Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés Column

Facing Evil: Qui tacet consentit. - Who keeps silent, consents

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:54:19 -0400

El Rio Debajo El Rio: The river beneath the river, by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Vol. 1, No. 10; May 12, 2008	Signup for Weekly E-mail

The trajectory of evil is not particularly creative; it is most often banal and predictable. Evil respects no economic, social or intellectual differences. It can colonize and live well in one who has little or nothing, as well as those who have everything. Being in one profession or another, even in the consecrated ones, is no inoculation against evil. One of the strongest markers that evil is present occurs when the suffering of humanity is completely ignored.... and it was and is within one’s power to make it cease... but the one in charge chooses otherwise.

--cpe

The old believers of my family said it was easy to spot a person who had no soul. The center of such persons’ bodies, they said, were without light.

But far more dangerous to the souls of all, they said, were those who were filled with a certain kind of light; the light of ambition; the light of coveting, the light of wanting to control all things.

Dear brave souls ... do not lose heart

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés — Mon, 05 May 2008 12:21:45 -0400

El Rio Debajo El Rio: The river beneath the river, by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Vol. 1, No. 9; May 5, 2008	Signup for Weekly E-mail

“…In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world ... in our personal world as well. Do not focus on that. Do not make yourself ill with overwhelm. There is a tendency to fall into being weakened by perseverating on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails.

“ ... Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.”

--cpe

Dear Brave Souls: When I began driving a pickup truck, having spent a jillion years with old cars that kept breaking down ... and with most cars whizzing by without looking ... I vowed that I would if I could, stop to help anyone I saw broken down at the side of the road ...

¡Abre la Puerta! Open the Door!

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:36:50 -0400

El Rio Debajo El Rio: The river beneath the river, by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Vol. 1, No. 8; April 28, 2008	Signup for Weekly E-mail

Refuse to fall down.
If you cannot refuse to fall down,
refuse to stay down.
If you cannot refuse to stay down,
lift your heart toward heaven,
and like a hungry beggar,
ask that it be filled,
and it will be filled.

You may be pushed down.
You may be kept from rising.
But no one can keep you from lifting
your heart toward heaven -- only you.

It is in the midst of misery
that so much becomes clear.
The one who says
nothing good came of this,
is not yet listening.

What do we owe to our kith and kin who have been injured by those who professed holiness, but who acted in egregiously unholy ways instead?

The transformative dark night of the soul

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 15:30:00 -0400

El Rio Debajo El Rio: The river beneath the river, by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Vol. 1, No. 7; April 21, 2008	Signup for Weekly E-mail

La noche oscura del alma: The transformative dark night of the soul

Hazme las cuentas claras y el chocolate espeso: Make for me the accounts clear and the chocolate thick.

This dicho, or saying, when said to a person retelling the family stories too harshly and without sincere love, means: Tell me the old stories clearly, but make them dulce, sweet and nourishing.

I was remembering that old exhortation when I saw the pope this week on TV. I realized that I have many more memories of Cardinal Ratzinger than I do of the pope -- yet they are the same man.

But are they really the same man?

I saw evidence to the contrary this week.

How to silence a woman: Retrieving her voice

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:09:14 -0400

El Rio Debajo El Rio: The river beneath the river, by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Vol. 1, No. 6; April 14, 2008	Signup for Weekly E-mail

When someone says, "We're saying the same thing."
Say, "We are not saying the same thing."
When someone says, "Don't question, just have faith."
Say, "I am questioning, vato, and
I have supreme faith in what I think."
When someone says, "Don't defy my authority."
Say, "There is a higher authority that I follow."
--Cpe

In an article in The Washington Post, April 13, Daniel Burke, a national correspondent for Religion News Service, writes about how some imagine President George Bush is actually a secret Catholic "believer," and how he has met with and surrounded himself with Catholics during his administration, that his policies have directly grown out of Catholic social justice teachings and that Pope Benedict is coming to see the president and his Catholic appointees specially, as the pope is his ally -- even though the pope disagrees with President Bush's Iraq war and torture.

The Lost Holy Books, and The Bear-Whale Prophesy

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:11:13 -0400

El Rio Debajo El Rio: The river beneath the river, by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Vol. 1, No. 5 April 7, 2008	Signup for Weekly E-mail

“On the 7th Day, it is said, God Rested…
What naiveté
of the unawakened human mind
made us think
God was done ?”

A third set of holy books

And, what if we have not two, but three sets of holy books? The first set of sacred books, from nearly every part of the world, lets us fall through the pages into the Creation story, into the generative, then next into sagas of life conduct; an inquiry into human nature, heroics, the diabolical, tracking the rights and wrongs of God’s humans and angels.

Followers of Christ have a second set of holy books detailing the never-ending story of The Word literally arrived fully on earth, hiding and sheltering that precious Life during siege. Next, come all the miracle memes, all prophetic, horrific, upbracing matters drenched in Divinity.

What if comes then a third set of holy books? The set of sacred volumes comprised of Nature and the Cosmos: its flowers, songbirds and animals being the words; its forests, stars, oceans and tides being the sentences; the smallest creatures and all the planetary glitter dusts being the commas, ampersands, ellipses. What if we were the avid students? What if nature was an avid teacher of God’s ways?