Weird Sisters, Women Who Run With The Wolves, and Halloween Remembered

"The Weird Sisters" self portrait age 22 by Aleada Siragusa

Happy Halloween, with the change of seasons, there is magic in the air, you can smell it in the cool breeze beckoning you to walk outside to breathe deep and reflect upon the stars.

Above is a drawing I did for one of the first classes I took in college when I entered the BFA program at The University of Akron. The Weird Sisters are from Shakespeare's Macbeth.

As a child my favorite books were the classic Fairy Tales; Anderson and Grimm, I was just that weird little girl who was a witch almost every year for the season and I am one who still loves and feels connected to spirit in nature. 

I find Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D. a wonderful analysis of the fairy tales, making them an empowering tool for the woman of today. I enjoyed it so much and to learn her lessons at a deeper level I took notes and I illustrated the first few chapters. Here are most of these illustrations:

La Que Sabe; The One Who Knows, Self Portrait

I have the rest of the illustrations in Sequence: I hope these little sketches motivate you to read the book, please let me know if you do and tell my your impressions.

A Miracle Story: We sing the Creation Hymn, sing the song to call up the Wild Soul

Today the old one inside me is collecting bones, she is my soul self, builder of the soul home- My muse is my toy poodle Basil, he has an overbite which gives him a permanent smile.

It's always time for the Wild Woman To Emerge -
She who dares to dance fully conscious we live forever.

She thunders after injustice. Seer, deep listener, loyal heart, patroness to artists.

When El Duende is present one senses more is present, used to describe the ability to "think" in poetic images.

La Que Sabe, The One Who Knows- Live what we perceive- anyplace where she breathes upon us changing us. Our work is to show we have been breathed upon- to share it, to give it out, sing it out, to
live it out-

dance with life, dance with death, dance into life again

Find the two million year old woman, she sings the creation hymn over the bones,

A failed satanic magician desires power over others.
The tiny key opens the door to where all the destruction lies.

Of course in the last picture the failed magician is Charles Manson, an apt image for Blue Beard and the compromise a woman makes to a social structure that undervalues her.

It is said that Halloween is the time when the veil between the worlds is thinnest, when spirits roam the earth and magic is afoot.
The transition between summer and winter is a special time when our thoughts turn to the impermanence of life. It's a good time to find comfort in the old stories of our ancestors, stories that explained a world filled with wonder. Time to learn the deeper meanings of these stories which have the ability to transform our lives with their depth and wisdom. So curl up in the evening this fall to a great book: Women Who Run With The Wolves, take the journey.