Imagine La Loba, The Wolf Woman. She is an old woman who inhabits a world known to few. In this world she is virtually alone, save for the wild animals that roam in her midst. By day, she is a collector of bones traveling from mountain to mountain, from cave to cave, from forest to forest, collecting bones of deserted creatures. By night, La Loba retreats into her cave, lights a fire, and begins her work as a sculptor.
She takes each bone, carefully and one-by-one, into her wrinkled hands and assembles the skeletal remains of the once great creatures. When her sculpture is finished, she sits by the fire and sings. She sings so intensely and so loudly that the skeletons begin to tremble and bone-by-bone, the creature is reborn. Its flesh, fur, and fierce tail magically return and before long a breathing wolf stands before her. La Loba continues to sing so strongly and so deeply that the wolf leaps up and runs down the canyon. La Loba continues to sing so passionately and so lovingly that with the first glimmer of sunlight the wolf is transformed into a laughing woman running free into the wild. (Adapted from Women Who Run Free With The Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes.)
This is a short story about the authentic self. We are all the Wolf Woman, the bones are our tools for self-discovery, our song is our truths, and the wolf is our authentic self. Sometimes we have to travel the world to find the “bones” or tools that will guide our self-discovery. For some this is meditation, painting, teaching, reading, skydiving, psychotherapy, beekeeping, etc. The list goes on for there are infinite resources to find and understand our truths. If we continue with this work, one day we will become so comfortable and intimate with our truths (the good, the bad, and the ugly) that we will be able to sing them, loudly, deeply, lovingly, so as to give life to our authentic self.
For many of us, the authentic self has been living underground in caves, dry riverbeds, and forgotten forests for a very long time. We must, therefore, gather the bones of our lives that actually give us life and assemble the sculpture of our lives. Only then can we can rest by the fire of our soul and remove the internalized voices of our families and societies so that only one voice can ring clearly: the voice of our truths. It is time to collect our bones so that we too can run into the wild with laughter and freedom in our hearts.
Seed & Star 