Chapter Seven of Women Who Run with the Wolves
Thursday 19th November | 7pm CET
La Mariposa reminds us that the wild feminine does not disappear with age.
She continues to dance!
She is not apologising for her flesh. She is celebrating it. And in doing so, she challenges everything women have been taught about beauty, ageing and the value of their bodies.
Join us for these 90 minutes of psychospiritual and Jungian exploration into our own feminine body, ageing, sensuality and embodied joy.
How many women have spent their lives trying to change, control, shrink, improve or correct their bodies rather than experiencing the extraordinary joy of living within them?
As women, we are taught to measure our beauty against youth, slimness, desirability and the expectations of others. As we age, our bodies change, and for many women this becomes a source of grief, shame, fear or disconnection. We can begin to feel invisible, less desirable, or somehow diminished by the very process of growing older. Yet what if the body was never meant to be an object of perfection, but a living expression of the wild feminine soul?
In Chapter Seven of Women Who Run with the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estés introduces us to La Mariposa, the Butterfly Woman, an older, magnificent, fuller-bodied woman whose dance embodies the joy, sensuality, wisdom and instinctual vitality of the feminine body.
She is not apologising for her flesh. She is celebrating it. And in doing so, she challenges everything women have been taught about beauty, ageing and the value of their bodies.
La Mariposa teaches us that feminine beauty does not disappear with age, that sensuality is not reserved for the young, and that the wild feminine body is something to be inhabited, honoured and celebrated throughout every stage of life.
Through this myth, we explore the psychological wounds that separate women from their bodies and the medicine of returning to pleasure, movement, instinct, sensuality and self-acceptance.
In this 90-minute psychospiritual teaching, we will explore:
- The wounds of body shame, comparison and cultural conditioning.
- Why women can become disconnected from their sensual and instinctual nature.
- The psychological impact of ageing and the fear of becoming invisible.
- La Mariposa as an archetype of the joyous, embodied feminine.
- The difference between being desirable to others and feeling alive within ourselves.
- Reclaiming bodily pleasure, movement, sensuality and feminine vitality.
- Learning to honour the changing body rather than resist it.
- The medicine of accepting the wild, beautiful, imperfect and extraordinary body we inhabit.
- 90-minute live Zoom teaching exploring the myth and its psychological symbolism.
- Full class recording to revisit or watch if you cannot attend live.
- Curated analysis workbook with reflections and questions to help you integrate the teaching.
- Deep Jungian and psychospiritual exploration of the feminine body, ageing, sensuality and embodied joy.
This class is for the woman who has spent too long at war with her body. For the woman navigating the changes of midlife, questioning her beauty or desirability, or feeling disconnected from the sensual, instinctual, pleasure-loving woman she once knew. It is also for the woman who is ready to celebrate herself, not because she has achieved some ideal of perfection, but because she is alive, embodied and worthy of joy exactly as she is.
*La Mariposa reminds us that the wild feminine does not disappear with age. She continues to dance.*
Join us Thursday 19th November at 7pm CET.
This chapter can be taken as an individual class or as part of the full Women Who Run with the Wolves study journey.