As a student of Cultural Anthropology and World Mythologies never have I been so inundated with authors' explanations for exploration as I have while researching the divine in women. It seems that women who have been awakened to the goddess within want to shout from the rooftops about the incredible mystery they have uncovered spawning the universe and all time. I am also one of these women and with you I want to share the paths taken and caverns found underground that led me and so many others of our gender to finding the "woman who runs with the wolves" patiently sitting and waiting to be set free.

Women "find themselves" in a myriad of places but usually as a result of tragedy or heartbreak. To me, this is an unfortunate circumstance but to mythologists "the recovery of the divine is done in the dark of Hel or Hades or there" (Estes, p. 278). My consciousness arose out of a desire to stop repeating the same mistakes in relationships and from a profound feeling of guardianship over an inner-spark I was letting diminish. But mainly, my desire to stand up and change my world came from watching the women I hold dear fighting to simply survive. And, for me it is here, in this ancient desire to continue and persevere where women's greatest triumph lies.

Although many of us feel a stirring within, the outside pressures of work, children, money, and just generally existing weigh us down and take us away from the most important thing of all: our soul-self. It is my wish and my gift to try and impart both the ethereal and earthly wisdom I have gained through personal and educational endeavors which may assist you in reviving your goddess. In over twenty books relating to women, goddesses, earth religions, mythology, and Jungian psychology a few themes were retold and rewoven, but all point to one idea: it is ridiculously difficult to be female in our modern patriarchal society. "A culture that requires harm to one's soul in order to follow the culture is a very sick one indeed. This culture can be one a woman lives in, but more damming yet, it can be the one she carries round and complies with within her own mind" (Estes, p. 175).

It is our responsibility to ourselves and those we love to retain the feminine and nurture the inner and outer power it provides. Every book I've read for this study maintains that women must tap their creative selves and sacralize their unique connection to nature. Being a "real woman" is not a matter of man-hatred, feminism, or lesbianism. "Coldness is the kiss of death to creativity, relationship, life itself. Some women act as though it is an achievement to be cold. It is not. It is an act of defensive anger" (Estes, p. 182). Understanding womanhood is a matter of religion in its truest sense- religio- linking back to the universal unconscious. It is an exercise of learning, accepting, and understanding the places women have held in different cultures and at different times. Through history and mythology, women can come in contact with their very sacred place in the spectacular scheme of being. And, perhaps most importantly, begin to protect and serve themselves as they do so many others.

As stated above, I studied many texts relating to the subject of women; however, I found the majority to be the result of a person's need to release the effects of negative feminine stereotypes, bitterness toward men, and our oppressive patriarchal society. I felt these messages were confining and unhealthy because women have specific problems and "dynamic self-acceptance and self-esteem are what begins to change attitudes in the culture" (Estes, p. 202). Furthermore, excluding men from our lives is not the answer. Instead, I've chosen to touch on issues including prehistory, religion, mythology, psychology, and culture to demonstrate the important value of womanhood. I will also discuss in length the work of Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, author of Women Who Run with the Wolves, because she takes a holistic approach to addressing the most poignant topics for women's health: angst, depression, rage, sadness, loneliness, laughter, creativity, love, intuition, nature, and female cycles. By taking a positive, productive path rather than a militant one, we can find solutions to our problems that can better our entire lives and those we affect. "It is said that all you are seeking is also seeking you, that if you lie still, sit still, it will find you. It has been waiting for you a long time. Once it is here, don't move away. Rest. See what happens next" (Estes, p. 149).

It is my opinion that perhaps the mother of female pain, which is too frequent and always unwelcome, is born from one thing: insecurity. This is a powerful problem with many causes but it is also something that can be majestically conquered. "The Self need not carry mountains to transform. A little is enough. A little goes a long way. A little changes much" (Estes, p. 210). To know a woman's innate, intuitive abilities which act in tune with the moon, seasons, and planetary cycles is to realize an indescribable, awesome potential which is often unrecognized. For example, women have been worshipped as either primary or secondary divinities since 25,000 BCE (before the common era) when our ancestors first evolved into homo sapiens sapiens. In her novel, The Once and Future Goddess, Elinor Gadon discusses humankind's first religious expressions which were in the form of the Great or Mother Goddess. The upper Paleolithic period from ca35,000 to 9,000 BCE is described as a "'revolutionary' period in human evolution" when fully evolved humans were able to speak and comprehend a "'symbolically based language in established communities with norms and values'" (Gadon, p. 3). People thought about the origins of life and the meaning of death as evidenced by Neanderthal burials (Gadon, p. 3).

The earliest expressions of "human intuition of the sacred was that the earth was the source of all life and sound of being" and Paleolithic peoples demonstrated their beliefs through the famous chubby "Venus" figurines found in places such as the Rotunda Cave in Lascaux, France (Gadon, p. 5). These artifacts speak volumes about the mindset of the time and Gadon explains her evaluation of their significance:

We are looking at a generalized image whose power was in its symbolic meaning, icons that embodied the source of life. As Paleolithic people observed the natural processes of a woman's body- menstruation, pregnancy, birth, and lactation- the earth was understood by analogy to the great womb out of which all life emerged. They believed that the earth was the mother of animals "upon whose continued presence human life depended (Gadon, p. 6)

Another way of looking at these figures is provided by Dr. Estes:

These little figures represent sensibilities and expressions unique in all the world. The breasts, and what is felt within those sensitive creatures, the lips of the vulva, wherein a woman feels sensations that others might imagine but only she knows. And the belly laugh being often of the best medicines a woman can possess (Estes,p. 343).

