I recently starting reading the book, “Women Who Run with Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype” by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D. Chapter one is about La Loba, the wolf woman. In the story, La Loba searches the desert for dry bones. Upon finding them, she sings over the dry bones, and they spring back to life. The bones represent the dead and dried up parts of ourselves, and the wolf woman helps to breathe life back into them.
“So it is said that if you wander the desert, and it is near sundown, and you are perhaps a little lost, and certainly tired, that you are lucky, for La Loba may take a liking to you and show you something-something of the soul.” p. 28
A creative life was one of my “dry bones” lost in the desert. When I was a young adult, creativity began to bud in the form of macramé. I found joy in making necklaces and plant hangers, in doing something artistic with my hands. Once I even set up a little table unofficially at a craft fair with my sister-in-law Alli. I didn’t sell much, but there was something there – a creative life was pushing to be born. However, it became overgrown, unattended, and dried-up.
Then over the last few years, La Loba’s song started to faintly call to me. When I starting making pottery a year ago, the creative dry bones sprang back to life! I found artistic joy again! Last month, I shared my pottery at a local market for the first time. I remembered the 20 year-old me, and thanked the wolf woman for singing my creative dreams back to life!
What other dried-up parts of me will be next? I’m not sure yet, but I’m listening for the next song of La Loba!
