Women Who Run with the Wolves

Join us as we discuss Clarissa Pinkola Estes' "Women Who Run with the Wolves," emphasizing its depth in Jungian psychology and storytelling. We explore the feminine perspective in myths, using Baba Yaga as an example of a reinterpreted heroine. The conversation delves into the historical and cultural significance of wildness and civilization, especially the differences in how Wild Men of myth are treated versus Wild Women. We discuss the societal pressures on women and men, the importance of transgressing social norms, and the psychological benefits of embracing one's wildness. The discussion also touches on the cultural diversity brought by Estes' Hispanic heritage.

SHOW NOTES

Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Voices on Independence: Four Oral Histories about Building Women's Economic Power - Smithsonian American Women's History Museum

Wild Men & Women of the Forest - Myth & Moor website by Terri Windling

We want to hear from you! Please rate and review us wherever you find this podcast. Join our Patreon: patreon.com/yourmythicu

Transcript

Karen Foglesong: 0:18

Hi everybody. Welcome back to Mythic U. I'm one of your hosts, KarenFoglesong, and

Erin Branham: 0:24

I'm Erin Branham, and today we are talking about a classic of depth psychology and mythic thinking, Clarissa Pinkola Estes' Women Who Run with the Wolves. This is one of my favorites. Karen picked this one. So go ahead and talk to us about it. Karen, what is it about this that's powerful for you?

Karen Foglesong: 0:42

I want to start by telling you that Estes is a trained Jungian psychoanalyst. And as you know, we kind of lend towards the Jungian perspective here at Mythic U rather than the Freudian or other iterations. So for me, I fell right into her. And she's also a trained cantadora, or keeper of the old stories, in her own traditions, and she says that in her experience, the telling moment of the story draws its power from a towering column of humanity joined one to the other across time and space, elaborately dressed in the rags and robes of nakedness of their time and filled to bursting with life still being lived. And further, she writes that if there is a single source of story and of the numen of story, it is this long chain of humans telling and hearing. And I just think that's a beautiful way to introduce this whole section story is this first knowledge that we have. It's a way we have relayed practical knowledge to one another, as in making a thing or where the best fishing spot is, our community taboos, where never to go. There's like a drop off right there. Don't get there. There's a big bear that lives there. Community connections, as in, like shared events, birthdays or, you know, a wedding, birth, those kind of things. And also about planting and soul meaning and talking about the awe that overcomes us all in the face of this living mystery. So it's no secret, you and I are both story aficionados, story nuts. So when I found Pinkola Estes, I fell right into it.

Erin Branham: 2:37

Definitely. And I remember this book when it came out, it was the late 80s. Is that correct?

Karen Foglesong: 2:43

Yes.

Erin Branham: 2:43

And it fell right into the sort of movement that was happening with divine feminine or Feminine Spirituality. I remember a time when there were book clubs and everybody was reading this book, and it was very powerful. But there's specifically, you know the fact that it's about women who run with the wolves. Like, what does that mean?

Karen Foglesong: 3:06

Yes. What -

Erin Branham: 3:08

You tell me.

Karen Foglesong: 3:08

You tell me. Like, yes, that's it. Well, one of her repeated points throughout "Run with the Wolves" is reinterpreting stories from a feminine perspective, which is often very shocking to us, like the starkness and perhaps potential intensity of the feminine expression seen in stories of Baba Yaga. She's become a pretty popular kind of quote bad guy in quote bad guy here in in in our storytelling in the modern world, but Baba Yaga has she was not always a demon-like creature. In early stories, she was harsh, yes, but if you look at these stories from the perspective of a woman coming of age, it's almost like the hero tale for the woman. Rather than battling a monster, you have to face Baba Yaga. And if you face Baba Yaga, and you come back from there, then you are a viable woman. You are a strong woman. You can survive the world, and you're ready to be a woman in your community, kind of idea. But Baba Yaga is scary, and the way we tend to look at women in our culture today is, it's that level of intensity just doesn't go with the way we like this kind of Princess ideal, right? It's this. It's not That's not the thing. This is what I have come to understand from this and you have given birth, Erin, so you will know this better. So it sounds a little weird coming from someone who hasn't given birth, but I know this, the awesome endurance, the monumental, awesome strength and and gentleness that it takes to be a mother, is insane, is and so I say the worst Baba Yaga story is nothing compared to that, like, like nothing. So the worst of Baba Yaga is getting you ready to be that creature that is strong enough to produce another life. You know, that's