...Unique among the figures of the sacred female, she is carved on a limestone slab...She holds a notched bison horn in her raised right hand while her left hand points to her vulva. Traces of the sacred red ochre are still visible on her body, and her abdomen swells gently, perhaps indicating pregnancy. The mouth of the cave analogous to the entrance of the Mother's womb must have been especially sacred. The Laussel shelter itself was probably a place of ritual. On the inner walls are carvings of several female figures, two animals (a doe and a horse), a fragment of an elegant male who looks as if his arms were raised in ritual gesture, and a curious double image that appears to be a copulating couple (Gadon, p. 12).

Also during the Paleolithic period was the creation of the magnificent cave paintings in Lascaux, France showing the peoples' reverence for the hunt, magical unity with nature, and phallic and vulvar images. In totem these images represented the universal life force incarnate (Gadon, p. 10). Following the Paleolithic and beginning in approximately 8000 BCE, the Neolithic period concretized this male-female symbiosis in its birth of the first urban civilization: Catal Huyuk located in Turkey. Gadon states "before men and women had been part of nature, at her mercy, it is true, but also securely in her shelter. Now they had to actively intervene with nature to co-create their food supply" (Gadon, p. 21). Gadon explains that Catal Huyuk was "a cosmopolitan community, the citizens could afford luxuries like obsidian mirrors, elegant stone ceremonial daggers, and trinkets of metal, beyond the reach of any of their known contemporaries" (Gadon, p. 27).

No longer strictly nomadic and having become primarily sedentary, Neolithic people, specifically the women, created what some anthropologists deem as the turning point in human evolution and interaction: agriculture. Gadon explains that "women are now generally credited by prehistorians with the discovery of agriculture. As gatherers of the natural food of the land, they must have also observed the grasses reseed themselves" (Gadon, p. 22). Gadon demonstrates that a "strong link was forged connecting women as the cultivators of grain, to grain as the bounty of the Goddess, and to bread as the staff of life" (Gadon, p. 24). This strong statement is backed-up by both the Neolithic homes and famous burial shrines found in Catal Huyuk. The homes had vulvo-shaped roof entrances and no doors, similar to the United States’ southwestern Pueblo Native American kivas. The burial shrines contained haunting wall paintings and statues: "Monumental images of the Goddess emblazoned on the walls of the shrines celebrate her powers as life giver and life taker...Responsible for the ongoing round of life, the Goddess lived directly among her people. Her shrines were built in the midst of their dwelling places, one for every four or five houses" (Gadon, p. 27).

Images in the shrines sacrilized the Neolithic Holy Trinity, the Triple Goddess "as a young maiden, a birth-giving matron, and an old woman or crone who represents the life cycle of women...The Triple Goddess was (also) associated with the three phases of the moon- waxing, full, and waning- as well as with the three worlds- heaven, earth, and the underworld (Gadon, p. 29). Molded to the wall and centrally located, Neolithic shrines also containd large goddess statues giving birth to male bull horn figures. Although these male-related bull horn figures were somewhat subordinate, their appearance "acknowledges that the male and female were complementary and integral to understanding the religion of the Great Goddess" (Gadon, p. 34). Futhermore, bull horns and female breasts found molded on the wall side-by-side seem to represent new life and might express the Neolithic belief about the natural, rather than supernatural, process of life after death (Gadon, p. 30).

Contradictory to our own aggressive society, archaeologists' findings, or actually absence of them, show that Neolithic and Paleolithic goddess-centered societies were peaceful. Gadon explains that in eight hundred years of settlement: Perhaps the most provocative discovery of recent archeological research is that nowhere in Neolithic goddess culture is there any sign of warfare. There is no evidence of fortifications, of violent death, invasion, or conquest. We can only conclude that there was some direct relationship between Goddess religion and peaceful co-existence. Neolithic Goddess culture was a woman-centered, peaceful, prosperous, and nonheirarchical (Gadon, p. 24).

Catal Huyuk is a lesson in both history and psychology. Can we, today, fathom such a difference- "the mood is joyful, the dominant themes celebrating the renewal of life. The art expresses a spontaneity and free spirit, a healthy respect for the life force in both men and woman along with an acknowledgement of the dread power of death and the mystery of the unknown" (Gadon, p. 36). Matriarchal societies have a wholly different mental framework than patriarchal ones and it is important for women to know this prehistory because it unveils information not circulated in the general populous. "In the Goddess framework, will can be achieved only when it is exercised in harmony with the energies and wills of all living things... Wise women also have a tradition that whatever is sent out will be returned and this reminds them to assert their wills in cooperation and healing rather than egocentric and destructive ways" (Christ, pp. 128-129). Goddess symbols "aid the process of naming and reclaiming the female body and its cycles and processes" (Christ, p. 125). Furthermore, it is vital that all of us understand that these symbols represent a time when people were motivated by a respect for the teachings of the body and nature and the value of all living things (Christ, p. 126).

