Clarissa Pincola Estes - Women Who Run With The Wolves - Myths And Storie by the Wild Woman Archetype (29 page)

together by taking a little from here and putting it there. Transformation is no more complicated than that. This is what she teaches. This is how the butterfly does it. This is how the soul does it.

Butterfly Woman mends the erroneous idea that transformation is only for the tortured, the saintly, or only for the fabulously strong. The Self need not cany mountains to transform. A little is enough. A little goes a long way. A little changes much. The fertilizing force replaces the moving of mountains.

Butterfly Maiden pollinates the souls of the earth: It is easier than you think, she says. She is shaking her feather fan, and she’s hopping, for she is spilling spiritual pollen all over the people who are there, Native Americans, little children, visitors, everyone. She is using her entire body as a blessing, her old, frail, big, shortlegged, short-jiecked, spotted body. This is woman connected to her wild nature, the translator of the instinctual, the fertilizing force, the mender, the rememberer of old ideas. She is
La voz mitológica.
She is Wild Woman personified.

The butterfly dancer must be old because she represents the soul that is old. 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, women, girl children, the old, the ill, and 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.

The body is like an earth. It is a land unto itself. It is as vulnerable to overbuilding, being carved into parcels, cut off, overmined, and shorn of its power as any landscape. The wilder woman will not be easily swayed by redevelopment schemes. For her, the questions are not how to form but how to feel. The breast in all its shapes has the function of feeling and feeding. Does it feed? Does it feel? It is a good breast.

The hips, they are wide for a reason, inside them is a satiny ivory cradle for new life. A woman’s hips are outriggers for the body above and below; they are portals, they are a lush cushion.

the handholds for love, a place for children to hide behind. The legs, they are meant to take us, sometimes to propel us; they are the pulleys that help us lift, they are the
anillo
, the ring for encircling a lover. They cannot be too this or too that. They are what they are.

There is no “supposed to be” in bodies. The question is not size or shape or years of age, or even having two of everything, for some do not. But the wild issue is, does this body feel, does it have right connection to pleasure, to heart, to soul, to the wild? Does it have happiness, joy? Can it in its own way move, dance, jiggle, sway, thrust? Nothing else matters.

When I was a child, I was taken on a held trip to the Museum of Natural History in Chicago. There I saw the sculptures of Malvina Hoffman, dozens of life-size dark bronze sculptures in a great hall. She had sculpted the mostly naked bodies of people of the world and she had wild vision.

She lavished her love on the thin calf of the hunter, the long breasts of the mother with two grown children, the cones of flesh on the chest of the virgin, the old man’s nuts hanging to mid thigh, the nose with nostrils bigger than the eyes, the nose hooked like a hawk’s, the nose straight like a comer. She had fallen in love with ears like semaphores, and ears low near the chin and small as pecans. She had loved each hair coiled like a snake basket, or each hair wavy as a ribbon unfurling, or each hair straight as fever grass. She had the wild love o/body. She understood the power
in
the body.

There is a line in Ntozake Shange’s
for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf
.
¹⁶
In the play, the woman in purple speaks after having struggled to deal with all the psychic and physical aspects of herself that the culture ignores or demeans. She sums herself up in these wise and peaceful words:

here is what i have...

poems

big thighs

lilttle tits &

so much love

This is the power of the body, our power, the power of the wildish woman. In mythos and fairy tales, deities and other great spirits test the hearts of humans by showing up in various forms that disguise their divinity. They show up in robes, rags, silver sashes, or with muddy feet. They show up with skin dark as old wood, or in scales made of rose petal, as a frail child, as a lime- yellow old woman, as a man who cannot speak, or as an animal who can. The great powers are testing to see if humans have yet learned to recognize the greatness of soul in all its varying forms.

Wild Woman shows up in many sizes, shapes, colors, and conditions. Stay awake so you can recognize the wild soul in all its many guises.

CHAPTER 8

Self-preservation:
Identifying Leg Traps, Cages, and Poisoned Bait

The Feral Woman

In the Oxford English Dictionary the word
feral
derives from Latin
fer
... meaning “wild beast.” In common usage, a feral creature is one who was once wild, then domesticated, and who has reverted back to a natural or untamed state once again.

I
postulate the feral woman as one who was once in a natural psychic state—that is, in her rightful wild mind—then later captured by whatever turn of events, thereby becoming overly domesticated and deadened in proper instincts. When she has opportunity to return to her original wildish nature, she too easily steps into all manner of traps and poisons. Because her cycles and protective systems have been tampered with, she is at risk in what used to be her natural wild state. No longer wary and alert, she easily becomes prey.