Erin Branham: 5:16

That's That's fascinating. And just in case what - there's anybody listening who doesn't know Baba Yaga? That is a figure from Slavic folklore. Typically, the way we know her in the modern world, as Karen is saying, is fairly as a demonic kind of ogress who steals, cooks and eats her victims. Baba Yaga, right, famously has the house on the chicken legs. Yes, is that right? Yes, she has a house that stands on just pick up and run, giant chicken legs. And yes, it can run, get up and run. So you may have seen that image, but I think you're on to something there about - Well, part of what's interesting to me about"Women Who Run with the Wolves" is getting on to this idea of what you just said. There is long been an association of woman with nature, with a kind of natural process that goes to having birth, and as you say, being a mother. There's a long running mythic thread, certainly in Western culture, although I think that may be relatively universal, I would have to check that on that idea of the mother as both being able to produce life but also being devouring. Yeah, right, yes, if you look at certain animals, right? For instance, I know that rabbits, wild rabbits, if a new if a mother has just given birth and she sees danger or is disturbed, she'll eat the young. Yes, right? And we all know that the mother that eats the young, and that idea certainly floats in our kind of core consciousness of natural woman as both powerful enough to give birth and powerful enough to retract that life. Yes, if, if she decides that's what needs to happen, which is fairly terrifying.

Karen Foglesong: 7:04

It is. It is terrifying, especially from a civilized culture. But if you look at this like I've worked with animals for a long time, and I respect that quality in wild animals that the mother will be like, No, this is not a place where my energy that it's going to take to raise these babies is going to flourish. I'm just going to be feeding, you know, a predator, or the tractors coming through, or whatever it is, they just take that energy back into their body. Civilized women tend to look at that as like, Ah, how gross. But a wild woman knows this is not the place for my babies to be thriving. So you take it back.

Erin Branham: 7:44

Wild rabbits can actually reabsorb fetuses. Yes, yes, instead of giving birth to them. It's unclear exactly how that happens, but yeah, if the situation is not right, they'll just stop the pregnancy. Yeah, and which is pretty wild when you think about it. And I want to get into this because we're talking about civilized and wildness, and that is really for me, as we were looking into this, that was what really intrigued me, was the idea the difference in that idea between wildness and civilized or civilization.

Karen Foglesong: 8:20

Yeah, so it's something that Estes talks about as well. And one of the things she says that she grew up in a post World War Two generation when women were infantilized and treated as property and joyful body or dress increased danger of being harmed or sexually assaulted. I mean, all through the 80s, if you were raped, the first thing anybody asked was, What were you wearing? Like it was your fault, like the clothes were just too much for that poor little guy couldn't control himself, right? So, but Erin, we were born, and this took me a while to really comprehend. We were born during a time when it was illegal. You guys listen to me. It was illegal for a woman to have a bank account. What was it? 79?

Erin Branham: 9:03

Without her husband's permission.

Karen Foglesong: 9:04

Yeah, your husband had to sign off on it.

Erin Branham: 9:07

Credit cards,

Karen Foglesong: 9:08

Yep,

Erin Branham: 9:09

Loans,

Karen Foglesong: 9:10

All of that.

Erin Branham: 9:11

You just couldn't- you, yeah,

Karen Foglesong: 9:13

You couldn't access it as a female and I

Erin Branham: 9:16

That's right - in our own lifetimes.

Karen Foglesong: 9:18

Yes, yes. Like, I was listening to a lecture not too long ago, and they were like, 79 was when this changed. And I was like, I was eight, like, and I remember all this advertisement from the banks, open a bank account, have a Christmas fund, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And now I know why, because they had just opened the doors to a new section of clientele.

Erin Branham: 9:41

It coincided almost exactly with my parents divorce.

Karen Foglesong: 9:45

Oh, really?

Erin Branham: 9:46

My parents divorced in 78

Karen Foglesong: 9:48

Wow. Well, that's good for your mom, that she was able to run her own household after.

Erin Branham: 9:53

That was part of why it happened, was because so many people were getting divorced. Yeah, that's a very interesting fact. But yes, so yeah. And I think there's something here that has to do with Pincola Estes is talking specifically about women who run with the wolves. Yes. And this is a very It seems to me, as I dug into is a very gendered space. The idea of wildness and who can be wild, can be civilized. What does that mean in each of the genders? It's very there's a lot, yes, that has to do with with gender.

