Skeleton
Woman
“Myths
are public dreams, dreams are private myths...Myths are clues to the
spiritual potentialities of human life.” Joseph Campbell
Yesterday
in the spirituality group, we read and discussed the myth of Skeleton
Woman. It is a story that comes out of Eskimo or Inuit culture about
a fisherman who snags his hook on a skeleton that has been long
buried beneath the waves. Thinking it is a big fish he reels it in,
only to discover that it is a hideous, crustacean infested skeleton
which scares him almost to death. His response is to run for his
life, first in his boat and then on land with Skeleton Woman bumping
along behind him. The faster he runs, the quicker she catches up,
until finally, he dives into his ice house and flings himself on his
furs, panting in panic. When he dares to light a lamp, there is her
tangled pile of bones on the floor of his house. Long story short,
the fisherman gives in to his loneliness and carefully arranges the
bones in their correct order, wraps them in fur and falls asleep,
exhausted. While he is sleeping, Skeleton Woman borrows his beating
heart and uses its rhythm to cause flesh to form on her bones, and a
heart to beat in her chest and when the fisherman awakes, a real
woman is there sleeping in his covers beside him. (If you'd like to
read the full story of Skeleton Woman, you'll find it in Women Who
Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes)
We
talked about the way that we all have a Skeleton Women in our lives; ugly things that haunt our days, that we run from until we
can't run any more. Only you know what your skeletons are. But at
some point, we must turn and face the truth of them. What we often
find is that this thing we've been fleeing is really not so bad, only
misunderstood, and suffering from rejection. If we are able to face
her, respect her, even embrace her, we will go a long way toward
integrating her strengths into our own character. Our skeletons are,
after all, our strong foundation.
All
family skeletons, though long buried, have a way of showing up when
we least expect them. It's almost as though they offer an opportunity for each generation to understand and heal them. The place where they
are most likely to make an appearance is in our love relationships.
Like it or not, we learn relationship from our original role
models—our parents. Some of us attempt to flee by choosing a mate
whom we think is the absolute opposite of Mother or Father, only to
find the family specter showing its bony head right in the middle of
our illusion. It's uncanny, really. The truth is we can't outrun
Skeleton Woman. We must find a way to accept and love her if we want
her to transform into a firm foundation for relating to our self and
others.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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