Women Who Run With the Wolves quotes and art: Rediscovering and reconnecting with your authentic self.
Updated: Aug 9
How Clarissa Pinkola Estés inspired my paintings and helped me reconnect with the Wild Woman within. Here I share my art, inspiration and at the end of the article 5 quotes that helped me see myself differently.
There are some books that you enjoy, and then there are books that really change the way you see yourself and reminds you who you are.
For me, Women Who Run With the Wolves was one of those books.
I didn't simply read it, I experienced it all the way. Each chapter, words stirred something ancient inside me that I didn't even realise I had been searching for. Funny I also found this book, or the book found me at the right time of my life, at age 38 while I was experiencing a need of truly facing my fears, allowing myself to finally live the life I dreamt for so long, that is an artist life.
As I turned each page, I realised the Wild Woman wasn't someone I needed to become.
She was someone I needed to remember.
That realisation changed not only the way I see myself, but the way I create my art.
"The wild woman is fluent in the language of dreams, images, passion and poetry" - Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estès - Women who run with the wolves
The Wild Woman Was Never Lost
One of my favourite teachings from Clarissa Pinkola Estés is that the Wild Woman lives within every woman.
Not the version of "wild" we've been taught to fear. But the woman who trusts her intuition.
Who creates because she has something to express, not because she wants approval.
Who rests without guilt.
Who feels deeply.
Who belongs to herself before she belongs to the expectations of the world.
I think so many of us spend years trying to become enough, when really we're trying to uncover the parts of ourselves we've buried to fit in. That is what the Sacred Feminine also means to me.
Not becoming someone new but returning home to who we've always been. The wild part, the soft part and everything that makes us who we are.
"The wildish woman is by nature intense and talented" - Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estès - Women who run with the wolves
Art Became My Way of Remembering
I've always believed that art speaks to us before words do. A painting can remind us of something we've forgotten long before we understand why it moves us.
Since reading Women Who Run With the Wolves, I've found myself painting less from my mind and more from my intuition. My art became full of symbolisms which led me to search each meaning behind it. My curiosity led me to more and more creativity and learning each day something new ...
Somehow, each painting become a symbol of remembrance.
"The wild feminine is not something we need to become; She is already. here, beneath the layers of who we were told to be. When we see her reflected in art we remember". - Naïma Namaste - Wild woman, artist.
"To converse with the wild feminine, a woman must temporarily leave the world and inhabit a state of aloneness in the oldest sense of the word" - Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estès - Women who run with the wolves
Nature has become one of my greatest teacher and inspiration because it never rushes, compares or performs. It simply is.
"It deeply inspired me for my painting Take it Slow, for me it is a reminder to go back to your heart, your body and wild soul."
We're not here to constantly prove ourselves. We're here to live in rhythm with life rather than against it.
Creating from the Soul and for you
One quote from Clarissa Pinkola Estés has stayed with me ever since I first read it:
"The wild woman is fluent in the language of dreams, images, passion and poetry."
Perhaps that's why painting has become such a spiritual practice for me.
When I paint, I'm not trying to create something perfect. I'm trying to create something honest.
Something that reminds another woman of the strength, softness, intuition and beauty she already carries within herself.
Because I truly believe that art has the power to awaken memory.
Memory of who we are beneath all the layers we've accumulated throughout our lives.
While I was finding my voice as an artist and while painting, It reminded me that the Wild Woman isn't waiting somewhere outside of us.
She's been quietly walking beside us all along.
Sometimes all she needs is for us to stop long enough to hear her like a distant howl. That's how "Rebellion Sauvage" was born...
5 favorite quotes from Women who run with the wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes that helped me free myself.
Do not cringe, and make yourself small if you are called the black sheep, the maverick, the lone wolf. Those with slow seeing say a nonconformist is a blight on society. - Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Your family thinks you're an alien. You have feathers, they have scales. Your idea of a good time is forest, the wilds, the inner life, the outer majesty. - Clarissa Pinkola Estes
When women are relegated to moods, mannerisms, and contours that conform to a single idea of beauty and behavior, they are captured in both body and soul and are no longer free. - Clarissa Pinkola Estes
The wild nature would never advocate the torture of the body, culture or land. The wild nature would never agree to flog the form in order to prove worth, prove "control", prove character, be more visually pleasing, more financially valuable. - Clarissa Pinkola Estes
To be the child survivor beyond its time is too over-identified. with an injured archetype. To realize the injury, and yet memorialize it, allows thriving to come forth. Thriving is what was meant for us on this earth. Thriving, not just surviving, is our birthright as women. - Clarissa Pinkola Estes
My story...
I was 38 years old when I realized I wasn't just carrying my childhood… I was still living from it.
For years, I thought my biggest challenge was a lack of confidence.
It wasn't. It was that I had quietly built my life around beliefs I learned as a little girl.
I grew up watching my mother live without freedom.
I experienced racism from a young age and often felt like I didn't belong.
At school, I struggled, felt invisible, and eventually left without my diploma.
When I told people I wanted to become an artist, I was told it wasn't realistic.
Little by little, I stopped believing in my dreams.
I wasn't just surviving difficult moments.
I had become the woman who expected rejection.Who questioned herself before every decision.Who believed everyone else was more talented, more capable, more deserving.
Then something changed.
Not all at once..It happened through small moments.
Leaving a toxic job.
Traveling to wild places I felt called to
Standing in the silence of Yellowstone and watching the wolves.
Reconnecting with my body through belly dance.
Creating henna.
Finally picking up a paintbrush.
Each choice brought me a little closer to myself.
Looking back, I don't think healing was about forgetting my past.
It was about no longer letting it decide who I could become.
Maybe you've spent years surviving too.
Maybe you've been carrying stories that no longer belong to you.
And maybe this is the season where you get to write a new one.
I hope this article found you in the right time, that it inspired you. I create art today to help other women see their own magic and beauty. If a painting speaks to your deep self in ways you can't explai, it is meant for you.
Discover my Art collection inspired by the Wild Feminine, Sacred Feminine and Wild nature - tap here
Sending lots of love and light to you from south of France.
Naïma
Follow my journey and art instagram.com/naimanamaste
Stay Wild! Naïma
About the Artist
Naima Namaste is a French contemporary artist whose original paintings explore the profound relationship between women, nature and the wild. Inspired by symbolism, intuition and the beauty of the natural world, she creates soulful, collectible artworks that invite moments of reflection, connection and wonder. Every painting is created by hand in her atelier in the south of France.
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