Karen Foglesong: 10:28

So there's a lot here. That's a great point. I want to, I want to say something about that. So listener, when you hear what we're saying today, remember that there is a huge kind of vortex underneath everything we're saying today, please dive into this. If you find anything interesting that we're talking about,

Erin Branham: 10:46

Definitely we'll, as always, have some good links in our show notes, which you can find on our Buzzsprout page that hosts our podcast. It doesn't come through you on your favorite pod catcher, wherever you get to hear us. Can I talk a little bit about some of the things I found out about the differences in gender?

Karen Foglesong: 11:02

yes, absolutely,

Erin Branham: 11:03

and wildness. So I for this was sort of tasked with looking at the difference between wild men and wild women archetypes. And it's very fascinating, because there's a long running, certainly in the West, a long, long running tradition of the wild man, yes, as a important figure. In fact, in the very first, oldest story on Earth that we have, Gilgamesh, right? There's a wild man. So if you're not familiar with the Epic of Gilgamesh, it was written in the Mesopotamia during the very first cities. Gilgamesh is the great king of the civilization of Uruk, which was one of the first Mesopotamian cities, one of the first cities on earth. He is a harsh, cruel leader. So the god Anu creates Enkidu, a wild man who appears in the forest, naked, horned, covered in hair. These are all markers of the wild man.

Karen Foglesong: 12:00

Markers

Erin Branham: 12:01

In time. Enkidu is civilized by the influence of a woman, also very typical. And he comes to the city where he challenges Gilgamesh, and they have an epic battle along the walls of Uruk. Gilgamesh, who's incredibly powerful does finally best Enkidu, after, I think, days and days of battling, yeah, does eventually defeat Enkidu, and he is so impressed by Enkidu's power and strength and that they become fast friends, and then they embark on a series of adventures together. So here you see the wild man and the civilized man, the king of the city. And then remember, cities are new at this time, right? This is something that I think is very hard for us in the 21st Century to really grasp in the early, you know, for the grand bulk of human history, yes, most of the world is, is wilderness.

Karen Foglesong: 12:57

Right.

Erin Branham: 12:57

And humans have these little outposts in the wilderness,

Karen Foglesong: 13:01

Islands,

Erin Branham: 13:02

yeah, little islands of civilization, civil, the civil, civil civilization. All these things mean cities, right? They mean settlements. That's what that means. So we say something civilized. We typically mean it's settled. Back in the 70s, when the very last nomadic peoples on earth were still around, that was something I know that I heard all the time. There are civilized people who live in cities, and there are uncivilized people who are still nomadic and hunter gatherers and things like that. And there are still a few of these bands on Earth, but not very many. But most of human history was bands of hunters and gatherers. But we don't talk about that when, soon as there's a city in history, we start talking about the cities, right? So we say, what is the history of human civilization? Well, we have cities in Mesopotamia and then in Egypt, and then in China, and then, meanwhile, this is a very small percentage of human population, right? Living in those cities. 98% of the human population is wandering around in nomadic hunter gatherer bands, right? We don't care. We apparently don't care about that.

Karen Foglesong: 14:06

Well, they're not civilized!

Erin Branham: 14:09

Well, and so that's what I mean. As civilized people, we assume civilization is the higher order.

Karen Foglesong: 14:15

Right.

Erin Branham: 14:16

Right? Is the progression towards which this goes back to some ideas that we've spoken about in some of our earlier episodes, the idea of progress, ideas of golden ages, and these kinds of things that are deep in our mythic imagination.

Karen Foglesong: 14:30

Controlling nature.

Erin Branham: 14:31

So this idea of the wild man is that he can be civilized. And frequently there is a particularly as you get into the Middle Ages, there is a kind of permeability to that. A person might be a wild man - and the wild man is very common in medieval literature. Again, it's always somebody, a guy living out in the woods with long hair, very hairy - it's always a big thing - has some kind of relationship to the animals. Can speak to them, or has a special kind of way with them, but that person can be civilized, can be brought into, can be acculturated and brought into the city. And then there's also a movement the other way. There are lots of stories of people who were warriors, Knights or things - Lancelot - there's a story about Lancelot from the Arthurian romances in which he goes mad in his grief for his love who he cannot have, Guinevere, and he becomes a wild man. And he lives in the woods for many years, goes naked. That's another one, nakedness, hairiness, all these things. And then eventually he's kind of brought back in. Merlin as well, from the Arthurian was said to have been a wild man at some point in his life, so the wild man can be brought into civilization and removed from civilization. And interestingly, one of the things I read brought up that this had to do with the idea of men going off to war and then having to come back to peace time. And how do you

Karen Foglesong: 15:58

navigate

Erin Branham: 15:59

take that? Because as you Yeah, and as you were saying, it's made me realize a lot of what we consider to be wildness is intensity.

