Last Monday evening, my husband and I went to hear a talk by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, author of Women Who Run With the Wolves. She titled the talk "Walking in Two Worlds," and referred frequently to the experiences many of us have had of being "different" or "alien." She related these kinds of experiences and feelings to creativity and soul. Dr. Estes encouraged us to keep on paying attention to the things that call us, that capture our attention, because it is in these that we are in touch with our own soul and its creativity.
She told us two stories that between them offer a vision of those two worlds to which she alluded. One story, the Erl Koenig, was about a father who does not listen to the cautions of his young son, and thereby loses him. In this story as in many others, Clarissa Estes pointed out, all the characters are really parts of the psyche. In the discipline of working with stories we identify the various parts of our own psyche through the lens of the characters. What in myself functions like the father who will not listen? What in myself is the child who perceives things that are imperceptible to the dominant culture?
The other tale was a story of the Santo Nino, Holy Child, the Old Man who hears him and searches for him in the desert, and the village that welcomes the Child. The Old Man has faith and trust enough to go out into the desert when he hears a bell tolling, then later the cry of a baby. The villagers are open-hearted and grateful for the presence of the bell in their chapel's bell tower and for that of the Holy Child whom they place on their altar. But the Holy Child, in the darkness of the night, runs through the desert to those who are ill and despairing and comforts and heals them. They learn to trust that he will return, that he will continue to be with them and to heal those whom he searches out. They themselves become a village of healers through the magical efforts of this active, healing, mystical child. Imagine that! A village of healers! How I longed to be part of such a place! And the longing was shared by those who heard.
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