Along with the findings at Catal Huyuk and the caves in France, goddess worship also occurred in the ancient Mediterranean, pre-Christian Europe, pre-Christian North America, Mesopotamia, Africa, and India, to name a few. What happened to the goddess in the United States? Through a series of complicated, possibly political, events she was replaced by the Hebrew god Yahweh in the Old Testament. Although controversial and emotionally charged, one cannot discuss a woman's place in our modern society without mentioning the influence of the Bible (Christ, p. xii). It is the most widely printed, distributed, sold, and purchased book of all time and within its pages lies perhaps the most misunderstood theology, philosophy, and mythology ever. I believe that if people, especially women, knew the original message and intention of Biblical authors rather than the varied interpretations of our peers, we would find a gripping, ecstatic praise of all life.

Before one can discuss the Bible, it is imperative that we understand what it contains: mythology. This term has been misused since the Hellenistic period when Socrates and Plato deemed logic the highest form of truth and all myths as false fables. Mythology is the study of the underlying forces which cause people to want, need, and instinctively communicate an appreciation of a higher power than themselves. It creeps into our dreams and fantasies as the cumulative result of interwoven effects of biology, geography, cosmology, and genetics working together. Scientifically explained myths are "pictures that involve us both physiologically in our bodily reactions to them and spiritually in our higher thoughts about them" (Goldenberg, p. 47).

Myths give us "story solutions to lessen fear, elicit doses of adrenaline at just the right times, and most importantly for the captured naive self, cut doors into walls which were previously blank" (Estes, p. 61). Furthermore, "in fairy tales and mythos are initiators; they are the wise ones who teach those who have come after" (Estes, p. 263). Mythology is unadulterated, spontaneously expressed, inner-truths and "when a person is aware of living myth she/he is experiencing life intentionally and reflectively- such people experience life as meaningful" (Goldenberg, p. 47). Psychiatrist Dr. Carl Jung describes the power of mythology as numinous which is "an enormous force that is both mysterious and intrusive to us" (Estes, p. 281). On a non-esoteric level we can see mythological themes of heroic quests, tragic loss, and passionate love working their way through our heart and soul to be eternally found rewoven in books, movies, stories, games, etc.. Mythology is the psychological evolution of humankind and can be mapped just like earth changes and weather variations.

"The most important feature of any religion is its myth- the deepest sort of expression in human life" (Goldenberg, p. 47). Based on this fact, it is necessary to understand that the Bible was created by man- not God. However, the desire to have a god or goddess is where the divine spiritual revelation exists. "The old Inuit say that the breath of a god and the breath of a human, when commingled, cause a person to create an intense and holy poetry" (Estes, p. 290). This is why examining the scriptures is necessary: they must first be felt, then understood, then seen again with knowing eyes. For women, understanding the mythology of the Bible is essential because as author Carol Christ hypothesizes: "women's hatred and remorse stem from the exclusion from the stories of God's covenant with man" (Christ, p. 23). Furthermore she explains that the acceptance of Jesus Christ as the universal savior cannot exist apart from the negative evaluations of other religions in relation to him (Christ, p. 83). On the surface it would seem that the Hebrew-Christian god would have us suffer unbearable pain in childbirth and bleed five days out of every month (that's sixty days a year) as punishment. Maybe it is time to rethink these old views. What if we are truly part of the universe itself and what if the chaotic eruption which created Earth from an unfathomable explosion is the same pain we feel but on a different scale? Which world view feels more comfortable to you- we are one with the cosmos or we are the result of a hateful, intentional exclusion?

Eve was not the evil undoing of women or humankind. In fact, her original sin was to do the one thing man could not: make humans God-like. Through mythological analysis we uncover the symbolism in the creation story and a whole new world appears. For instance, the tree around which the fateful serpent wraps itself is the World Tree or Tree of Life found in all religions where wisdom and consciousness reside. By eating the apple, Eve gave humankind its humanness- the ability to think logically, reason systematically, and know intuitively: we became like God. Furthermore, the serpent in most mythologies represents renewal and rebirth because of its molting skin and regenerative qualities. I guess our evaluation of this myth depends upon our point of view. Is consciousness something to abhor or is it the greatest gift we have as human beings? Your answer determines whether Eve wrought pain, travail, and mortality upon the world or if she gave us our humanity.

