Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés
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Biography
"Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D.
Beginnings Clarissa Pinkola Estés, (born 27 January 1945) is an American poet, psychoanalyst and post-trauma specialist who was raised in a now nearly vanished oral and ethnic traditions. She is a first-generation American who grew up in a rural village, population 600, near the Great Lakes. Of Mexican mestiza, and majority Magyar and minority Swabian tribal heritages, she comes from immigrant and refugee families who could not read or write, or who did so haltingly. Much of her writing is influenced by her family people who were farmers, shepherds, hopsmeisters, wheelwrights, weavers, orchardists, tailors, cabinet makers, lacemakers, knitters, and horsemen and horsewomen from the Old Countries. Life Works Similar to William Carlos Williams and other poets who worked in the health professions, Estés is is a certified senior Jungian psychoanalyst who has practiced clinically for 40 years. Her doctorate, from the Union Institute & University, is in ethno-clinical psychology, the study of social and psychological patterns in cultural and tribal groups. She often speaks as "distinguished visiting scholar" and "diversity scholar" at universities. She is the author of many books on the life of the soul, and her work is published in 39 languages, most recently Farsi, Turkish, and Chinese. Her book, Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of The Wild Woman Archetype was on the New York Times Best Seller list for 145 weeks. As post-trauma specialist, she began her work in the 1960s at Hines VA hospital and in other institutions caring for severely injured children, 'shell-shocked' war veterans, and their families. Her teaching of writing in prisons began in the early 1970s at the Men's Penitentiary in Colorado; the Federal Women's Prison at Dublin, CA, and in prisons throughout the Southwest. She ministers in the fields of childbearing loss, surviving families of murder victims, as well as critical incident work. She served at natural disaster sites, developing post-trauma recovery protocol for earthquake survivors in Armenia, and teaching citizens deputized to do post-trauma work on site. She recently served Columbine High School and community after the massacre, 1999-2003. She continues to work with 9-11 survivor families on both east and west coasts. Estés served as a Governor's appointee to the Colorado State Grievance Board (1993-2006). She currently is a board member of the Authors Guild, New York; an advisory board member for The National Writers Union, New York; an advisory board member of The Coalition Against Censorship, New York; and a board member of the Maya Angelou Minority Health Foundation at Wake Forest Medical School. She is an advisor to El Museo de las Americas, Colorado; a contributing editor to The Bloomsbury Review; and a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. Estés, a former hard-scrabble welfare mother, is the recipient of numerous awards, including the first Joseph Campbell Keeper of the Lore Award for her work as la cantadora; and for her written work, the Gradiva Award from the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis; and The Catholic Press Association award for her writing. She received the Las Primeras Award, "the first of her kind" from the Mexican American Women's foundation, Washington, District of Columbia. She is a 2006 inductee into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame which celebrates women change agents who have had international influence. Social justice Estés is Managing Editor for TheModeratevoice.com, a news and political blog where she also writes on issues of culture, soul, and politics. She is also a columnist on issues of social justice, spirituality and culture in her column entitled El Rio Debajo del Rio, The River Underneath the River," is archived at NationalCatholic Reporter, http://ncronline.org/blogs/el-rio-debajo-del-rio. She is controversial for proposing that both assimilation and holding to ethnic traditions are the ways to contribute to creative culture and to a soul-based civility. She successfully helped to petition the Library of Congress, as well as worldwide psychoanalytic institutes, to rename their studies and categorizations formerly called, among other things, "psychology of the primitives", to respectful and descriptive names, according to ethnic group, religion, culture, etc. Estés' Guadalupe Foundation currently funds literacy projects in Queens, New York City, and in Madagascar, and Central America - providing printed local folktales and healthcare and hygiene information for the people in their own language; these texts are then used for learning to read and write. Estés testifies before state and