Sometimes this is what it looks like: night-walks through fogged streets, dinner alone at a quiet Thai restaurant, the hospitality of silence.
I was invited today to return to “The Handless Maiden,” to read again, to find my own meaning or points of connection in the story. So I pulled my copy of Women Who Run With The Wolves from the shelf, and am revisiting. Let me share a piece of Pinkola-Estes with you:
There are times in a woman’s life when she cries and cries and cries, and even though she has the succor and support of her lived ones, still and yet she cries. Something in this crying keeps the predator away, keeps away unhealthy desire or gain that will ruin her. Tears are part of the mending of rips in the psyche where energy has leaked and leaked away. The matter is serious, but the worst does not occur–our light is not stolen–for tears make us conscious. There is no chance to go back to sleep when one is weeping. Whatever sleep comes then is only rest for the physical body.
Sometimes a woman says, “I am sick of crying, I am tired of it, I want it to stop.” But it is her soul that is making tears, and they are her protection. So she must keep on until the time of need is over. Some women marvel at all the water their bodies can produce when they weep. It will not last forever, only till the soul is done with its wise expression.
Women Who Run With The Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D., p 404.
Keep on with your wise work, whatever it is just now.