Like Eve, Mary Magdalene was not the whore Biblical interpreters would have us to believe. Discussed in the gospel of Luke, a Greek, Mary Magdalene was a virgin priestess whose cult paid homage to Ishtar, Isis, and Aphrodite and was part of the Mystery Religions of Rome during the onset of Christianity. These religions all centered around a savior figure who died and was resurrected on or around December 25th, involved secret initiatory rights, and were adopted from all parts of the globe including Persia, Turkey, Egypt, and the Orient. Specifically, the virgin priestess cults were housed in temples where men paid to have intercourse with women such as Mary Magdalene as an act of religious devotion. Joseph Campbell, the leading scholar of world mythology, explains that this coupling is when the spiritual side of man was awakened out of the animal at the level of the heart to the compassion and suffering of others. The Virgin Mary was thought to have been an Alma Mater (Great Mother) in this cult and Jesus' immaculate conception was what Campbell describes as the result of man's spiritual birth: the moment gods are born! Furthermore, look at the Virgin Mary's title: the Mother of God. If women examined the weight of this statement intuitively they would recognize their place in the cosmos.

Albeit uncomfortable, we must understand that "it was later Christian emperors (and not Jesus Christ) who passed laws allowing for the destruction of pagan temples including Goddess temples in Christian Europe" (Christ, p. 87). The effects of these decisions have undeniably influenced the way our culture views other religions and more profoundly, our own psychological make-up. Psychology, mythology, and religion are interchangeable and Dr. Carl Jung spent his life analyzing their effects on our lives. A student of Sigmund Freud, Dr. Jung branched away from his teacher feeling that the answers did not lie in sexual repression but instead "developed the theory that dreams and cultural symbols often express the human quest for meaning, the desire for connecting to a well-spring of life, power and creativity..." (Christ, p. 136). Furthermore, Jung "has given us this century's most significant work on the explanation of religious processes within the human mind. Unlike Freud, Jung thought that psychoanalysis could gain a great deal from adopting a religious standpoint" (Goldenberg, p. 46). In order to accomplish this Jung used mythology as a vehicle to help people in the individuation process of integrating the female anima and male animus halves of our psyches.

Reconciling the masculine and feminine halves of ourselves is necessary in order to achieve mental health. Author John Sanford explains Dr. Jung's theory:

By the anima he meant the feminine component in a man's personality, and by the animus he designated the masculine component in a woman's personality. He derived these words from the Latin word animare, which means to enliven because he felt that the anima and animus were like enlivening souls or spirits to men and women...Empirical evidence for the reality of the anima and animus can be found wherever the psyche spontaneously expresses itself...in dreams, fairy tales, myths, the world's greatest literature, and most important of all, in the varying phenomena of human behavior...The fact that men and women can perform many of the same functions in life supports the idea that each person is a combination of male and female polarities (Sanford, pp. 6-7).

The relevance of this information is that people project their animus or anima onto the opposite sex thereby distorting the reality of who a person is. In other words, people, especially women, tend to "see only the good" in others rather than what actually exists. This behavior results in disenchantment, disillusionment, and almost always disappointment and is often the key factor for the demise of what appeared to be a perfectly good relationship. Projection, according to Dr. Jung, is an unconscious mechanism which occurs when a vital part of our personality of which we are unaware is activated (Sanford, p. 10). In order to stop this from happening, one must attempt to become conscious of her/himself enough so that inward and outward realities become balanced (Sanford, p. 10).

For women the concept of projection is an active, daily participant in our lives. We often loose ourselves to love which is part of the feminine nature, but unfortunately, this submission can have devastating consequences. John Sanford explains:

She feels completed only through him, as though it were through him that she found her soul. Such projections are especially likely to be made onto men who have the power of the world...When this happens he then becomes bigger-than-life to her, and she is quite content to be the loving moth fluttering around his flame. In this way she misses the creative flame within herself, having displaced it onto the man (Sanford, p. 15).

Seeing ourselves as we really are is initially painful. However, for all people, it is necessary in order to grow and mature. Dr. Estes, also a Jungian analyst, expounds on this idea:

The health of the ego is often determined by how well one measures boundaries in the outer world, how strongly one's identity is formed, how well one differentiates between the past, present, and future, and how closely one's perceptions coincide with consensual reality (Estes, p. 269).

As stated throughout the course of this essay one way to get to know our psyches is through mythology. The most common myths in our Western world are the Greek and Roman but as high school students we weren't generally taught the psychological significance of these gods and goddesses. The Greek goddesses are the best example of demonstrating that women are psychologically composed of many different personalities.

This is not a matter of schizophrenia, although sometimes it feels like it. Instead, it is a gentle way of identifying the phases and moods women go through and giving them credence. "There are many goddesses in an individual woman. The more complicated the woman, the more likely that many are active within her" (Bolen, p. 2). Dr. Jean Shinoda Bolen in her book GODDESSES IN EVERYWOMAN uses the Greek goddesses to help women recognize the reality of their multiplicity. Doing this exercise causes the subconscious goddesses within to be integrated into the conscious and thereby diminishing the influence of the unknown. As women we often feel isolated and misunderstood because we feel so many emotions and think no one else does. The key is understanding that ALL women face this dilemma and the fact is there really isn't a problem. Dr. Bolen explains:

The Jungian perspective has made me aware that women are influenced by powerful inner forces, or archetypes, which can be personified by Greek goddesses. And the feminine perspective has given me an understanding of how outer forces, or stereotypes- the roles to which society expects women to conform- reinforces some goddess patterns and represses others. As a result, I see every woman as a "woman-in-between" acted on from within by goddess archetypes and from without by cultural stereotypes (Bolen, p. 4)

Women go through cycles that are akin to the changing of the seasons and the reasons for this are part of the great mystery. Dr. Estes describes our cycles as the "Life/Death/Life" nature of women and explains that:

From her very flesh and blood and from the constant cycles of filling and emptying the red vase in her belly, a woman understands physically, emotionally, and spiritually that zeniths fade and expire, and what is left is reborn in unexpected ways and by inspired means, only to fall back together to nothing and yet be reconceived again in full glory (Estes, p. 159).