Karen Foglesong: 16:06

Yes.

Erin Branham: 16:07

It has to do with a kind of intensity, a kind of when we say, the animal nature of like and so a warrior, right? If you have to go off to war, you have to let that violence out. And then when you come back to peace time you have to put it back in its cage.

Karen Foglesong: 16:23

Yes.

Erin Branham: 16:23

So I found that fast, because I was like, Okay, that makes a level of real sense. You know, once you have armies and warriors and these kinds of things, that for men, this was a real problem. So, of course, there's a mythic solution. There's always a mythic solution to a real psychological problem.

Karen Foglesong: 16:41

I also think it's a problem for for women, in the way we see women in battle, like we pretend like we want to take care of women, and that's why we don't want to let them in a combat situation. But I have always thought my whole life, I think it's that we're scared of mother, the devourer. We don't want to see the women out on the battlefield with their wildness out of its cage. It's too scary. Wow, it's too big.

Erin Branham: 17:06

That's that's interesting. That's a very interesting point. But when it comes to wild women, and they do exist, but they tend to be the Other.

Karen Foglesong: 17:18

Yes.

Erin Branham: 17:18

If you go back into the ancient stories. So, for instance, the ancient Greeks were had the Other wild women, the Amazons. And nowadays we know that this was an actual culture that lived, that was probably nomadic, that was largely a horse bound culture. And we think it was the Scythians who lived in Asia minor, what is today, Turkey. And to the Greeks, they were terrifying because they had women warriors.

Karen Foglesong: 17:42

Yes.

Erin Branham: 17:42

Which seemed to them so beyond what they could imagine. Remember, the ancient Greeks believed in cloistered women. You didn't want you let your women out of the house.n

Karen Foglesong: 17:51

Nope.

Erin Branham: 17:52

Much less put them on a horse and give them a sword.

Karen Foglesong: 17:54

Right? Except for the Spartans, right? Spartans still had women warriors.

Erin Branham: 17:59

No, they had women. They trained women very harsh, but they did not have women warriors. There were no Spartan women in the army.

Karen Foglesong: 18:08

They were trained like I guess what I mean. They didn't go out into battle, but when the husband died, they could replace him in their homestead and function legally in the government. That way. How's that?

Erin Branham: 18:22

Oh, probably so, because the Spartans, you know, were this teeny little minority of a group that enslaved all of the locals, yes, and so they had to really maintain control, because if there was any, they were way outnumbered by their slaves, and they were always worried that they were going to come up. And as is normal for slave owners like that, right? But anyway, it was really interesting. We also have Artemis, the goddess Artemis. Now, Gods are always separate from humanity, particularly to the ancient Greeks that were really, really separate. So Artemis is also but she was terrifying, yes, like she for men, she was an example, because if a man ever encountered her, something terrible happened to that man.

Karen Foglesong: 19:03

Hey, you guys, this is a good place to take a pause and remind you that if you like what you're hearing, then join us.

Erin Branham: 19:10

Yes, because we would love to hear from you, any comments, suggestions, criticisms and your stories. Definitely want to hear your stories so like said, rate and review us on Apple podcasts or whatever your podcast of choice is, we'd love to hear from you, your mythic you@gmail.com

Karen Foglesong: 19:27

thanks, you guys. Now back to the regular program, Actaeon.

Erin Branham: 19:30

Actaeon - exactly!

Karen Foglesong: 19:32

But you know that's that's a great story to bring up here too, because for those of you who don't know this basic story is Artemis and her followers are in the sacred pool in the wilderness. Actaeon, the hunter, comes upon them. Artemis turns Actaeon into a fox, and his own hounds rip him to shreds. Right? Sounds horrifying, but this is what we're talking about. This is civilization versus wildness. So the civilized man came into the wilderness without permission, so to speak. He's found the core of the wilderness, if he's found Artemis in her sacred pool. And no reference for that, just a hunter happens, dancing, bludgering into this sacred space. So of course, they have to be brought down. You can't Absolutely. It's not about we tend to turn it into male female in the modern world, but it's really this nature versus civilization. Civilization. Yeah, exactly.