federal legislatures on welfare reform, education and school violence, child protection, mental health, environment, immigration, and other quality of life and soul issues. Quotes "We are all los inmigrantes, the Soul is The First Immigrant: The Soul cannot be held back by any imaginary boundary drawn against it; not by mountain ranges, not by rivers, nor by human scorn. The Soul, goes everywhere, like an old woman in her right mind, going anywhere she wishes, saying whatever she wants, bending to mend whatever is within her reach. Wherever she goes, the Soul brings new life." - from The Dangerous Old Woman "There is no ethnic group on the face of this earth that has not been slaughtered; viz Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Britons. When, after a conflict, the best balanced leaders who have a stake in the future of all persons, are bypassed, and instead power is seized by the angriest and most grudge-holding, whose greatest stake is in the past… without new consciousness, and without strong reconciling actions, thus erupts a horrible recycling of living out the least of what is human in this world." from "Letter To The Prince on the Anniversary of Kristallnacht" ""As artist-in-residence in schools, I find that whereas children used to dream bear, wolf, tiger as both friends and foes, and often… now, so so many children are dreaming Machine; gigantic stomping splints and walking piers of glittering mutant metal.... " - from essay "Wild Wolf/ Wild Soul" in Comeback Wolves, eds G. Wockner, L. Prichett "There are not two 'Ms to governing, as many PolySci courses have taught: 'Money and Management.' There are three M's. The third one is Mercy. The third "M" constitutes the difference between a country and a corporation." from testimony before Federal Ways and Means Committee on Social Programs, Washington, 1996 Congressional Record. ""Nature and human beings are not separate. You can be sure that when the land and creatures are wounded by humans, that those humans are copying their own psychic wounds into the earth and animals as well; what is wounded and without thought, wounds others..." from essay "Massacre of the Dreamers" "The wounding of land and creatures reaches to the dream world... and beyond it to impoverish the dreamers as well. Yet there is still time to intervene... but the time is right this instant..." ibid ""All strong souls first go to hell before they do the healing of the world they came here for. If we are lucky, we return to help those still trapped below." from the poem Abre La Puerta in Theatre of the Imagination (Sounds True), also for Kol Nidre at shul, http://bnaihavurah.org/Rabbi.htm "Do not lose heart, we were made for these times..." from Letter To A Young Activist During Troubled Times ""The craft of questions, the craft of stories, the craft of the hands - all these are the making of something, and that something is soul. Anytime we feed soul, it guarantees increase." from Women Who Run With the Wolves (Ballantine/ Bertelsmann 1992, 1996) (p.14) "Just because a woman is silent does not mean she agrees…" - from The Dangerous Old Woman ""If logic were everything, all men would ride sidesaddle…" - from Women Who Run With The Wolves "Some people mistake being loving for being a sap. Quite the contrary, the most loving people are often the most fierce and the most acutely armed for battle... for they care about preserving and protecting poetry, symphonic song, ideas, the elements, creatures, inventions, hopes and dreams, dances and holiness... those goodly endeavors that cannot be allowed to perish from this earth, else humanity itself would perish..." - from The Dangerous Old Woman ''If you have never been called a defiant, incorrigible, impossible woman… have faith… there is yet time." - from Women Who Run with the Wolves Notable Books Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype, (Ballantine 1992/ 1996) The Gift of Story: A Wise Tale About What is Enough (Ballantine 1993) The Faithful Gardener: A Wise Tale About that Which Can Never Die (Harper SanFrancisco 1996) Tales of the Brothers' Grimm; 50 page introduction by Estés (BMOC/QPB special edition) Hero With A Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell. 50 page introduction by Estés (Princeton University Press, Joseph Campbell 100th anniversary edition 2004 "La danza delle grandi madri: The Dance of the Grand Madris" (Frassinelli, Milano, Italy) 2007 Forthcoming Books La Pasionaria, The Bright Angel: The Collected Poetry of Clarissa Pinkola Estés; forthcoming epub Winter 2011 La curandera: Healing in Two Worlds; forthcoming, Texas A & M University Press, Spring 2011 "Untie the Strong Woman: Ancient Blessed Mother in Modern Times"; forthcoming Frasenelli, Milano, Italy, Winter 2010 Spoken Word Audio Works Her audio works are published by Sounds True, which are available as CDs and