There is a specific pattern to the loss of instinct. It is essential to study this pattern, to actually memorize it, so that we can guard the treasures of our basic natures and those of our daughters as well. In the psychic woods there are many leg traps made of rusted iron that lie just below the leafy green of the forest floor. Psychologically, the same is true of the greater world. There are various lures to which we are susceptible: relationships, people, and ventures that are tempting, but inside that good-looking bait is something sharpened to a point, something that kills our spirit as soon as we bite into it.

Feral women of all ages, and especially the young, have a tremendous drive to compensate for long famines and exiles. They are endangered by excessive and mindless striving toward people and goals that are not nurturant, substantive, or enduring. No matter where they live or in what time, there are cages waiting always; too-small lives into which women can be lured or pushed.

If you have ever been captured, if you have ever endured
hambre
del alma
, a starvation of the soul, if you have ever been trapped, and especially if you have a drive to create, it is likely that you have been or are a feral woman. The feral woman is usually extremely hungry for something soulful, and often will take any poison disguised on a pointed stick, believing it to be the thing for which her soul hungers.

Though some feral women veer away from traps at the last moment with only minor losses of fur, far more stumble into them unwittingly, knocked temporarily senseless, while others are broken by them, and still others manage to disentangle themselves and drag themselves off to a cave to nurse their injuries alone.

In order to avoid these snares and enticements that are tripped by a woman’s time spent in capture and famine, we must be able to see them in advance and sidestep them. We have to redevelop insight and caution. We have to leam to veer. To be able to see the right turns, we have to be able to see the wrong ones.

There is what I believe to be the remnants of an old women’s teaching tale that explicates the plight of the starved and feral woman. It is variously known by names such as “The Devil’s Dancing Shoes,” “The Red-Hot Shoes of the Devil,” and “The Red Shoes.” Hans Christian Andersen wrote his rendition of this old tale and titled it with the latter name. Like a true raconteur, he surrounded the core of the story with much of his own ethnic wit and sensitivity.

The following is a Magyar-Germanic version of “The Red Shoes” that my aunt Tereza used to tell us when we were children, one that I use here with her blessing. In her artful way, she always began the tale by saying, “Look at your shoes, and be thankful they are plain ... for one has to live very carefully if one’s shoes are too red.”

=====

The Red Shoes

Once there was
a poor motherless child who had no shoes. But the child saved cloth scraps wherever she found them and over time sewed herself a pair of red shoes. They were crude but she loved them. They made her feel rich even though her days were spent gathering food in the thorny woods until far past dark.

But one day as she trudged down the road in her rags and her red shoes, a gilded carriage pulled up beside her. Inside was an old woman who told her she was going to take her home and treat her as her own little daughter. So to the wealthy old woman’s house they went, and the child’s hair was cleaned and combed. She was given pure white undergarments and a fine wool dress and white stockings and shiny black shoes. When the child asked after her old clothes, and especially her red shoes, the old woman said the clothes were so filthy, and the shoes so ridiculous, that she had thrown them into the fire, where they were burnt to ashes.

The child was very sad, for even with all the riches surrounding her, the humble red shoes made by her own hands had given her the greatest happiness. Now, she was made to sit still all the time, to walk without skipping, and to not speak unless spoken to, but a secret fire began to burn in her heart and she continued to yearn for her old red shoes more than anything.

As the child was old enough to be confirmed on The Day of The Innocents, the old woman took her to an old crippled shoemaker to have a special pair of shoes made for the occasion. In the shoemaker’s case there stood a pair of red shoes made of finest leather that were finer than fine; they practically glowed. So even though red shoes were scandalous for church, the child, who chose only with her hungry heart, picked the red shoes. The old lady’s eyesight was so poor she could not see the color of the shoes and so paid for them. The old shoemaker winked at the child and wrapped the shoes up.

The next day, the church members were agog over the shoes on the child’s feet. The red shoes shone like burnished apples, like

hearts, like red-washed plums. Everyone stared; even the icons on the wall, even the statues stared disapprovingly at her shoes. But she loved the shoes all the more. So when the pontiff intoned, the choir hummed, the organ pumped, the child thought nothing more beautiful than her red shoes.

By the end of the day the old woman had been informed about her ward’s red shoes. “Never, never wear those red shoes again!” the old woman threatened. But the next Sunday, the child couldn’t help but choose the red shoes over the black ones, and she and the old woman walked to church as usual.

At the door to the church was an old soldier with his arm in a sling. He wore a little jacket and had a red beard. He bowed and asked permission to brush the dust from the child’s shoes. The child put out her foot, and he tapped the soles of her shoes with a little wig-a-jig-jig song that made the soles of her feet itch. “Remember to stay for the dance,” he smiled, and winked at her.

