and used it to hide our feelings. But the shadow of the Wild Woman still lurks behind us during our days and in our nights. No matter where we are, the shadow that trots behind us is definately four-footed.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Cheyenne, Wyoming
Women who run with the Wolves