Erin Branham: 20:37

And similarly, Artemis has that association to wild animals, and she in particular, is the goddess of newborn creatures, right? Which is, I should say, getting back to that mother aspect of what's going on. But one of the things they found is that when it comes to wildness, it often means a foreigner, and other, say, the savage that the Europeans saw in the indigenous peoples of America when they first saw because they were different, therefore they were Other, wild. If a wild man is nearby in the forest right outside your city, he's a kind of demonic figure. If he is far away, then he represents a monstrous race, right represents a whole group of others. And if he is far away in time, then he represents a more primitive form of ourselves. So, like, there's all these different little shades to wildness. But when we first started this ice was like, we have to get into what it means wild versus civilization, because that issue of intensity, which is how we read a lot of wildness today comes through when we say that a Girl's Gone Wild, right? What we mean? We don't mean wildness like what we're talking about, we're talking about intensity or, I mean a throwing off of social norms. A lot of what I found about wildness is it has to do with transgressing social norms, yes, transgressing the civilized rules by which we all keep things moving. And if you go across one of those, it seemed to me like that was a lot of what Pincola Estes was talking about when saying, women, find your wildness. She was saying trans, find those places you can transgress social norms because they're holding you in. You're not your full self.

Karen Foglesong: 22:22

Yes, right. I agree. I agree with that, and I think she's coming specifically from a tradition where women pass stories to other women, and there was true knowledge in it, and then so our culture seems almost vacuous because we're in a civilized world, but our women aren't really in this intense space. We're not passing truth down to one another. We may say, you know, some platitude, like, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, you know, like, that's the thing that we pass down from one child to the other. And that's a civilized way of looking at it. How do you function in the civilization you feed a man? He takes care of you, right? That's not the rules for the wild woman. That's not how to reabsorb your pregnancy if you need to, or how to control your reproductive organs. You know any of that, anything that would give women wisdom and control over their bodies is we tend to push that aside well,

Erin Branham: 23:19

and I think as as well, like you say when talking about civilization. And if you look at the civilizing of the wild man, it's almost always a woman that does it. And so it's a fascinating thing to me, because on the one hand, women are are removed from power in civilized spaces because we're too natural, we're too wild, too close to that with what people say. Women are too emotional. Women are too like this, this kind of animal, subhuman kind of thing. And at the same time, civilization essentially is organized around women and childcare, right? Like it is about you build the wall around the settlement so that no one comes in to harm your women and children, who are producing the next generation and keeping civilization going. So women exist in this very interesting space where we are both the civilizers and the keepers of civilization, on the one hand, and the wild impulse that has to be controlled by men to preserve civilization. It's another one of those lovely catch-22s that you get to be in if you're female.

Karen Foglesong: 24:25

Right? Well, I think it has to do with Other, like you've said earlier. In a masculine oriented culture, the feminine becomes the Other, so we are both drawn to and deathly afraid of that element, and I don't think it matters. The Other is always intense fear and intense desire, because it's spice. It's something different you've seen, you know, you've seen your brothers and sisters for ages, and somebody with a different tone of skin color or a different hair color, or just even walks by your civilization, then can be put there the Other- all the tribal fears can be placed on that thing. They made the crops wither. They stole the last chick that disappeared. But really it was the tribal elders that took her. You know, like, Other is easy.

Erin Branham: 25:19

So what do you find most valuable about Women Who Run with the Wolves?

Karen Foglesong: 25:23

Well, as we've pointed out, you and I were both raised in the south, and Campbell was a key for me. Yes, I was correct. All of these things are worthy of respect and are very real, and so Pinkola Estes was the next level of that, digging down deeper into that idea of Other. In the south, I believe that we were raised to believe that ourselves were Other, we were alien, we were some. We needed to learn how to control this alien body we were in that, you know, sinned against God and sin in, like all these, you know, original sin, all these horrible things, and Estes helped me turn that around, read the same story that I had been raised on, and understand that there was different knowledge in it that meant something deeper to me, like the story of Blackbeard is a great one that she goes through in her books. And I don't, I don't want to dig into it here, because I don't think we can do it justice in the small amount of time that we try to keep these talks limited to for the sake of digestion, but I highly recommend that you look at it. It's traditionally presented as a story of containing women and controlling and showing how silly they can be. But there's a different lens that you can look at it, and it really helps you to understand how discerning women actually are, how we're not being fooled. Even if we acquiesce, we're not being fooled, we know what you're doing

Erin Branham: 26:52

well. And I also think, as I'm looking through some quotes from the book, I found one here that's interesting, "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." So this idea of sort of we're all, you know, we all pick up from an early age, the the box society wants us to live in. Yeah, right. We get a we get a clue about that. My favorite Brene Brown, if you're familiar with her, she's a researcher on shame, and she got very famous through some TED talks, and now she has a whole industry of books and fun, wonderful things. And I think she's, she's really very good.

