Of Wolves, Maidens, and Poetic Paths

 

It’s been a while since I last wrote here. Writing had quietly become a rhythm in my life, almost like breathing, something I owe not only to myself, but to the world that listens back when I share. For the last three months, books, myths, and poems have been my companions, grounding me in unexpected ways.

The turning point was @Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves. To call it a book feels too small. It is a portal, into the psyche of women, into the wisdom of ancestors, into the wildness we often silence. Clarissa weaves stories like threads, reminding us that fairy tales and myths were never just “children’s tales.” They were maps, coded with symbols, showing us how to navigate love, loss, struggle, and rebirth.

At first, the weight of the book almost overwhelmed me. Its stories , The Handless Maiden, The Skeleton Woman, The Crescent Moon Bear, La Llorona, Sealskin/Soulskin etc, each echoed through different corners of my life. They whispered truths I didn’t know I was ready to hear. But they stayed with me, like lanterns in a dark forest.

After such a storm of depth, I picked up a gentler book: @Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet. Twenty-one poems, each one a meditation on love, work, joy, sorrow, freedom etc. Reading it after Clarissa felt like exhaling. It was as though Women Who Run With the Wolves had taught me presence, and The Prophet taught me grace. Together, they formed a perfect dialogue: one fierce and raw, the other lyrical and tender.

Clarissa once said: “When you find the truth, you don’t find the truth. You find a truth.” That stayed with me. Every day holds a new truth, a new path. Sometimes you walk the path, and sometimes the path finds you.

Enter Myth in Motion

Somewhere in this journey, poetry became my traveling companion. On my commutes, instead of music or podcasts, I listened to poems of love, loss, vulnerability, even poems about technology and flowers. Then, almost by accident, I stumbled on a podcast episode where a host named @Maria Souza unpacking The Handless Maiden story.

Her show, Women and Mythology, opened another door. It’s a soulful exploration of ancestral myths, feminine wisdom, and creative awakening. Maria, sometimes joined by other mythologists, doesn’t just retell the stories, she reveals their symbolic language. Listening to her has been like being handed a second pair of eyes: suddenly I could see layers in Clarissa’s book that I had missed.

What fascinated me most was how each part of a myth represents a part of ourselves. One story, many characters, yet all of them live within us. The maiden, the bear, the skeleton, the lover, the wanderer. In life, we too embody many roles: stranger, friend, colleague, sibling, partner. Different faces, one soul.

Why Myths Still Matter

Myths are not relics. They are mirrors. They remind us that being human means carrying many stories at once, and that our task is not to escape them but to live them well. As I listened and read, one question kept echoing: What if you are the only real thing that exists, and everything else is a play designed to keep your soul alive?

If that’s true, then every role we play matters. Whatever you do, do it fully. Whoever you are in that moment, be kind, be present, be true.

Because myths don’t just tell us who we were. They remind us who we still can be.

And for that, I am blessed to understand and share my thoughts.