spring goddess

So what is the point of this reclamation and focus, this calling back of what has been lost, this running with the wolves? It is to go for the jugular, to get right down to the seed and to the bones of everything and anything in your life, because that’s where your pleasure is, that’s where your joy is, that’s where a woman’s Eden lies, that place where there is time and freedom to be, wander, wonder, write, sing, create, and not be afraid.

When wolves perceive pleasure or danger, they at first become utterly still. They become like statues, utterly focused so they can see, so they can hear, so they can sense what is there, sense what is there in its most elemental form.

This is what the wildish nature offers us: the ability to see what is before us through focusing, through stopping and looking and smelling and listening and feeling and tasting. Focusing is the use of all of our senses, including intuition. It is into this world that women come in order to claim their own voices, their own values, their imaginations, their clairvoyance, their clear-seeing, their stories, and the ancient memories of women. And these are the work of focus and creation.

Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, P.361

What does Clarissa Pinkola Estes think of intuition as creativity?

She ends ‘Chapter Ten:  Nourishing the Creative Life’ of her book Women Who Run With the Wolves with the above paragraphs which discuss focusing your senses to include intuition.

Thinking about this, it hit home to me that intuition is not only the ability to sense things, it creates things.

For example, if you are fearful of something, you will draw that to your life.

So what do we do? If we have this sense of ‘fear’ of something? You must confront it and work through it or you will create it. I have seen that principle work so many times in peoples lives.

And then you must focus on the positive: your ‘highest’ self and possibility.

Where does that lie? And how do you work towards it? Go for the ‘jugular’ as Estes says and cut out anything that does not support movement towards that goal.

Having four children has been incredible growth for me as it has taught me prioritization. There is never a ‘done’ in my life or a free, lazy afternoon. I have learned that in order to keep my health, I have to ‘take’ my time, a little each day to focus on what nourishes my soul, often over protests from everyone else including my husband.

Positive intuition is at its base a belief in yourself.

Over the past few years, with the help of some wise, wild women such as the lovely Arna Baartz and many others, I have reached down deep within myself and discovered the ‘seed’ of who I wish to be.

It is a fragile little sapling that I have had to fiercely protect.

But it is growing.

And each time, I see that possibility of who I can be and then use my senses to move towards it, that sapling grows.

It is tough work, but oh so incredibly rewarding.

In her words and many others, you must give it rest, water and sunshine.

But after a lifetime of running from my fear, anxiety, self-doubt and unworthiness, to put my energy towards that growth is a beautiful, amazing, wondrous and miraculous thing.

Happy Spring.

Trust your heart

for its opening

Trust your heart

It hears the call

Gone are the days

of Feeling Small

Red Bud from Mamuse

For more tips on honing your unique intuitive skills, see my post here.

Elsewhere in the chapter, Estes speaks of the need to make ‘containers’ for things in your life: areas that they may be held.

I have said or written my disappointment of the lack of wise women, crones, strong and powerful females in my life. When I say or write this, the Universe hears ‘lack’, and that is what continues. Instead of this thinking, I have to make a ‘container’ in my life to attract these type of people into my life.

I am moving. I am growing. Through my fear, through my anxiety, I am finding courage, strength, peace and wisdom. I am learning how to better live a healthy life and as I do, I will make space for friendships (already have) with similar types of women so that we can support each other and help each other grow.

The key here is ‘similar’ women. How do you see yourself? You will attract the same.

Photo of Hare Ke (West African) Goddess of the sweet waters fed by the spring rains that brought fertility back to the land.