Karen Foglesong: 27:30

She's the one that's about the strength of vulnerability, right, right,

Erin Branham: 27:36

right. Absolutely, she's all about vulnerability. And she said she was signing books early on in her career, and she had a guy come up to her and say, This is all very interesting, but you know, what do you have for me? You What do you have for me? All of this is about all your research seems to have to do with women. And she goes, Oh, well, I don't research men. And he said, Well, that's very convenient, because I have to tell you that my wife and daughters would rather see me die on top of my white horse than to fall off of it. And she was very struck by that, and so she went and did a bunch of research on men, and she came back and she said that very clear, like the overriding societal messages that we get. And I'm speaking as a white, middle class woman, this may not be true for everybody in America, or certainly for women, it is do everything, do it perfectly, and never let them see you sweat.

Karen Foglesong: 28:29

Right? Oh, yeah.

Erin Branham: 28:30

And for men, it is live in a box, right? Know It? You're not allowed any emotions. You're not allowed in you can be mad and you can be lustful, but that's about it.

Karen Foglesong: 28:41

Well, that's, yeah, that's about it. That's what you're limited to.

Erin Branham: 28:45

And ambitious, I guess. But you can't have any other things. And so that idea of, that Pinkola Estes is saying is, go out, go out in the woods, similar to what you've mentioned about Jung saying, you know, if you don't follow the rules of your father, the religion of your father, you're in the woods with a machete. Yeah. And I actually think that's also Campbell talks about it in the Arthurian romances, that what is great about them is they represent the kind of core Western thought, which is all of the when they see the Grail and they are sent a vision of the Holy Grail, all of Arthur and his knights say, we must go and search for the Grail, and they are going to enter the forest of the adventure to find the Grail. And each must enter the forest at a place of his own choosing.

Karen Foglesong: 29:29

Right.

Erin Branham: 29:29

If he finds a path, it is somebody else's path, and he is not on the way to the Grail, right? So all of these ideas have to, I think, even as she's talking about, find your wildness. It has to do with break out of those boxes that if you don't push beyond just what you were taught or what you've always done, if you don't step out into the unknown of your own existence, then, as she says, your life, life never really begins.

Karen Foglesong: 29:57

No, you can't see.

Erin Branham: 29:59

And that's a lot of wha- Yeah, it's a lot of what we're talking about here is take a look at your own, your stories, your mythology and your stories, create the box, yes, that you are living in, and we are all living in a box. And how you know, how big is your box? I guess it's

Karen Foglesong: 30:16

the I just want you to be able to decorate your box the way you want it to look.(laughter) We're all living in boxes, but design the box so it's beautiful. Like, this is a little connected, but not totally. I had a friend years ago, when we were in high school, asked me to describe, I'm trapped in a room, describe the room. And I was like, what? I can't leave the room. There's no way out? No, there's no way out. You're trapped. You can't get out. Describe the room. So I, I love being alone. So my room was fabulous, like I had a carpet, and, you know, all these great things that were comfort oriented. And she goes, Oh, wow, that's interesting. And I was like, what? She goes, it was one of those, is pre internet test, like social tests, right? And it was when once you describe the room, it's your idea of death. Because I'm fine being alone, my idea of death is all comfort like so but I thought it was an interesting kind of question to get the subconscious to answer back. As I've gotten older, I've thought, thought about this a lot, and that room is your box. How do you enter? We're not saying wild woman means like you go crazy and rend your hair and scratch your face and be bloody and gross and stinky. And, you know, walk into the business office where you work with, you know, ripped hair and, you know, that's not what we're saying here. The wild woman is inside of you and allows you to be free even when you're in a structure that you can't be crazy in, you know, right? Like,

Erin Branham: 31:59

yeah, it's a psychological situation, although I will say sometimes there are things you can do physically, right? Maybe it's, you know, I've always wanted to wear bitchin' dark eyeliner. I want to wear bright red lipstick or, I mean, there are ways, yes, that you can sort of signal that. Karen and I were joking at the very beginning of this, I tend to present physically in my clothes. I'm no good at fashion. I just I dress very simply. I have a metal allergy, so don't wear very much jewelry. Like I'm very plain. I'm a very plain Jane in the way I present. And yet, once you get to know me, you know, I have some pretty wild ass ideas going on inside my head. Yeah. And my elder sister was a punk, like, for real, a hardcore 80s combat boots and safety pin through the ear punk. And I've always thought that was hilarious, because I was like, if you looked at the two of us, you'd be like, that one's crazy and that one's normal. And the truth is, we are exactly the opposite of that.

