posted by KWiz on "Women Who Run With The Wolves", Health and Wellness, Personal Development, Relationships, Spiritual Growth

The Quest For The Wild Woman

In the last article in our series of “Women Who Run With The Wolves” reflections, I suggested we continue with asking ourselves the questions we need to ask ourselves in order to reclaim ourselves. Before we get into that discussion, however, I need to backtrack a bit.

If you read the story of Bluebeard, you know that the husband goes away on an extended trip. Before he leaves, he encourages his wife to invite her sisters to stay with her while he is gone, and gives his young wife a set of keys which opens all the doors in the three-story castle in which they live. He suggests that she can do anything she wants to do and open any door to the 100 rooms inside the castle she wants. But there is one key he tells her she cannot use, and gives no reason why.

The young wife and her sisters open all the doors with the keys her husband gave to her. But there was one last door with one last key. And they decided to use that key to open that last door. When they opened the door, they discovered its darkness inside. Once they lit a candle to discover what was inside, they were aghast,

“…for in the room was a mire of blood and the blackened bones of corpses were flung about and skulls were stacked in corners like pyramids of apples.

They slammed the door shut, shook the key out of the lock, and leaned against one another gasping, breasts heaving. My God! My God!”

As I re-read Dr. Estes’ analysis this past week, I realized I didn’t fully “get it” the first time. Bluebeard gives his young wife a set of keys, all except one which opens that which is superficial. These keys and doors represent being, as Dr. Estes explains,

“…too easily lured with promises of ease, of lilting enjoyment, of various pleasures, be they promises of elevated status in the eyes of her family, her peers, or promises of increased security, eternal love, high adventure, or hot sex.”

Bluebeard’s admonition not to use the forbidden key to open that last door represents, as Dr. Estes further expounds, represents,

“…the one key that would bring her to consciousness. To forbid a woman to use the key to conscious self knowledge strips her intuitive nature, her natural instinct for curiosity that leads her to discover ‘what lies beneath’ and beyond the obvious.”

What does the door represent which the key opens?

“The door in the tale is portrayed as a psychic barrier…Women strengthen this barrier or door when they discourage themselves or one another from thinking or diving too deeply…”

But what is behind the door? It was at this point that I got a fuller understanding that the blood, the bones of corpses, the skulls represent the “devastations of [a woman's] life…the loss of life’s energy.” Specifically, as Dr. Estes interprets it,

“When women open the doors of their own lives and survey the carnage there in those out-of-the-way places, they most often find they have been allowing summary assassinations of their most crucial dreams, goals, and hopes. They find lifeless thoughts and feelings and desires; ones which were once grateful and promising but now are drained of blood. Whether these hopes and dreams be about desire for relationship, desire for an accomplishment, a success, or a work of art, when such a gruesome discovery is made in one’s psyche, we can be sure the natural predator…has been at work methodically destroying a woman’s most cherished desires, concerns, and aspirations.”

This is the point when during my re-read that I got my “a-ha!” It was at this point that I really began to understand, deep within, what the carnage behind the door represented, and the fact that the door as a barrier is reinforced through my own thoughts and actions. I had dreams, hopes, and goals that I’ve pushed away, that I’ve allowed to die. The problem for me, though, is recovering much of that. In other words, it’s been so long that I’ve had these aspirations that they’re unrecognizable in some sense. As it is difficult to identify a corpse, as it is difficult to know what bone goes where, it is also difficult to reconstruct those dreams and goals. Nevertheless, I must do it. This is where I’ve been reflecting much of this past week.

So how do we reconstruct and reclaim? By asking those questions Dr. Estes suggests we ask of ourselves? We must ask ourselves four questions:

1. What stands behind the door?
2. What is not as it appears?
3. What do I know deep within my soul and spirit that I wish I did not know?
4. What of me has been killed, or lays dying?

These are difficult questions. But we must “ask any and all questions about oneself, about one’s family, one’s endeavors, and about life all around” if we are to restrain the predator, stop the killing of our souls, and move forth into being the women God called us to be. I’m intentionally going through that process as we speak. I’m hoping it won’t take me too long.

I realize it’s taking me a long time to get through this chapter, but I’d like to spend one more week here. While you are discovering for yourselves “what’s behind the door,” asking the four essential questions Dr. Estes presents, I’d like to complete this chapter next week by examining the clues we receive that signals something is wrong within our souls. Those clues, as Dr. Estes suggests, comes in the form of dreams.

Thanks for indulging me in this chapter’s study. Let me know what you think, where you are, and how you’re doing with the study.