We tend to fight this part of being female and curse its accompanying angst and exclusion. The fact is that we cannot escape it so therefore we must embrace our cyclic natures and "if we live as we breathe, take in and let go, we cannot go wrong" (Estes, p. 160). "The balanced valuing of emotions is certainly an act of self-respect" (Estes, p. 352).

Learning to relax is a lesson many women find themselves unable to learn. We cannot even find peace when we're sleeping or watching television- there is always something haunting us in the back of our minds. Refocusing and redefining our ghosts is an essential tool to reviving the goddess within. Dr. Estes dedicated her efforts in Women Who Run With the Wolves to assisting women in recognizing, coping, and nurturing our soul-selves and in finding what she calls the innate "wildish nature". In her own words:

The wild nature instinctively holds on and holds out, sometimes with style, other times with little grace, but holds on nevertheless...when an individual particular kind of soulfulness, which is both an instinctual and a spiritual identity, is surrounded by psychic acknowledgement and acceptance, that person feels life and power as never before. Ascertaining ones own psychic family brings a person vitality and belongingness (Estes, p. 170).

This wildish nature is what makes women persevere and triumph in the face of almost insurmountable odds. "Women will draw doors where there are none, and open them and pass through into new ways and new lives because the wild nature persists and prevails, women persist and prevail" (Estes, p. 188). With all great things, there is a price to pay and the cost of women's mental stability and health can be weighty. But, as stated in the introduction, it is our responsibility to do the work. Look at it this way: "throughout time there is the mystical sense that any individuation work done by humans also changes the darkness in the collective unconscious of all humans...Jung once said that God became more conscious as humans became more conscious...Since time out of mind a considered act of heroism has been the cure for stultifying ambivalence" (Estes, p. 59, p.174). I can think of no greater heroic act than to face ourselves.

As the Greek goddesses have taught us, women have both profound inner-resources and debilitating neuroses. First we will tear away the covers and look at the painful side of femininity because after the wounds have been exposed we can bandage and anoint them so they can heal properly- we must "hold out for the right medicine. You will recognize it because it makes your life stronger rather than weak" (Estes, p. 181). Dr. Estes sights several issues regarding the absence of women's mental health but relates them all to one thing: the state of the soul. Our soul-life is what drives the wheels of our most powerful womanly gifts: intuition and instinct. If we are not living our life in accordance with our true natures then we are actively damaging our souls and thereby leaving ourselves vulnerable to pain, depression, and angst. Dr. Estes calls this condition being "soul-starved" and explains that it is a condition caused "by a severely restricted soul-life in which innovation, impulse, and creation are restricted or forbidden" (Estes, p. 273). She equates it with famine and feels that it causes women's compulsive and obsessive behaviors: "that is the trouble with famine. If something looks like it will fill the yearning, a woman will seize it, no questions asked" (Estes, p. 230). I think we've all been here and know that the end result leaves us drained, unhappy, and unfulfilled. However, "the soul-spirit can be injured, even maimed, but it's very nearly impossible to kill" (Estes, p. 31). The rewards of living from the soul versus the ego are three fold and include: the ability to sense and learn new ways, the tenacity to ride a rough rode, and the patience to learn deep love over time (Estes, p. 146).

Perhaps the main problem women face within themselves is a feeling of angst. In my observations I have seen women of all social classes, levels of outward beauty, and giftedness suffer from a feeling of indescribable nervousness and/or anxiousness. These feelings often result in a lack of drive or desire to work, love, rest, etc. but are part of our cyclic make-up and nature itself. When reading Women Who Run with the Wolves I found that Dr. Estes eloquently described the cause and effects of these feelings:

It is not exactly the rightness of a person or thing or its wrongness that causes the theft of our soulskins, it is the cost of these things to us. It is what it costs us in time, energy, observation, attention, hovering, prompting, instructing, teaching, training... It is the lack of further deposits of energy, knowledge, acknowledgement, ideas, and excitement that cause a woman to feel she is psychically dying (Estes, p. 266).

In order to converse with the wild feminine, a woman must temporarily leave the world and inhabit a state of aloneness in the oldest sense of the word. Long ago the word alone was treated as two words, all one. To be all one meant to be wholly one, to be in oneness, either essentially or temporarily. That is precisely the goal of solitude- to be all one. It is the cure for the frazzled state so common to modern women..Going home is sanity...It takes out weakness by the pounding. It removes whininess, enables acute insight, heightens intuition, grants the power of keen observation, and perspective" (Estes, p. 184, p. 292).