digital downloads, and have been broadcast over numerous National Public Radio and community public radio stations throughout Canada and the USA. --"Untie the Strong Woman: To Know and Honor Holy Mother & La Nuestra Señora, Our Lady of Guadalupe" (Audio CDs Sept 2011) --The Dangerous Old Woman series: (Vol. I) Myths and Stories of the Wise Woman Archetype, Part One (6 CDs set, Audio - Oct 2010) --The Power of the Crone (Vol II of The Dangerous Old Woman series) --The Joyous Body (Vol III on The Dangerous Old Woman series) --The Late Bloomer (Volume IV of The Dangerous Old Woman series) --Mother Night: Myths, Stories and Teachings for Learning to See in the Dark (6 CDs set, Audio - May 2010) --"Seeing in the Dark: Myths and Stories to Reclaim the Buried, Knowing Woman" (2 CDs set, Audio, July 2010) --Warming the Stone Child: Myths & Stories About Abandonment and the Unmothered Child (Audio CDs- 1997) --The Radiant Coat: Myths & Stories About the Crossing Between Life and Death (Audio CD- May 1993) --The Creative Fire: Myths and Stories About the Cycles of Creativity (Audio - July 1993) --In the House of the Riddle Mother: The Most Common Archetypal Motifs in Women's Dreams (Audio CD- March 1997, 2005) --Theatre of the Imagination (13 part Live Performance Series, Vol I & Vol II; stories, poetry, commentaries; 13 Audio CDs- October 1999, 2005) --How To Love A Woman: Myths and Stories about Intimacy and The Erotic Lives of Women (Audio CD 1996) --Bedtime Stories; For Crossing the Threshold Between Waking and Sleep (Audio CD 2002) --Beginner's Guide to Dream Analysis (Audio CD 2000) --The Gift of Story: A Wise Tale About What is Enough (Audio CD 1993) --The Faithful Gardener: A Wise Tale About that Which Can Never Die (Audio CD 1996) --The Boy Who Married An Eagle: Myths and Stories About Men's Interior Lives (Audio cassette 1995) --The Red Shoes: On Torment and the Recovery of Soul Life (Audio CD 1997, 2005) --Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories about the Wild Woman Archetype (Abridged Audio CDs 1989, the underground bestseller published before the book found a publisher) Forthcoming Spoken Word Audio Warming the Stone Child: On the Wondrous and Peculiar Gifts of the Abandoned Child (Audio, expanded by 4 hours Spring 2011) External links --The Moderate Voice where dr. Estés is a Managing Editor and a columnist --mavenproductions.com - dr. Estés' keynotes, workshops and classes --The National Catholic Reporter - Columns archived there under the title El Rio Debajo del Rio, The River Beneath the River by Dr. Estés --Blog Entry: "Don Imus And Bernard McGuirk re “Nappy-Headed Hos”" by Dr. Estés' --Archived Google Video of 2000 Charlie Rose show about WOMAN.LIFE.SONG production at Carnegie Hall featuring dr. Estés along with Jessye Norman, Toni Morrison, composer Judith Weir. --"Do Not Lose Heart: We Were Made for These Times... Letter to a Young Activist During Troubled Times" by Dr. Estés --"The Church Beneath The Church" by Dr. Estés --"Baptism: The Good Fathers" and "Internship: The Bad Fathers (Poetry by Dr. Estés) National Catholic Reporter ncronline --"Slaughter of Innocence" by Dr. Estés', US Catholic online ------------------------------- Beginning... Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés is a North American poet, senior psychoanalyst and post-trauma specialist who was raised in now nearly vanished oral and ethnic traditions. She grew up in a rural village, population 600, near the Great Lakes. Of Mexican mestiza and Magyar/Swabian tribal heritages, she comes from immigrant and refugee families who could not read or write, or who did so haltingly. Similar to other poets like William Carlos Williams who worked in the health professions, Estés is a certified Jungian psychoanalyst who has practiced clinically for 40 years. Her doctorate is in ethno-clinical psychology, the study of social and psychological patterns in cultural and tribal groups. As a post-trauma specialist, she began her work in the 1960s at hospitals caring for severely injured children, 'shell-shocked' war veterans and their families. Her teaching of writing in prisons began in the early 1970s at the Men's Penitentiary in Colorado and the Federal Women's Prison at Dublin, California. Currently... Dr. Estés writes daily and is the author of many books on the life of the soul. Her books are published in 30+ languages, including Persian, Turkish, and Mandarin. Her book, Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype, was on the New York Times bestseller list for 144 weeks. She teaches memoir writing, creative non-fiction and archetypal writing in various venues. As psychoanalyst, she ministers, teaches and trains others in the fields of archetypal psychology, expressive art therapy, psychology of the gifted, refugee psychology, critical incident work, war trauma, and post-trauma