Karen Foglesong: 33:02

It's one of the things I've always loved about you, but I would not describe you as plain Jane. I'm sorry, that's not it, but not - unadorned. We could go that far, unadorned

Erin Branham: 33:12

Unadorned, there you go.

Karen Foglesong: 33:14

But you walk into a room, you take the room.

Erin Branham: 33:16

I'm five foot 10, Karen, it's hard to miss me.

Karen Foglesong: 33:22

That's not just it. Though I've met tall people that shy in the room.

Erin Branham: 33:26

I know, but still it's -

Karen Foglesong: 33:28

You are there. I think it's the work you've done on story.

Erin Branham: 33:30

Maybe.

Karen Foglesong: 33:31

When you are a presence, when your wild woman is intact, you become a presence. Is what I would say.

Erin Branham: 33:37

That's interesting. I feel it.

Karen Foglesong: 33:40

It's not even you guys. We're not saying that Erin and I have reached some level of perfection.

Erin Branham: 33:44

Oh Heaven's no!

Karen Foglesong: 33:45

This is a constant. Like, there's no, you don't reach the end, you don't reach the top, you don't reach like, Okay, I'm now, I'm done. I'm a wild woman. No, it's constant redefining con - it never ends, and that's what you want. You don't want to feel like, okay, I'm done, absolutely. I know I think if you're done, you die like this.

Erin Branham: 34:07

That's where you although I do believe in periods of rest,

Karen Foglesong: 34:10

yes, absolutely periods of rest. It's, but it's not doneness. It's, maybe it's task oriented doneness, but not,

Erin Branham: 34:19

Not doneness. Not finished

Karen Foglesong: 34:20

The whole ball of wax done?

Erin Branham: 34:21

No, I would say part of our philosophy here at Mythic U is that if you ever settle down and go, I have figured it all out, you're wrong, you're just wrong, you've-

Karen Foglesong: 34:30

You're wrong. Yes,

Erin Branham: 34:32

You've gone.

Karen Foglesong: 34:33

That's what I tell we talked about that in what was that the conspiracy theory episode? Right? Because when I found that one the reptoids, I was like, Oh, wow. This is the answer this. Oh, this is the answer to see it. And then finally, I went, you know, it's wrong. There's two idiots like,

Erin Branham: 34:51

It's too sure. It's too neat. It's

Karen Foglesong: 34:54

Yes, too neat. This can't be right. And I let go,

Erin Branham: 34:59

yeah. I. Yeah, it's tempting. It's always tempting.

Karen Foglesong: 35:02

It's always tempting to think you have the answer, but it is part of the illusion there, you guys, there's no ultimate answer. It can't I personally believe that the human brain is not capable of holding the cosmic

Erin Branham: 35:15

Amen. We're too small.

Karen Foglesong: 35:16

We're only capable of a piece of it.

Erin Branham: 35:19

We're too tiny.

Karen Foglesong: 35:20

Our perspective is limited. Yes,

Erin Branham: 35:22

That is all.

Karen Foglesong: 35:23

We only have two eyes. Yeah,

Erin Branham: 35:24

that's part of why we advocate this idea of like, keep keep asking yourself. Keep pushing like, ask yourself, what are, what are the social norms? I would guess, if we're coming out of this, for Women Who Run with the Wolves, ask yourself, well, how do you run with the wolves? What is your space? It can be any kind of a space. It can be your rebellious little way of like, way of dressing or way of speaking about something or some interest you have, like, I know, lots of, lots of very lovely, completely. You know, bourgeios middle class soccer moms who just love true crime and can tell you everything you ever want to know about murder and psychopaths. You know that kind of thing. And a lot of people, I've also known people who are like, that's really dark. Why do you do that? That just get like, indulge your darkness, give that like, what's there's a great quote from Northern Exposure, being human is a complicated gig, so give that dark night of the soul a hug, right?