Intentional self-exile is an alien concept to most women, but for those who embrace it the reward is inner-peace as one begins to float in the muck rather than drowning in it. Furthermore, when we nurture ourselves in this way, we are also helping those we must leave behind to deal with their own issues and individuation work (Estes, p. 280).

Angst can appear to be a singular emotion, but like an erupting volcano, there is usually something churning beneath it that acts as a catalyst, pushing it to the surface. Women's problems come from many sources but most stem from a single or combination of the following components: repressed anger, poor self-image, fear of aging, and relationships with men. Anger tends to be one we are most familiar with because women are generally taught to be passive and submissive and releasing rage can lead to guilt and worry. However, "untransformed rage can become a constant mantra about how oppressed, hurt,and tortured we" are (Estes, p. 303). This is a very serious problems because "rage corrodes our trust that anything good can occur. Something happens to hope" (Estes, p. 303).

This is where the knowledge of the psychological approach to the Greek goddesses is helpful. The goddess Hera while a nurturing wife can also be a vindictive, angry woman and sometimes needs to be set free. By ignoring her, she becomes like a virus that eats away at our internal psychic system. Crying is something we take for granted but it can be the most cleansing act bestowed upon living creatures, and a healthy way to release rage. "All through history, tears have done three works: called the spirits to one's side, repelled those who would muffle and bind the simple soul, and healed the injuries of poor bargains made by humans" (Estes, p. 404). Women know when it is time to release anger and when that moment overwhelms us we must howl and let it out. Those who love us will understand- they will not leave. However, one must not take advantage of this privilege. "We want to be able to look back on our actions with honor. We want something useful to show for feeling angry" (Estes, p. 354).

One of the reasons women feel angry is because of their poor self-image. Most women I know are displeased with their body regardless of how beautiful it is. They want to be thinner, fatter, smaller, taller, shapelier- you name it. The problem with this is two fold: if we have a negative image of ourself we project it for all the world and are then viewed accordingly. Each culture has a different concept of what is attractive as we saw previously with the chubby "Venus" figures who symbolized life incarnate. Dr. Estes describes the affects of disenfranchising our minds from our bodies:

Angst about the body robs a woman in some large share of her creative life and her attention to other things...where there is a wound on the psyches and bodies of women there is a corresponding wound at the same site in the culture itself and finally on Nature herself...It is not amazing that in our culture there is an issue about carving up a woman's natural body, that there is a corresponding issue about carving up the landscape... (Estes, p. 202).

Anthropological studies have determined that only in the United States do anorexia and bulimia occur. It is frightening to think that society influences us in such a profound manner. As women we have to find a cure for the psychosis which is causing these diseases. We owe it to ourselves to be pleased with our appearance and to be secure with our bodies. If we are not then we must fix what we dislike but not to the detriment of our physical and mental health. As stated earlier, we must mark our own boundaries and protect our chosen territories.

Similar to poor self-image is the affect of aging upon a woman's soul. Again, this is a cultural problem which has seeped into our minds and taken the joy out of growing into maturity. Mythologists discuss the crone, or old wise woman, as the most powerful being in the universe. She is one with Mother Earth, the Creator, and all human beings because she has lived through it all: she no longer sheds the lunar wise blood but keeps it within- a goddess of wisdom (Gadon, p. 29). Her years are added pearls to a cherished necklace not a terrifying system of self-debasement and malaise. My favorite way of seeing age depicted is in Dr. Estes' description of the Native American Butterfly Woman whom she went to see as a child and was left awed by the dancer's presence:

She is wide of thigh and broad of rump because she carries much. Her gray hair certifies that she need no longer observe taboos about touching others. She is allowed to touch everyone: boys, babies, men, girl children, the old, the ill, the dead. The Butterfly Woman can touch everyone. It is her privilege to touch all, at last. This is her power. Hers is the body of La Mariposa, the butterfly.

Particularly for women, old age is a sacred time in our life cycle. It is our time to rest, teach, and careen with the mysteries. "It has to do with learning the value and balance of cycles that sustain human hope and happiness" (Estes, p. 452). Again, however, enjoying our golden years can only happen if we spend our earlier time being productive, creative, happy, and healthy. It is never to late to realize that "if a woman holds on to this gift of being old while she is young and young while she is old, she will always knows what comes next" (Estes, p. 31). A wise woman often tells me the answer is ATTITUDE and time and time again I see this proven. Dr. Estes explains:

If...we live to be old enough to enter the psychic place and phase of the mist beings the place where all thought is new as tomorrow and old as the beginning of time, we will find ourselves entering yet another attitude, another manner of seeing, as well as discovering and accompanying the tasks of consciousness from that vantage point (Estes, p. 447).

Remember how you feel when you look back on your life and mutter, "I wish I knew then what I know now" and you will get a taste of what old age is like. It is the only stage of life where all of the wisdom has been gained yet new learning is always behind the next door. Do not be afraid or sad- you are all Butterfly Women.