recovery. A post-trauma specialist, she has served at many disaster sites. For the aftermath of the Armenian earthquake, she developed a primary post-trauma recovery protocol for deputizing able citizen-survivors to help others in recovery in coming months and years. The protocol is used by many groups worldwide. She served Columbine High School and community after the massacre, 1999-2003. She works with 9-11 survivor families on both east and west coasts. As Deputy Managing Editor and columnist at the political newsblog TheModerateVoice.com she writes in the company of twenty international journalists. Writing on culture, spirituality and politics, Dr. Estés supports the causes of innocents in the world who suffer injustice. Her articles cover honor killing, tribes and Buddhists in dictatorial Burma, citizen casualties in wars, human rights violations, as well as stories about valorous human beings under fire. A performance artist and poet on many stages worldwide, she teaches performance and storytelling to teachers, helpers and healers, corporate and legal professionals who want to communicate in the old tradition to modern corporations and institutions. At universities as distinguished visiting scholar and diversity scholar, she teaches mythology, archetypal psychology, women's and men's psychology, archytpal theatre, and writing. Dr. Estés wrote "When A Good Mother Sails from This World" as part of a commissioned libretto also contributed to by Dr. Maya Angelou and Dr. Toni Morrison. Together with Jessye Norman, Doctors Estés, Morrison, and Angelou debuted in spoken word at Carnegie Hall. Helping Ways... Served two Governors as their appointee to the Colorado State Grievance Board (1993-2006). Dr. Estés is an advisor to El Museo de las Americas, Colorado; a contributing editor to The Bloomsbury Review of books. She is a board member of the Authors Guild, New York; an advisory board member of The Coalition Against Censorship, New York; and a board member of the Maya Angelou Minority Health Foundation at Wake Forest University Medical School. Her Guadalupe Foundation funds literacy projects, most recently in Queens, NY, in Madagascar, and Central America - providing printed local folktales, healthcare and hygiene information for the people in their own languages; these texts then used for learning to read and write. Dr. Estés testifies before state and federal legislatures on welfare reform, education and school violence, child protection, mental health, environment, immigration, adoption, and other quality of life and soul issues. Awards... Dr. Estés, a former hard-scrabble welfare mother, is the recipient of numerous awards including the first Joseph Campbell Keeper of the Lore Award for her work as la cantadora; for her written work, the Gradiva Award from the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis; and The Catholic Press Association award for her writing on spirit. She received the Las Primeras Award, "the first of her kind" from the Mexican American Women's foundation, Washington, District of Columbia. In 2006 Dr. Estés was inducted into The Colorado Women's Hall of Fame. |
Selected WorksNew Hardcover Book, November 2011
Untie the Strong Woman: Blessed Mother's Immaculate Love for the Wild Soul
Via personal blessings and stories of visitations, miracles, and common events, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés helps us reconnect with the fierce and loving force of the Blessed Mother. Shortlink to presskit page:http://wp.me/P64an-L6 November 2011 / Hardcover Book with 30 of the author's ex-votos, color illustrations for prayer / BK02284 / 390 pages / 6¼” x 9¼” ISBN-10: 1-60407-635-6 / ISBN-13: 978-1-60407-635-6 UPC: 600835-228480 / US $26.95 / Women’s Studies, Spirituality / Rights: World English NEW: LIVE ONLINE EVENT
The Late Bloomer Begins September 21, 2011 Six weekly sessions Sign up at SoundsTrue.com NEW AUDIO SERIES RELEASE:
Untie the Strong Woman Online Events The Dangerous Old Woman series
The Dangerous Old Woman Myths and Stories of the Wise Woman Archetype Spoken Word Audio, Non-Fiction
NEW AUDIO SPOKEN WORD RELEASE: Mother Night: Myths, Stories, and Teachings for Learning to See in the Dark
Where is memory of who we really are, who sent us here, and what is our work here ... and why are we often so unusual, so different, so eccentric, so belonging often to a tribe of one? NEW SPOKEN WORD RELEASE: Seeing in the Dark: Myths and Stories to Reclaim the Buried, Knowing Woman by Clarissa Pinkola Estés
2 CD Set In bookstores and at soundstrue.com BOOK, Non-fiction
Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype
A field guide to the creative life of the soul, unfettered, fierce, and radiant. BOOK: Non-fiction
The Faithful Gardener: A Wise Tale About that Which Can Never Die
The Nazis and the Red Army decimated their village in the Old Country. |