Karen Foglesong: 36:29

Yeah, well, and I'm just listening to a audio book about quantum physics, and this author is saying that biologically, the human is created to seems to have been created to walk on, to do this dance with chaos and not chaos, and that this is where we function best, psychologically, physiologically, all of it is kind of one foot in chaos and one foot in order. And if, if we go one way or the other, if you go completely into chaos, then it's complete chaos. There's nothing to grab onto. If you go completely into order, then eventually you get stagnant and there's nothing there either. So

Erin Branham: 37:10

that's so funny. I was just thinking last night we need to do a complexity theory episode, because that's complexity, yes, which is not only humans, but life itself exists in this space that is right on the edge of order and chaos. If you get become too disordered, everything flies apart. If you become and you can't have life. If everything is too too structured, it seizes up and you get crystals. Yeah, right, which life can't exist in that space either. It has to be in this space of of that. And that's, I think the most interesting thing about the idea of wildness and civilization is that you can't really deal with one alone. This is, this is a yin yang. This is a situation where they go together and you, you know, for real, I would say psychological health. And I don't know, I mean the reason we do this. Sometimes I struggle to say the reason that we do this, but essentially it's because I think this is like the most beautiful life. Is that if you can experience a little chaos, a little order, stretch yourself, ask yourself what your question, you know, what your myths are, be conscious about it, that what that is is just rich. It's just a rich life full of of many, many beautiful things and many pains and dark things. I mean, that's part of it too. Is the richness comes from the complexity of having all of these things mixed together.

Karen Foglesong: 38:35

Yeah, that reminds me when we were kids, and I would just be whining to you about how bad and mean people were and you're trying to explain to me that balance, like, I just want everybody to be good to each other, and you're like, that leads into static. You were already saying this in your 20s. You're already saying like, that leads to static, and it shuts the whole system down. And I would be like, no, no, it can be good, but it really is a balance, you guys. There's no way to have good without bad. One shines the light on the other and allows you to acknowledge the other.

Erin Branham: 39:12

Yeah, which goes to show there's no so can't have civilization without wildness.

Karen Foglesong: 39:18

No, you can't. And not just to rebel against. It's a real like the wildness in your heart is what allows you to face Other with bravery instead of a lash out reaction. The wildness in your heart allows you to have the stamina to deal with the long term illness or a bad marriage falling apart like the wildness gives you the strength to be there, to really be present in a civilized world.

Erin Branham: 39:47

Well, and that's a good point that you know, we're talking about wildness as transgressing social norms, and sometimes social norms transgress you Right? Like that. There is a. It's part of that too, like the environment changes and you're being able to be in touch with your own wildness, to go beyond your current limits and seek intensity somewhere else. You have to have that, because life will throw you some curveballs, and how do you survive that if you can't grow beyond what you were before?

Karen Foglesong: 40:18

Yes, that's a good way of saying that.

Erin Branham: 40:20

Well, thank you.

Karen Foglesong: 40:24

One last thing I would like to point out with Pinkola Estes is that she is not a middle aged white woman. She's a middle aged Hispanic woman, and so that gives you another perspective in reading her material, so that you're looking at crossed a cross section of cultural ideals or cultural mores that need to be examined from various perspectives. And I think that's important also.

Erin Branham: 40:50

Definitely. And I highly recommend the book. I believe it is. I don't think it has been out of print since it was published. I think it's still a very important text. And we would, of course, always love to hear from our listeners of other great books that you may know, or ideas about wildness. You can always reach us at our Gmail, which is your mythic u, y, o, u, r, m, y, t, h, i, c, u@gmail.com, we'd love to hear from you any thoughts about anything you've heard, questions, ideas. Would love to hear you talk about this. We want to hear from you. Oh, and please rate and review us on Apple podcast, or whatever your pod catcher is that helps other people find us. So if you like this, pod, spread the word.

Karen Foglesong: 41:31

Yes. Have a great day y'all and run with those wolves.

Erin Branham: 41:42

Thank you for joining us at mythicu. We want to hear from you. Please visit our website@mythiu.buzzsprout.com that's m, y, t, h, i, c, u.buzzsprout.com, for more great information on choreographing your own spirituality, leave us a comment and donate if you have the means and the interest. If you'd like to support our work more regularly, please visit our Patreon and become a member of mythic U depending on the level at which you join, members receive early access to new episodes, bonus episodes and free mythic U gifts you.