Join Leigh as she interviews Matt Myrick, singer, songwriter, and father of two small children, to get his take on the story of the Skeleton Woman in Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ Women Who Run With the Wolves.
Skeleton woman is the archetype of the life/death/life cycle, which, according to Clarissa, is the natural cycle of death and rebirth that determines the transformative cycles of all physical and psychological life. When skeleton woman enters into a relationship, she is the gift for both partners of deeper inner knowing and growth.
Leigh and Matt discuss the patriarchal structure through which the skeleton woman was first destroyed and through which the fisherman must escape in order to recognize the skeleton woman as a deeper spiritual treasure.
As a stay-at-home father, Matt also sees the tangled bones as a metaphor for the reality and messiness of everyday life with children, which requires relating to “something more spiritual, something messier, something invested with much more energy and kind of a forceful will and being able to go along for the ride” (Matt).
Matt and Leigh circle back to the final scene in the story where the fisherman cries the tear that initiates the skeleton woman’s transformation into a woman of flesh. The conversation opens to toxic masculinity and the difficulty men have with accepting the “not-beautiful” and expressing vulnerability. According to Clarissa, when the fisherman allows the expression of his vulnerability, cares for and untangles the woman despite her darkness, and gives his whole heart to the transformation, he is able to have the deeper connection with the full woman that he desires. The integrity of the relationship, the deeper union, is derived from both partners accepting the reality of each other and doing the deeper inner work of transformation together.
Cover art entitled, “Their Gravity,” by Alabama artist Sarah Rutledge Fischer @sarahrutledgefischer. To see more of her figure drawings and mixed media paintings, visit sarahrutledgefischer.com or find her FB page Sarah Rutledge Fischer Art.
"The Western Ride” written and performed by Matt Myrick @cityelectricmusic.
To join our bookclub, visit our private group on FB @ FemmSouth Bookclub
We are a grassroots effort, and we need donations to keep us doing this important work for women in the south. You can donate on our website, FemmSouth.com or follow and share our fundraiser on FemmSouth’s FB page.
Skeleton woman is the archetype of the life/death/life cycle, which, according to Clarissa, is the natural cycle of death and rebirth that determines the transformative cycles of all physical and psychological life. When skeleton woman enters into a relationship, she is the gift for both partners of deeper inner knowing and growth.
Leigh and Matt discuss the patriarchal structure through which the skeleton woman was first destroyed and through which the fisherman must escape in order to recognize the skeleton woman as a deeper spiritual treasure.
As a stay-at-home father, Matt also sees the tangled bones as a metaphor for the reality and messiness of everyday life with children, which requires relating to “something more spiritual, something messier, something invested with much more energy and kind of a forceful will and being able to go along for the ride” (Matt).
Matt and Leigh circle back to the final scene in the story where the fisherman cries the tear that initiates the skeleton woman’s transformation into a woman of flesh. The conversation opens to toxic masculinity and the difficulty men have with accepting the “not-beautiful” and expressing vulnerability. According to Clarissa, when the fisherman allows the expression of his vulnerability, cares for and untangles the woman despite her darkness, and gives his whole heart to the transformation, he is able to have the deeper connection with the full woman that he desires. The integrity of the relationship, the deeper union, is derived from both partners accepting the reality of each other and doing the deeper inner work of transformation together.
Cover art entitled, “Their Gravity,” by Alabama artist Sarah Rutledge Fischer @sarahrutledgefischer. To see more of her figure drawings and mixed media paintings, visit sarahrutledgefischer.com or find her FB page Sarah Rutledge Fischer Art.
"The Western Ride” written and performed by Matt Myrick @cityelectricmusic.
To join our bookclub, visit our private group on FB @ FemmSouth Bookclub
We are a grassroots effort, and we need donations to keep us doing this important work for women in the south. You can donate on our website, FemmSouth.com or follow and share our fundraiser on FemmSouth’s FB page.
Activity