Book Review: Women Who Run with the Wolves (Ch 1-3)
Last month I joined a book club for Women Who Run with the Wolves. It’s a book I’ve had for years – one I’ve started and stopped. Started and stopped.
It’s dense with wisdom.
A book that needs time and space to process.
That’s why I was so excited when instagram sent me an ad for this book club (my algorithm is well-trained). It sweeps from February through May – we’re only discussing three chapters at a time. Perfect pacing.
To me, the first portion of this book really highlights and establishes the process and value of self-discovery.
The Point of No Return
Chapter one reminds me of finding yourself at a crossroads. A distinct moment when you realize the momentum of your life must change and you have a decision to make.
The end of a life chapter (whether you wanted it or not).
But also the start of a new one.
I think all women have experienced this circumstance at one point or another. That inevitable shift.
Many times these transitional junctures are fraught with challenge.
I kind of think they have to be.
These moments are a soul-jolt. They’re meant to knock you out of your routine. Your comfort zone.
They’re meant to be eye-opening. Thresholds of transformations.
And that type of self-growth doesn’t happen seated in comfort.
It was confronting and made me face the fact that the way I’d been living wasn’t right for me.
When I tell you it catapulted me out of my comfort zone…whew!
That moment that (at the time) felt like my darkest, ended up being some of my most potent medicine.
I love how the book speaks to this type of experience by stating,
“...we so often start out in a desert. We feel disenfranchised, alienated, not connected to even a cactus clump. The ancients called the desert the place of divine revelation.”
The place of divine revelation.
Ooooh, reading that line gave me chills. The kind that tell me something is true.
Illuminating the Darkness
The next chapter is what occurs once you move through a crossroads.
The identification and re-connection to your intuition (our animal instincts).
She starts this chapter acknowledging the phase before the re-connection by writing,
“The naive woman tacitly agrees to remain “not knowing.”
(Separated from her intuition)
“Women who are gullible or those with injured instincts still, like flowers, turn in the direction of whatever sun is offered.”
Oof!
That hit me right in my 20-something soul.
Reading that started a slideshow of flashback memories. To a time when I was disconnected and searching for confirmation of value outside of myself.
The stories the bookclub women shared in context to this chapter truly broke my heart.
Maybe because of how familiar they felt.
How universal they are.
We spent a long time speaking of the ways in which we’d compromised ourselves (particularly our safety) in this before-state of not knowing ourselves.
But I speak of these moments as medicine because they each light a lantern along your path of self-discovery.
Illuminating your values and your boundaries in equal measure.
Leading you step-by-step into who you’re becoming.
These moments that impact our becoming and how we view the world are the precise road-markers for our expansion.
The book points out that when we face our inner-predators and ask what’s behind it all (what is the point of all this),
“They will fall away to a distant layer of the unconscious. There she can deal with them conscientiously instead of in crisis.”
For me, this underlines one of the most powerful aspects of self-discovery.
When we face the things that have a hold on us, we lessen their grip.
Then we are able to “act in our, not its, behalf.”
That’s how we start consciously creating the life we want to live as opposed to operating on autopilot.
Tending to the Spiritual Garden
The third chapter is too much to summarize here.
It represents the whole evolution of coming into one’s own.
But one part particularly struck me…a garden metaphor (of course I love a good garden reference – and this is one of the best I’ve ever read).
I think she does a beautiful job of reflecting the cyclical nature of self-discovery with this share.
That there is never an end to the journey, but always a new layer. A deeper understanding. A more profound peace.
In the book she says,
“The garden is a concrete connection to life and death. You could even say there is a religion of garden, for it teaches profound psychological and spiritual lessons. Whatever can happen to a garden can happen to soul and psyche – too much water, too little water, infestations, heat, storm, flood, invasion, miracles, dying back, coming back, boon, healing, blossoming, bounty, harvest.
During the life of a garden, women keep a diary, recording the signs of life-giving and life-taking. Each entry cooks up a psychic soup. In the garden we practice letting thoughts, ideas, preferences, desires, even loves, both live and die. We plant, we pull, we bury. We dry seed, sow it, moisten it, support it, harvest.
The garden is a meditation practice, that of seeing when it is time for something to die. In the garden one can see the time coming for both fruition and for dying back. In the garden one is moving with rather than against the inhalations and exhalations of greater Wild Nature.”
So beautiful.
Writing about this reading is also a helpful way to process what it’s teaching. So much from three little chapters. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the book has in store for me.
If you’ve read this book I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!