Response to Reading #2

Chapter 10, Clear Water:
Nourishing the Creative Life

from
Women Who Run with The Wolves
by Clarrissa Pinkola Estes


“Creativity” says Ms. Estes, “ is a shape changer. One moment it takes this form, the next, that.”
and she goes on to point out how creativity exists in both the ideas and the doing, the follow through of those ideas, pursuing them into shape, and following where they lead. She tells the story of , La Larona, the woman of the river. A woman who lost her creativity, her children, her creations.

Some practical tips for identifying the loss, and the destructive animus, as well as taking stock of the situation, and beginning the healing process dominate this chapter of the text. But steps to take in regaining ones creative soul fire, after illness, stagnation, or injured instincts have starved one for “freshness and fertility” are listed through this chapter:

1)Receive nurturance,
2)Respond in the moment to what you perceive now,
3)Be wild: be willing to seem stupid, or inept to others,
4)Begin, just where you are,
5)Protect your time: set boundaries and
6)Stay with it: keep at it,
7)Protect your creative Life,
8)Craft your real work,
9)Lay out Nourishment for the Creative life


Next, Ms. Estes tells the story of the Little Match Girl, a story that has haunted me all my life with its sad, hopeless destruction and despair. The tale is dissected to give us its lessons and an additional message, with this very sound advice:

“To avoid being the Little Match Girl, there is one major action you must take. Anyone who does not support your art, your life, is not worth your time. Harsh but true.”

Finally, the author winds through yet another tale to point the way and ends with the advice that to just sit and rock with an idea, is the way to find your focus when it has been lost. However long it takes, it will come, and renew itself. “You need do no more.”

I am on this journey and it is good to have the road ahead laid out, the next steps clearly marked. I know what to do from here! The rent and bills be blessed and given to a higher power. The time has come to paint! To blend essential oils, to visit old friends and old flames and walk amongst the roses to hear their sighs. To Love the people in my life right now like I have never been hurt and wear my heart on my sleeve because life is short.

tg