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Clarissa Pinkola Estes

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“While archetypes may emanate through us for short periods of time, in what we call numinous experience, no woman can emanate an archetype continuously. Only the archetype itself can withstand such projections such as ever-able, all giving, eternally energetic. We may try to emulate these, but they are ideals, not achievable by humans, and not meant to be. Yet the trap requires that women exhaust themselves trying to achieve these unrealistic levels. To avoid the trap, one has to learn to say 'Halt' and 'Stop the music,' and of course mean it.”

GivingTryingHumansMayMeanAbleCoursesLevelsAchievePeriodsIdealsMeant To BeTrapsProjectionEnergeticHaltEmulateArchetypeEmanateNuminous
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“Asking the proper question is the central action of transformation- in fairy tales, in analysis, and in individuation. The key question causes germination of consciousness. The properly shaped question always emanates from an essential curiosity about what stands behind. Questions are the keys that cause the secret doors of the psyche to swing open.”

ActionCausesSecretBehindsConsciousnessDoorsKeysEssentialsTransformationAskingCuriosityTalesAnalysisFairyFairy TaleSwingsEmanateIndividuationSecret Doors
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“Sometimes the one who is running from the Life/Death/Life nature insists on thinking of love as a boon only. Yet love in its fullest form is a series of deaths and rebirths. We let go of one phase, one aspect of love, and enter another. Passion dies and is brought back. Pain is chased away and surfaces another time. To love means to embrace and at the same time to withstand many endings, and many many beginnings- all in the same relationship.”

ThinkingMeanSometimesRunningPainFormDiesPassionRelationshipLetting GoAspectEmbraceSeriesSurfacePhasesRebirthLife DeathLove MeansAnother TimeBoonBack PainDeath And Rebirth
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“It makes utter sense to stay healthy and strong, to be as nourishing to the body as possible. Yet I would have to agree, there is in many women a 'hungry' one inside. But rather than hungry to be a certain size, shape, or height, rather than hungry to fit the stereotype; women are hungry for basic regard from the culture surrounding them. The 'hungry' one inside is longing to be treated respectfully, to be accepted and in the very least, to be met without stereotyping.”

BodyCertainCultureStrongHealingFitHealthyMetsShapesRegardAgreeLongingSizeAcceptedHungryTreatedHeightTeensStereotype
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“In mythos and fairy tales, deities and other great spirits test the hearts of humans by showing up in various forms that disguise their divinity. They show up in robes, rags, silver sashes, or with muddy feet. They show up with skin dark as old wood, or in scales made of rose petal, as a frail child, as a lime-yellow old woman, as a man who cannot speak, or as an animal who can. The great powers are testing to see if humans have yet learned to recognize the greatness of soul in all its varying forms.”

IfsMenHumansHeartChildrenMadeSoulShowsFormSpiritSpeakDarkAnimalFeetGreatnessTestsSkinsRoseVariousWoodsScalesTalesFairyDivinitySilverYellowFairy TaleDisguiseTestingDeitiesGreat PowerOld WomanRobesRagsPetalsFrailShowing UpMuddyGreat SpiritLimesRose PetalsOld Wood
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“Though fairy tales end after ten pages, our lives do not. We are multi-volume sets. In our lives, even though one episode amounts to a crash and burn, there is always another episode awaiting us and then another. There are always more opportunities to get it right, to fashion our lives in the ways we deserve to have them. Don't waste your time hating a failure. Failure is a greater teacher than success.”

WayEndsHateOpportunityGreaterTeacherOur LivesFashionAmountTenWastePagesDeserveTalesFairyFairy TaleEpisodesVolumeCrashDon't Waste Your Time
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“When a woman is frozen of feeling, when she can no longer feel herself, when her blood, her passion, no longer reach the extremities of her psyche, when she is desperate; then a fantasy life is far more pleasurable than anything else she can set her sights upon. Her little match lights, because they have no wood to burn, instead burn up the psyche as though it were a big dry log. The psyche begins to play tricks on itself; it lives now in the fantasy fire of all yearning fulfilled. This kind of fantasizing is like a lie: If you tell it often enough, you begin to believe it.”

IfsFeelsBelieveKindLittlesEnoughPlayFeelingsBigsLightLife IsLyingPassionFantasyFireBloodSightWoodsTricksDryDesperateYearningFulfilledFrozenExtremityFantasy Life
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“In this tradition a story is 'holy,' and it is used as medicine," she told Radiance magazine. "The story is not told to lift you up, to make you feel better, or to entertain you, although all those things can be true. The story is meant to take the spirit into a descent to find something that is lost or missing and to bring it back to consciousness again.”

