Women can learn about themselves from old stories and myths, according to Clarissa Pinkola Estes, author of a new book about the ”wild woman” metaphor and its relevance to modern women.
Take the old story of Bluebeard, for example. In Estes` hypnotic retelling (she is a professional storyteller as well as a clinical
psychologist in private practice), the tale of a young woman who marries a vicious killer is recast as that of a woman refusing to trust her intuition about a cunning male.
Estes relies on stories such as ”Bluebeard,” ”The Red Shoes” and myths from places including Japan and South America to illustrate her idea that ”wild women”-those who trust their instincts and have power over their lives-have existed within the human creative imagination throughout the centuries.
Her book, ”Women Who Run With the Wolves” (Ballantine, $20), has been 20 years in the making, she said in a recent interview. Estes will be in Chicago this week reading sections of it, as well as telling some familiar old tales.
The ”wild woman” metaphor she uses in her book is what psychologists in her field of Jungian psychology call instinctive nature, she said. Studying female instinctive nature within old, familiar stories can help women recognize archetypal models of behavior that may help them order their own lives, she said.
Estes, the mother of three grown daughters, lives with her husband in Denver. She said she began the book 20 years ago as a reaction to the sexism she saw in the psychology field.
”I was being trained in my field and I realized there were no works on the psychology of talented women, although there were and still are many works about the pathology of women, about women in a diseased state. And back then, the cures for it were always to work harder to be a better wife or to have more children.
”I felt it was very important to have written for women whose pain was because they were not allowed to live a full life.”
Estes is also an accomplished storyteller who has recorded many myths and fairy tales on commercial audiotapes.
Estes will read from her book and discuss it 7:15 p.m. Tuesday at Women & Children First Bookstore, 5233 N. Clark St. The appearance is free. For information, call 312-769-9299.
She will also read Wednesday at 7 p.m., Anderson`s Bookshop, 176 N. York Rd., Elmhurst. Also free. For more information, call 708-832-6566.