Old age, poor self-image, and anger for women usually stem from our relationship to men. Not always, but a significant enough portion of time to take into consideration the reasons why and what can be done to fix the problem. Men are not evil nor are they out to get us. Instinctively we know this or else we wouldn't want them so badly because we are not naturally self-destructive. The problem is "love costs. It costs bravery. It costs going the distance..." (Estes, p. 138). While researching the topic of love and men, I saw every woman I have ever known and feel compelled to share the information Dr. Jung discovered because it can be a part of a knowing-healing process transforming your life into that which you've always dreamed. See if the following doesn't sound familiar:

The same man who once seemed fascinating and magnificent can just as readily be seen to be an infuriating, frustrating person. The positive projection falls away when familiarity exposes the relationship to a healthy dose of reality, and the negative projection is right there to take its place. The man who once was overvalued now is undervalued. Once seen as a hero, he now becomes a demon who seems to be responsible for all the woman's disappointments in love and feelings of being belittled (Sanford, p. 17).

Wrapped in psychological terminology and theory, the simple fact is that we must not forget ourselves. We must write that paper, do that laundry, feed the cat, watch the X-Files- we must stay honest with our own responsibilities and needs. It is much more fun to share this all with men but first we must be able to enjoy it alone. We've all heard these things a thousand times, but it is difficult for women to internalize this information and make it work.

What is love? For Dr. Estes it means "to stay with. It means to emerge from a fantasy world into a world where sustainable love is possible, face to face, bones to bones, a love of devotion. To love means to stay when every cell says 'run'" (Estes, p. 139)! In our modern society the biggest destroyer of love is fear: fear of AIDS, commitment, heartache, infidelity- the sources are infinite. But "the deeper issue is one of misbelief and distrust. Those who run away forever fear to truly live according to the cycles of the wild and integral nature" (Estes, p. 141). Sharing our heart and soul with another takes the greatest act of courage imaginable. It also takes intensive work and as John Sanford states:

It means accepting responsibility for our own happiness or unhappiness, and neither expecting the other person to make us happy nor blaming that person for our bad moods and frustrations. Naturally this makes real relationship a difficult manner, at which one must work, but fortunately the rewards are there too, for only in this way does our capacity for love mature (Sanford, p. 20).

Again we hear that we must become responsible for ourselves in order to find the happiness we seek. Being without a man is the hardest thing women think they have to face: not the fifty-hour work week, kids in school, grocery shopping, or house cleaning. Why is this? Some might say it is societal conditioning that has almost become a genetic, inherited impulse. We must have a man in order to feel self-worth, attractive, needed, loved- everything! The problems with needing a man are many and multiplying rapidly as the decade comes to a close. Ironically, however, the 1990s have brought the fulfillment of the female dream: equality and liberation. We should have been careful of what we wished for because being equal in our society means being man-like rathern than being respected for being a woman. It's not a matter of sharing the responsibilities, instead it is the reality of juggling what was on your plate originally plus a host of new tasks. Although men and women are complementary opposites of one another, we are inherently different and as females we need to understand what makes us unique so that we can nurture these traits in order to find happiness and soul-peace.

In order to do the above we must first heal the exposed wounds causing us pain. For women this entails recapturing our most powerful resources: intuition and instinct. Women discuss these aspects of themselves quite often but I don't know if they understand how real they are. "Such things as the split-second recall, the thousand-league vision, the hearing over miles, the empathetic ability to see from behind anyone's eyes- human or animal- all these belong to the instinctual feminine" (Estes, p. 420). Dr. Estes explains:

Many women are sensitive in the way sand is sensitive to the wave, the way trees are sensitive to the quality of the air, the way a wolf can hear another creature step into her territory from over a mile away. This splendid gift of women so attuned is to see, hear, sense, receive, and transmit images and ideas and feelings with lightning speed. Most women can feel the slightest change in someone else's temperment can read faces and bodies- this being called intuition- and often from a plethora of tiny clues that coalesce to give her information, she knows what is on their minds. But it is this very openness that leaves their boundaries vulnerable, thereby exposing them to injuries of the spirit (Estes, p. 362).

The reason, according to Jungian analysts, why women loose their soul-health is because they've gotten out of touch with their innate, instinctual, "wildish" natures. This can happen as a result of many things discussed throughout this essay, but the good news is it can always be regained. "Jung once explained that nothing was ever lost in the psyche. I think we can be confident that things lost in the psyche are all still there. So too, this well of women's instinctive intuition has never been lost, and whatever is covered over can be brought back out again" (Estes, p. 76). To recapture our instinct and intuition requires commitment to self-healing. A woman of any age and walk of life can find herself at a point where she must practice listening to her intuition and to ask questions then act upon what she knows to be true (Estes, p. 68). This process requires linking back to the creative aspects of the inner-self through laughter, joy, play, the company of other women, and protection of that which is regained. First, one must "surround themselves with people who unequivocally support your work" (Estes, p. 253). We must guard our health as we do the ones we love.

We also learn that the wild, because of its energy and beauty, is always eyed by somebody or other, something or other, some group or other, for trophy purposes or as a thing to be reduced, altered, ruled on, murdered, redesigned, or controlled. The wild always needs a guardian at the gate or it will be misused (Estes, p. 241).