Again everyone looked askance at the girl’s red shoes. But she so loved the shoes that were bright like crimson, bright like raspberries, bright like pomegranates, that she could hardly think of anything else, hardly hear the service at all. So busy was she turning her feet this way and that, admiring her red shoes, that she forgot to sing.

As she and the old woman left the church, the injured soldier called out, “What beautiful dancing shoes!” His words made the girl take a few little twirls right there and then. But once her feet had begun to move, they would not stop, and she danced through the flower beds and around the comer of the church until it seemed as though she had lost complete control of herself. She did a gavotte and then
a
csárdás
and then waltzed by herself through the fields across the way.

The old woman’s coachman jumped up from his bench and ran after the girl, picked her up, and carried her back to the carriage, but the girl’s feet in the red shoes were still dancing in the air as though they were still on the ground. The old woman and the coachman tugged and pulled, trying to pry the red shoes off. It was such a sight, all hats askew and kicking legs, but at last the child’s feet were calmed.

Back home, the old woman slammed the red shoes down high

on a shelf and warned the girl never to touch them again. But the girl could not help looking up at them and longing for them. To her they were still the most beauteous things on the face of the earth.

Not long after, as fate would have it, the old woman became bedridden, and as soon as her doctors left, the girl crept into the room where the red shoes were kept. She glanced up at them so high on the shelf. Her glance became a gaze and her gaze became a powerful desire, so much so that the girl took the shoes from the shelf and fastened them on, feeling it would do no harm. But as soon as they touched her heels and toes, she was overcome by the urge to dance.

And so out the door she danced, and then down the steps, first in a gavotte, then
a
csárdás
, and then in big daring waltz turns in rapid succession. The girl was in her glory and did not realize she was in trouble until she wanted to dance to the left and the shoes insisted on dancing to the right. When she wanted to dance round, the shoes insisted on dancing straight ahead. And as the shoes danced the girl, rather than the other way around, they danced her right down the road, through the muddy fields, and out into the dark and gloomy forest.

There against a tree was the old soldier with the red beard, his arm in a sling, and dressed in his little jacket. “Oh my,” he said, “what beautiful dancing shoes.” Terrified, she tried to pull the shoes off, but as much as she tugged, the shoes stayed fast She hopped on one foot and then the other trying to take off the shoes, but her one foot on the ground kept dancing even so, and her other foot in her hand did its part of the dance also.

And so dance, and dance and dance, she did. Over highest hills and through the valleys, in the rain and in the snow and in the sunlight, she danced. She danced in the darkest night and through sunrise and she was still dancing in twilight as well. But it was not good dancing. It was terrible dancing, and there was no rest for her.

She danced into a churchyard and there a spirit of dread would not allow her to enter. The spirit pronounced these words over her, “You shall dance in your red shoes until you become like a wraith, like a ghost, till your skin hangs from your bones, till there is

nothing left of you but entrails dancing. You shall dance door to door through all the villages and you shall strike each door three times and when people peer out they will see you and fear your fate for themselves. Dance red shoes, you shall dance.”

The girl begged for mercy, but before she could plead further, her red shoes carried her away. Over the briars she danced, through the streams, over the hedgerows and on and on, dancing, still dancing till she came to her old home and there were mourners. The old woman who had taken her in had died. Yet even so, she danced on by, and dance she did, as dance she must. In abject exhaustion and horror, she danced into a forest where lived the town’s executioner. And the ax on his wall began to tremble as soon as it sensed her coming near.

“Please!” she begged the executioner as she danced by his door. “Please cut off my shoes to free me from this horrid fate.” And the executioner cut through the straps of the red shoes with his ax. But still the shoes stayed on her feet. And so she cried to him that her life was worth nothing and that he should cut off her feet. So he cut off her feet. And the red shoes with the feet in them kept on dancing through the forest and over the hill and out of sight. And now the girl was a poor cripple, and had to find her own way in the world as a servant to others, and she never, ever again wished for red shoes.

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Brutal Loss in Fairy Tales

It is more than reasonable to ask why there are such brutal episodes in fairy tales. It is a phenomenon found worldwide in mythos and folklore. The gruesome conclusion to this tale is typical of fairy-tale endings wherein the spiritual protagonist is unable to complete an attempted transformation.

Psychologically, the brutal episode communicates an imperative psychic truth. This troth is so urgent—and yet so easy to disregard by saying, “Oh,
um
hmmm, I do understand,” and to then go traipsing off to one’s doom anyway—that we are unlikely to heed the alarm if it is stated in lesser terms.