Perseverance with Wolves

Allegory of Boat, Wolf, and Eagle - by Leonardo da Vinci

"Though what they painted went unrecognized, it fed the soul anyway. Women had to beg for the instruments and the spaces needed for their arts, and if none were forthcoming, they made space in trees, caves, woods, and closets." - Clarissa Pinkola Estes 

Little did I know that I was going to be working on conserving wolves when I flew to Italy. I knew that I would have to learn how to speak Italian, but learning to track and speak "wolf" was an entirely new concept to me. 

I soon learned that wolves were pack animals and that they communicate by walking the lines of the earth. They leave trails with their tails behind for other wolves to track. This concept fascinated me. It was similar to the Aboriginal walkabouts, walking along the Song Lines, and the message in Mutant Message Down Under. While I was counting trees, in Toscana, for the San Giovenesse Estate, we were also tracking wolves! 

We gathered early in the morning under a wooden hut. My class from College of Santa Fe gathered with a conservation specialist. All I knew was, he seemed to be part wolf. He carried a very distinct mind tracking us, Americans, every move and glared, as to be staring at full moon light. He was a fascinating character and spoke very broken English. I understood nothing really. I just remember learning the parts of the forest where the wolves lived. 

This was just another piece of my life added to my passion for wolves. I first started to love them as a child in the woods of Vermont. Then, I listened to an author speak about her book at College of Santa Fe, with wolves in the title. It happened to be a very famous book and had a very very deep impact on me as a young artist. I sat there as Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes read from her newly written book, Women Who Run With The Wolves. I was speechless and stunned. 

The love of wolves was planted like a seed. It sprouted in Toscana and then fully flourished as a full grown tree by the time I was 38. I remember leaving a relationship and it was the spirit of the wolf that made sure I did not lose myself completely in the pain. The wolf spirit protected my lost self, brought me back to myself, to the core of my soul, so I would start to build a life from there. My soul grew roots. I was inspired to paint City of Light about a future city, flourishing with love and cooperation. 

Clarissa's powerful words in her book carried a deeper meaning and I had to find out what it was. I read her book at age of 22 but it wasn't until I read it again at age of 42 that I really understood its power. 

From page 13, Clarissa writes in Women Who Run With The Wolves, 

"The Wild Woman archetype can be expressed in other terms which are equally apt. You can call this powerful psychological nature the instinctive nature, but Wild Woman is the fence which lies behind that." - Clarissa Pinkola Estes

My creative instinctive nature revealed itself in the deep chestnut forests of Tuscany where I found organic materials filled with colors to paint with. I was connecting with Davinci through space and time, who was also inspired by Toscana's earth elements. I painted the purple sunsets and canary yellow sunflower fields. Like Andy Goldsworthy, I even was creating mandalas with leaves in the woods, outside of my studio, the wolf spirit kept my creative Wild Woman alive!  

"It  is  sometimes  called  the  “woman  who  lives  at  the  end  of  time,”  or the  “woman  who  lives  at  the  edge  of  the  world.” - Clarissa Pinkola Estes

In fact, later when I studied Art Therapy at Southwestern College in Santa Fe, NM for graduate school, I was asking for academic guidance and direction from one of the faculty members there. All that he said was that I was "on the fringe" of society. I walked out. Me? On the fringe? 

Maybe he was trying to express this idea of being a Wild Woman "who lives at the edge of the word." Maybe it was a compliment. At the time, I took it as an insult! Here we are at this very small expensive private graduate program in Santa Fe, New Mexico where I earned every bit of my time, and he was essentially tossing me to the edge! Essentially, I thought he was saying that I did not belong there.  Whether or not he did mean that, I will never know. 

I was from Greenwich and Palm Beach. I was certainly humbled. I never understood what this meant. I attended Convent of the Sacred Heart in Greenwich, Connecticut and I was taught a very challenging curriculum that included Shakespeare plays and Varsity Lacrosse. I was no where near the edge of society. I had won scholarships, contributed academically to every private institution that I enrolled in and I paid my dues on time. 

Why was he saying this? It rocked my world. My self-esteem plummeted to say the least. I left Southwestern College right after that day. At the time, I was organizing Dr. Quimby's private metaphysical library, studying Otto Rank's Art and Artist, Jungian's The Red Book, and John Dewey's Art As Experience. Along with creating Jungian mandalas and writing papers about Art as Art Therapy. I was preparing to become an art therapist. I was no where near the fringe of society. 