FeelsStoriesUsedSpiritLostConsciousnessMissingHolyTraditionMedicineMagazinesBeing TrueLiftsFeel BetterDescentRadianceLift You Up
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“What is that which can never die It is that faithful force that is born into us that one that is greater than us that calls new seed to the open and battered and barren places so that we can be resown. It is this force in its insistence in its loyalty to us in its love of us in its most often mysterious ways that is far greater far more majestic and far more ancient than any heretofore ever known.”

WayDiesForceBornKnownGreaterAncientSeedsLoyaltyMysteriousFaithfulBarrenMajesticInsistenceBatteredMysterious Ways
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“I call her Wild Woman, for those very words, wild and woman, create llamar o tocar a la puerta, the fairy-tale knock at the door of the deep feminine psyche. Llamar o tocar a la puerta means literally to play upon the instrument of the name in order to open a door. It means using words that summon up the opening of a passageway. No matter by which culture a woman is influenced, she understands the words wild and woman, intuitively.”

MeanMatterPlayOrderCultureNamesDoorsInstrumentsTalesOpeningFairyFeminineFairy TaleUsing WordsWild Women
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“There is a time in our lives, usually in mid-life, when a woman has to make a decision - possibly the most important psychic decision of her future life - and that is, whether to be bitter or not. Women often come to this in their late thirties or early forties. They are at the point where they are full up to their ears with everything and they've "had it" and "the last straw has broken the camel's back" and they're "pissed off and pooped out." Their dreams of their twenties may be lying in a crumple. There may be broken hearts, broken marriages, broken promises.”

HeartMayImportantDreamLastsLyingDecisionOur LivesBrokenPromiseLateEarsTwentiesBitterFortyPsychicsStrawsCamelsPissed OffBroken PromisesFuture LifeBroken Marriage
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“we all begin the process before we are ready, before we are strong enough, before we know enough; we begin a dialogue with thoughts and feelings that both tickle and thunder within us. We respond before we know how to speak the language, before we know all the answers, and before we know exactly to whom we are speaking.”

KnowsEnoughFeelingsSpeakLanguageStrongProcessAnswersKnow HowReadyDialogueThunderStrong EnoughThoughts And FeelingsIndividuationReclamation
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“All the "not readies," all the "I need time," are understandable, but only for a short while. The truth is that there is never a "completely ready," there is never a really "right time." As with any descent to the unconscious, there comes a time when one simply hopes for the best, pinches one's nose, and jumps into the abyss. If this were not so, we would not have needed to create the words heroine, hero, or courage.”

IfsNeedsReadyHeroNeededTruth IsNosesUnconsciousRight TimeAbyssHeroinesDescentHoping For The BestTime Of NeedThere Comes A TimeI Need Time
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“In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. Do not make yourself ill with overwhelm. There is a tendency to fall into being weakened by perseverating on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails.”

WorldFallDarkAttitudeFocusPositive ThinkingWindIllSpendingTendenciesSailDark TimesFainting
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“A Prayer Refuse to fall down If you cannot refuse to fall down, refuse to stay down. If you cannot refuse to stay down, lift your heart toward heaven, and like a hungry beggar, ask that it be filled. You may be pushed down. You may be kept from rising. But no one can keep you from lifting your heart toward heaven only you. It is in the middle of misery that so much becomes clear. The one who says nothing good came of this, is not yet listening.”

IfsHeartMayFallAsksHeavenPrayerClearMiddleListeningFilledMiseryRefuseHungryLiftsRisingFalling DownLiftingBeggarDark Night Of The Soul
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“To adjoin the instinctual nature does not mean to come undone, change everything from left to right, from black to white, to move the east to west, to act crazy or out of control. It does not mean to lose one's primary socializations, or to become less human. It means quite the opposite. The wild nature has a vast integrity to it”

HumansMeanDoeMovingLeftBlackLosesWhiteCrazyIntegrityOppositesWestEastPrimariesUndoneSocializationThe Wild Nature
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“When we accept our own wild beauty, it is put into perspective, and we are no longer poignantly aware of it anymore, but neither would we forsake it or disclaim it either. Does a wolf know how beautiful she is when she leaps? Does a feline know what beautiful shapes she makes when she sits? Is a bird awed by the sound it hears when it snaps open its wings? Learning from them, we just act in our own true way and do not draw back from or hide our natural beauty. Like the creatures, we just are, and it is right.”

KnowsWayDoeBeautifulSoundNaturalAcceptingKnow HowPerspectiveShapesCreaturesDrawsBirdWingsLeapSnapsForsakeFelineWild BeautyHow Beautiful She Is
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