Asking the proper question is the central act of transformation! Clarissa Pinkola Estes More Quotes by Clarissa Pinkola Estes More Quotes From Clarissa Pinkola Estes I come from a long line of tellers: mesemondok, old Hungarian women who tell while sitting on wooden chairs with their plastic pocketbooks on their laps, their knees apart, their skirts touching the ground... and cuentistas, old Latina women who stand, robust of breast, hips wide, and cry out the story ranchera style. Both clans storytell in the plain voice of women who have lived blood and babies, bread and bones. For them, story is a medicine which strengthens and arights the individual and the community. Clarissa Pinkola Estes voicebabyblood Though fairy tales end after ten pages, our lives do not. We are multi-volume sets. In our lives, even though one episode amounts to a crash and burn, there is always another episode awaiting us and then another. There are always more opportunities to get it right, to fashion our lives in the ways we deserve to have them. Don't waste your time hating a failure. Failure is a greater teacher than success. Clarissa Pinkola Estes fashionhateteacher To be poor and be without trees, is to be the most starved human being in the world. To be poor and have trees, is to be completely rich in ways that money can never buy. Clarissa Pinkola Estes treewayworld What is that which can never die It is that faithful force that is born into us that one that is greater than us that calls new seed to the open and battered and barren places so that we can be resown. It is this force in its insistence in its loyalty to us in its love of us in its most often mysterious ways that is far greater far more majestic and far more ancient than any heretofore ever known. Clarissa Pinkola Estes faithfulloyaltyway Anytime we feed soul, it guarantees increase. Clarissa Pinkola Estes increasesoulguarantees It is in the middle of misery that so much becomes clear. The one who says, 'Nothing good came of this' is not yet listening. Clarissa Pinkola Estes miserylisteningdepression When a creature is exposed to violence, it will tend to adapt to that disturbance, so that when the violence ceases or the creature is allowed its freedom, the healthy instinct to flee is hugely diminished, and the creature stays put instead. Clarissa Pinkola Estes instincthealthyviolence As long as a woman is forced into believing she is powerless and/or is trained to not consciously register what she knows to be true, the feminine impulses and gifts of her psyche continue to be killed off. Clarissa Pinkola Estes femininelongbelieve Be wild; that is how to clear the river. The river does not flow in polluted, we manage that. The river does not dry up, we block it. If we want to allow it its freedom, we have to allow our ideational lives to be let loose, to stream, letting anything come, initially censoring nothing. That is creative life. It is made up of divine paradox. To create one must be willing to be stone stupid, to sit upon a throne on top of a jackass and spill rubies from one’s mouth. Then the river will flow, then we can stand in the stream of it raining down. Clarissa Pinkola Estes blockstupidart When a woman is frozen of feeling, when she can no longer feel herself, when her blood, her passion, no longer reach the extremities of her psyche, when she is desperate; then a fantasy life is far more pleasurable than anything else she can set her sights upon. Her little match lights, because they have no wood to burn, instead burn up the psyche as though it were a big dry log. The psyche begins to play tricks on itself; it lives now in the fantasy fire of all yearning fulfilled. This kind of fantasizing is like a lie: If you tell it often enough, you begin to believe it. Clarissa Pinkola Estes passionbelievelying When seeking guidance, don't ever listen to the tiny-hearted. Be kind to them, heap them with blessing, cajole them, but do not follow their advice. Clarissa Pinkola Estes be-kindblessingadvice Story is far older than the art of science and psychology, and will always be the elder in the equation no matter how much time passes. Clarissa Pinkola Estes psychologystoriesart A runner is real when she takes the first step. Clarissa Pinkola Estes realrunningfirsts Asking the proper questions is the central action of transformation. Questions are the key that causes the secret doors of the psyche to swing open. Clarissa Pinkola Estes swingskeysdoors I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you. Clarissa Pinkola Estes bloomingstorieshappens Like all other lonely or hungry things, ego loves the light. It sees light, and the possibility of being close to the soul, and it creeps up to it and steals one of its essential camouflages. In a hunger for soul, our own ego-self steals the pelt Clarissa Pinkola Estes lonelylightself The desire to force love to live only in its most positive form is what causes love ultimately to fall over dead. Clarissa Pinkola Estes desirelovefall A lover cannot be chosen a la smorgasbord. A lover has to be chosen from soul-craving. To choose just because something mouthwatering stands before ou will never satisfy the hunger of the soul-self. And that is what the intuition is for; it is the direct messenger of the soul. Clarissa Pinkola Estes intuitionsoulself Mend the part of the world that is within your reach. Clarissa Pinkola Estes world Solitude is not an absence of energy or action, as some believe, but is rather a boon of wild provisions transmitted to us from the soul. Clarissa Pinkola Estes solitudesoulbelieve