Again, my mind spun. I tried to recap my involvement and relationship to life.  I had a job at the library. I was attending Art Therapy courses. I was living in a paid rented room. I was shocked. I decided to discontinue my Art Therapy studies because of how unsafe I felt after that discussion with the faculty member, I did not want to invest in a school that did not want to invest in me! He was not building my character up, only tearing it down, to pieces as a matter of fact! 

After I had written a few more papers on Art as Therapy and created a new Numerology theory that I presented to Art Therapy students, who I later gave numerology readings to. I felt very lost, abandoned, and rejected by that faculty teacher. 

So instead of staying on the fringe and outside of the pack, I left Southwestern College, I kept pursuing my art academic career instead of art therapy. I had already interviewed at an art therapy college for a master's degree in Montpelier, Vermont. I mentioned the word chakra at the presentation for visitors, and I was almost asked to leave right then and there. This school was based on Freudian's beliefs and not Carl Jung, they told me. So I chose to pursue Art Therapy at Southwestern College, and then, I studied Education in Counseling instead at College of Santa Fe. Both programs were not a fit to my inspirations of becoming an Art Professor that explored Jungian Principles with a desire to integrate technology in order to conserve our human spirit and planet through the new technological age. 

(Side note: I went to Southwestern College knowing full well that Carl Jung was exploring the nature of dreams and that is where all healing takes place, versus Freud who expresses everything stemming from various distortions of sexuality. There is more to be said there, but I will leave it there.) 

I was shocked when I read the history of Freud's relationships through the eyes of Otto Rank at Southwestern College. I was expressing some ideas that were shocking the faculty on some level and I still do not know what those are! I wish I did! But, as a Wild Woman, I will never look back and I will keep creating! 

I applied to San Francisco Art Institute. I was rejected over and over. I really wanted to earn a MFA! I absolutely loved the creative academic environment!  

I kept tracking where artists were creating and tried to find my wolf pack! I applied to many MFA programs such as Arizona State University, SUNY Purchase, Florida Atlantic University, etc. I was rejected by all of them, but my Wild Woman spirit did not stop. I kept going. 

"The memory is of our absolute, undeniable, and irrevocable kinship with the wild feminine, a relationship which may have become ghostly from neglect, buried by over-domestication, outlawed by the surrounding culture, or no longer understood anymore. We may have forgotten her names, we may not answer when she calls ours, but in our bones we know her, we yearn toward her; we know she belongs to us and we to her."

- Clarissa Pinkola Estes 

So I gave up and started to volunteer at Boca Helping Hands and because of that opportunity, I finally got a job at Jerry's Artarama in West Palm Beach, Florida. There I could be close to my art community at the Armory Art Center. I applied one more time for a MFA in Media instead of Painting and I was accepted at Florida Atlantic University. I finally found my wolf path and pack!

I never gave up tracking my wolf path and I never listened to things that brought me to the edge of the pack. I stayed in the herd! I followed my Wild Woman intuition, that I nurtured at my all-girl Catholic school, Convent of the Sacred Heart. I kept my vision that God loved me! I kept loving myself no matter what my art teachers told me!  

In fact, another art teacher, tried to push me to the edge of the pack, at the Armory Art Center, in West Palm Beach, FL. He told me that I would never EVER create anything new; that it had all been done before. Well, I replied, I will because I will be creating with a new medium, the computer, and I will create art that has never been created before. I did create a novel idea, artwork in the digital realm: my metacubetron application!  

Also, my tree of life painting, inspired by Flower of Life, was another! I have never seen this symbol on earth! Never. Not in any books or websites at the time of 2016. 

When I hosted my Starseed Book Club, we read  Women Who Run With The Wolves together and I once again felt liked I belonged to my wolf pack! I learned so much from the wolf spirit.  

"So, in Spanish I call her Rio Abajo Rio, the river beneath the river, La Mujer Grande, the Great Woman; Luz del abtsmo, the light from the abyss; La Loba, the wolf woman; or La Huesera, the bone woman.

She is called in Hungarian “Erddben”, She of the Woods, and Rozsomdk, The Wolverine. In Navajo, she is Na’ashje'ii Asdzaa,  The Spider Woman, who weaves the fate of humans and animals and plants and rocks. In Guatemala, among many other names, she is Humana del Niebla, The Mist Being, the woman who has lived forever. 

In Japanese, she is Amaterasu Omikami, The Numina, who brings all light, all consciousness. In Tibet she is called Dakini, the dancing force which produces clear-seeing within women. And it goes on. She goes on." 

- Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Allegory of Boat, Wolf, and Eagle - by Leonardo da Vinci