Furthermore, we must realize what I find to be the most important thing: "the work is to keep doing the work. Do your art. Generally a thing cannot freeze if it is moving, so move. Keep moving" (Estes, p. 182, p. 253). My personal observations are in agreement with Estes' and have led me to the conclusion that women are happiest when they are busy doing what they love.

Dr. Estes devoted many chapters in http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409876/sr=1-1/qid=1155168261/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-1711558-8902307?ie=UTF8&s=booksWomen Who Run with the Wolves to the idea that expressing creativity is absolutely fundamental to women's soul-health. She profoundly declares: "a single creative act has the potential to feed a continent. One creative act can cause a torrent to break through stone" (Estes, p. 298). What is creativity, really? Estes refers to the creative act as a shapechanger: "one moment it takes this form, the next that" (Estes, 297). It is the physical act of making something out of nothing which is what being a woman and a life-bringer is all about.

It is the love of something, having so much love for something- whether a person, a word, an image, an idea, the land, or humanity- that all that can be done with the overflow is to create. It is not a matter of wanting to, not a singular act of will, one solely must (Estes, pp. 297-298).

Joseph Campbell once said that the key to happiness is to think back to our childhood, remember the one thing that gave you bliss and then do it. I realize all of this sounds nice but somewhat unrealistic in our busy worlds. However, we must try to understand the vital importance of this philosophy.

Creativity is like the soul itself in that it must be made time for, given solitude, treated with passion, and expressed often. Furthermore, we have to give it a nurturing environment so it may blossom. "We want to put ourselves in a situation where, like the plants and trees, we can turn toward the sun. But there has to be a sun. To do this we have to move, not just sit there. We have to do something that makes our situation different" (Estes, p. 323). One of the ways we can do this is by being around other women. All too often I hear a woman say she hates others of her gender and cannot befriend them. This is a tragic circumstance that is new to our modern psyches. Communion with our sex is the most powerful, enlightening experience a woman can know. It brings us up close to our wildish natures and forces us to embrace them. Relationships between women, whether the women share the same bloodline or are psychic soulmates, whether the relationship is between analyst and analysand, between teacher and apprentice, or between kindred spirits are kinship relationships of the most important kind (Estes, p. 179). Being with women also helps us find our creative link because "we need all the pats from angel wings that we can find" (Estes, p. 322). Furthermore, as a woman, "it is deadly to be without a confidant, without a guide" (Estes, p. 238).

The clues to healing our souls are found in the most obvious places. One need only to be open to the idea that we can be free. As women we are faced with so many affronts to our natures yet we somehow continue. I maintain that women are the stronger sex because we do the work (both spiritual and material), solve the problems, and take care of others- without a second thought. We do not need to be equal to men because we occupy our own cosmic place and have our own divine purpose. We need to take the world into our arms and act toward it in a soul-filled and soul-strengthening manner (Estes, p. 65). Women need to laugh, cry, yell, and love as often as possible. "Although some might really prefer you behave yourself and not climb all over the furniture in joy or all over people in welcome, do it anyway...It is play, not properness, that is the central artery, the core, the brain stem of creative life" (Estes, p. 32, p. 232). We also need to be able to ride out our psychic storms and as Dr. Estes explains, realize that flowing with the "Life/Death/Life" cycles of the feminine means understanding:

The most important thing is to hold on, hold out, for your creative life, for your solitude, for your time to be and do, for your very life, hold on, for the promise from the wild nature is this: after winter, spring always comes (Estes, p. 188).

I wish for all of you to find the goddess within through introspection, self-nurturing, and soul searching. I hope this is the joyous process it is meant to be, spread out over a life-time and including the following: eating, resting, roving, loving children, cavilling in the moonlight, tuning your ears, attending to the past, making love, and howling often (Estes, p. 461). I think that all women share a common psychic connection that when remembered can act as a beacon in the mist of our troubled waters. In closing I would like to share the quote from Dr. Estes which inspired me to write this paper paper for all of you.

"It is into this world that women come in order to claim their own voices, their own values, their imaginations, their clairvoyance, clear-seeing, their stories, and the ancient memories of women. And these are the work of focus and creation. If you've lost focus, just sit down and be still. Take the idea and rock it to and fro. Keep some of it and throw some away, and it will renew itself- You need do no more."

© Copyright Paula Vaughan
Not to be reprinted without permission.

Artemis images graciously shared courtesy of Umit Yoruk of Kusadasi.biz.

References

Bolen, Jean Shinola, M.D.. GODDESSES IN EVERYWOMAN. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1984, pp 1-15.

Christ, Carol P.. Laughter of Aphrodite: Reflections on a Journey to the Goddess. San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1987.

Estes, Clarissa Pinkola, Ph.D.. Women Who Run with the Wolves. New York: Ballantine Books, 1995.

Gadon, Elinor W. The Once and Future Goddess. New York, Harper Collins Publishers, 1989.

Goldenberg, Naomi R.. Changing of the Gods: Feminism and the End of Traditional Religions. Boston: Beacon Press, 1979, pp. 46-48.

Sanford, John A. THE INVISIBLE PARTNERS: How the Male and Female in Each of Us Affects our Relationships. New York: Paulist Press, 1980.