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

(If you are new here and you are interested in this study, please page down to the “Article Series” link below, or “Women Who Run With The Wolves” in the Category section in the sidebar to the right to view previous reflections.)

The Women Who Run With the Wolves series is back!

Finding That Intuition (Part 3)

As stated in the last post in this series, Vasalisa, the tale from which this analysis comes,

“…is a story of handing down the blessing on women’s power of intuition from mother to daughter, from one generation to the next. This great power, intuition, is composed of lightning-fast inner seeing, inner hearing, inner sensing, and inner knowing.”

And as I stated as we proceeded through the week’s study,

“[Chapter 3 - Nosing Out the Facts: The Retrieval of Intuition as Initiation of Women Who Run With the Wolves] consists of nine tasks for women to complete to regain the intuitive nature, to regain the ability and “skill” to reset that instinctual power that enables us to walk through life with clear thinking and powerful knowing of not only what’s inside, but what’s outside as well.”

We examined the first three tasks in that last post. Let’s move forward and take a look at the next three tasks.

Task #4 – Facing the Wild Hag – The activities which must be taken on in this stage include:

“Learning to face great power – in others, and subsequently one’s own power.”

Remember that there is a “Baba Yaga” character that is central to this tale. She is, as Estes says, the “Wild Hag,” which sounds like a pejorative, yet, it carries the meaning of being wise and having “joyous and wild life force.” It is the opposite of that which “creeps up on us till we have a routine life, and a lifeless life without our really meaning to.”

Once women realize they are living in the mundane, the mediocre, it is time to recover. It is time to recover and face the formidable power within oneself that causes us to be “alive, bursting with enthusiasm, with joyous life.” What does this all mean? To tell you the truth, I can’t put my finger on this one. I don’t know how this would manifest itself in my own life. Dr. Estes summarizes this task by stating,

“It means to be able to learn, to be able to stand what we know. It means to stand and live.”

Yet, that statement is elusive to me. Someone out there, please give me a clue!

Task #5 – Serving the Non-Rational – In this stage, the following activities are important (but check the chapter to get a complete listing):

“…Coming to recognize her (your) power and the powers of inner purifications; unsoiling, sorting, nourishing, building energy and ideas…”

What is involved in this task is the “ordering of the house of the soul.” There are three things involved here:

• Washing the laundry – in other words, learning to “witness, examine, and take on” that which is strong and enduring.
• Sweeping the premises – keeping one’s space uncluttered and working to ensure that we complete what we starts. This involves the consistent ordering of one’s life.
• Cooking for Baba Yaga – feeding the wild woman inside. This involves cooking up the new and original, creating great ideas, nurturing and exploring our yearnings and longings, burning with the desire of those things we truly love.

Remember, though, the key to “succeeding” in these activities is consistency. We must regularly “cleanse our thinking” and “renew our values” so that we will learn to “measure things at a glance…, weigh in an instant…, clear off the debris around an idea…, clear one’s psyche of trivia, sweep one’s self, [and] clean up one’s thinking and feeling states…”

Task #6 – Separating This from That – some of the activities necessary in this stage include:

“…learning to make fine distinctions in judgment. Observing the power of the unconscious and how it works even when the ego is not aware…”

Dr. Estes indicates,

“The sorting spoken of in the tale is the kind which occurs when we face a dilemma or question, but not much is forthcoming to help us solve it. But leave it alone and come back to it later and there may be a good answer waiting for us where there was nothing before. Or ‘go to sleep, see what you dream…’”

How do we see this type of activity manifest itself? Estes says, “It is an observable phenomenon that a question asked before bedtime, with practice, often elicits an answer upon awakening…Reliance on this attribute is…part of the wild nature.”

Or as the psalmist puts it,

“I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.” (Psalm 16:7)

 

I’ve heard how people will pray for direction about an issue before they enter sleep at night, and will wake up with a solution to the issue. I can’t say this has ever happened to me, but as Dr. Estes notes, this type of guidance can happen to a person when someone is consistent to practice seeking this guidance. Maybe that is why it doesn’t “work” for me. I’ve not been consistent in seeking the help I need daily.

I struggle with much of what these tasks entail. First, the fourth task I mentioned above is a little confusing for me, so if someone can shed some light on that, please do (phaenix_ash, can you help me here?). I know I need to work on uncluttering and organizing myself so that I will feel less muddled and messy. And I know I need to work on seeking guidance consistently, daily, to learn how to listen to myself (and for me, this is God and what He gives to me) when I encounter problems and situations with which I need help.

What about you? What do you need to work on in order to continue reclaiming yourself?

We’ll complete the final tasks next week so that we can move on to the next chapter. I’m excited about the next chapter, because in it we move beyond our individual selves and begin talking about our relationships with men and how men can understand women and their inner lives.