Words from Women Who Run With the Wolves

For many modern women, it is not the driving about in the dark looking for the soulskin that is the most fearsome. rather it is the diving into the water, the actual return to home, and especially the actual leavetaking, that are far more formidable. Though women come back into themselves, draw on the sealskin, pat it closed and are ready to go, it is hard to go; really, really hard to cede, to hand over whatever we've been so busy with, and just leave.

"...one night
there's a heartbeat at the door.
Outside, a woman in the fog,
with hair of twigs and a dress of weed,
dripping green lake water.
She says 'I am you,
and I have traveled a long distance.
Come with me, there is something I must show you...'
She turns to go, her cloak falls open, Suddenly, golden light...everywhere, golden light..."

Follow the call, even when we've no idea of where to go, in what direction, or for how long. All we know is that like the child in the tale, we must sit up, get up and go see. So maybe we stumble around in the dark for a while trying to find what calls us, but because we have managed to not talk ourselves out of being summoned by the wild one, we invariably stumble over the soulskin. When we breathe up that soul-state, we automatically enter the feeling state of "This is right. I know what I need."

Women know, absolutely know, when they have stayed overlong in the world. They know when they are overdue for home. Their bodies are in the here and now, but their minds are far, far away.

They are dying for new life. They are panting for the sea. They are living just for the next month, just till this semester is past, cant wait till winter is finally over so they can feel alive again, just waiting for a mystically assigned date somewhere in the future when they will be free to do some wondrous thing. They think they will die if they don't ... you fill in the blank. And there is a quality of mourning to it all. There is angst. There is bereftness. There is wistfulness. There is longing. There is plucking at threats in one's skirt and staring long from windows. And it is not a temporary discomfort. It stays, and grows more and more intense over time.


Some women are afraid that those around them will not understand their need for return. And not all may. but the woman must understand this herself: When a woman goes home according to her own cycles, others around her are given their own individuation work, their own vital issues to deal with. Her return to home allows others growth and development too.