**Series Announcement** — Exploring the Wild Woman Archetype Through The Iconic Book Women Who Run With The Wolves — Virtual & In Person
Back By Popular Demand, Excitement & The Coming of Winter
If you’ve been patiently waiting for this announcement and don’t need anymore details other than where you can let your fur grow out, and howls grow long…look no further.
While I hate late-stage capitalism as much as the next millennial, I also couldn’t help myself but making a screaming deal for first announcement of this series. I was too excited. Prices dramatically jump starting December 1, so if you’re craving good story and great community—don’t wait.
As I’ve grown and changed, this series has grown and changed with me. After a hiatus last year while I moved into a new space, I am so, so, so thrilled to be offering this again. I can feel LaLoba calling me. I hope she’s calling to you in, too. The bones of the program will probably look the same, but the sinew and muscle have shifted shape. If you’re curious about this year’s details, you can read the full description on my website below.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about but you can feel the hair on your neck rising in up attention…Please, read on, and step into the velvety, sweet darkness with me.
The Depths of Winter Are Curling Around Us — It’s Time To Gather In Story
Winter used to be my most dreaded time of the year.
Wrestling with fairly palpable seasonal depression, a tendency to isolate, and thrashing through the slow, stillness of a fallow world—it was no secret that I hated the winter. From December until late March, I was tearing my hair out waiting for the buds of spring to show themselves, and the snowmelt to dramatically and destructively gush down the banks of my favorite rivers.
I can honestly say, winter now is something I not only look forward to, but deeply crave.
Part of the shift towards loving the dark season has been about turning inward—alongside community—to explore the fecundity of what gets shifted around when the world outside lies down to sleep.
Sitting in stories of intergenerational wisdom and gift feels like pressing my hands into the dark soil of the earth and asking questions about what inside of me needs to be pulled up from the roots, composted in a pile, and then wait patiently for the ground to thaw enough to plant something new.
It is this in-between time, this liminal space, where we give ourselves permission to dream.
Now, one of my favorite ways to hold myself kindly through that stillness of winter is sitting in circles of people, sharing good, juicy stories.
The Women Who Run With the Wolves
The iconic book Women Who Run with the Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés is a work that spans over 60 years and contains curated stories from around the world, all exploring the wild woman archetype. The wisdom of these stories meet us boldly in every season of our lives.
Each time I revisit these stories—especially in a community setting—I get something entirely new out of each one. Every story in this book is like finding a tiny, unique key that helps unlock the exact door I didn’t even know was there. Clarissa Pinkola Estés’s masterful arrangement of these stories feels like a wise grandmother’s hand leading us deeper and deeper into our own sense of knowing.
In other words, each of the tales in this collection is about different types of initiatory journeys.
The stories symbolize major thresholds of our lives, and not only give us maps to navigate these thresholds, but also the permission to do that navigating as a whole person. Perfection is not the goal when engaging with the wild woman—wisdom is. Each chapter of this book guides us through refining what our own internal, wild energy wants to be, not what society asks us to make of it. Not what the previous chapter of our lives called for. Probably not the cookie-cutter dream of who we hope to be in the future.
The wild woman archetype helps us locate the wisdom of who we are right now, and to help us find the gift in the present moment version of ourselves.
In this series, we will spend a week unpacking each chapter of the book, and thoroughly unpack each story within the chapter.
An Experiential Bookclub
I like to call this an ‘experiential’ bookclub because we’re not just reading the text and analyzing if we agree with what Clarissa is pointing us towards.
In fact, in order to participate, you don’t need to read a single word of this book at all.1
I have designed this bookclub to meet the lives of real people. We don’t always have time to read. Or to show up consistently. Or to be in a good mood when we do show up. Or to even be in real clothes when we show up.2
Together each week, we will experience the live storytelling of the main story, tale, myth, or folklore from each chapter. I will help flesh out the main points of the chapter and unpack the rich archetypes and symbology of the story. There will be some art or some movement to embody the story itself, or wade into the main images. As a group, we get to share, witness, discuss, and delve into what it brings forth.
There will be tea and snacks each week.
I will provide all of the art supplies, journaling questions, and much of the enthusiastic and loving attention to what it might stir up in you.
There may even be a group chat—we’ll see. Things like that seem to vary from group-to-group.
The point is, we’ll get to journey through this vast, internal landscape together.
Accessibility
When I started sharing this series a handful of years ago, I wanted it to be as accessible as possible. As a queer human, at times a broke human, and at other times a human who lives in very remote areas of the country—I had a sense of grief for not finding work like this to be accessible in the past.
So let’s chat frankly about it.
Identity
While the title of the book is “Women Who Run With The Wolves,” I genuinely believe this content is relevant and powerful for everyone. Our time in the space will often center the experiences and stories of women, but anyone who genuinely is interested in exploring themes around the initiatory rites of the inner feminine is welcome to join. If you have any questions around this, please don’t hesitate to ask, reach out, or touch in with me. I welcome your conversation.
Similarly, I just like to name that Clarissa Pinkola Estés does not come from a homogenous background. This book was written by someone with a multicultural background3. My own personal introductions to her work were also not brought about engaging with singular identities or cultures. If you have questions, concerns, comments, curiosities, I’ll reiterate—reach out. These conversations are important.
Money
In a turbulent time in our world with unpredictable pricing, income consistency, stabilizing structures of government—I understand how difficult it might be to spend money on something that isn’t a traditionally tangible good like a doctor’s appointment, or groceries.
If reading about this series feels like a soothing balm, or awakens something exciting in a little cavern of your soul, but you look at the price of registration and feel that flicker go all the way out, please don’t let that be a barrier. Engaging with stories in a community setting, especially during the darkest months of the year, has authentically changed my quality of life, and I believe everyone who genuinely wants to access them should have access to them.
Remoteness
I grew up in one of the most remote places in the lower 48 of the United States. Most of my adult life has also been spent in the intimacy of these quieter pockets of the world, and I hope they continue to be. However, when we don’t live in more densely populated places, we can also sometimes miss the opportunity to engage in conversations and series like these that stray off the beaten path.
The hybrid model of this series allows for folks who live in small towns that surround Missoula, Montana to engage in the virtual series from the comfort of their own communities with the option of coming into town as frequently as they are able to connect with other folks in real time. This can be a powerful way to build more friendships in the larger geographical region, especially for folks who live further out of town.
Obviously, this also helps folks who don’t live anywhere near Missoula, Montana to virtually engage with this content and inspire this type of work in their own communities.
Last But Not Least, The Art
The final note of this series that feels special, and continues to make this work fresh for me year after year, are the art practices.
A major component of how I deliver this work is by providing opportunities for art, creativity, and movement practices as a way to ‘step into’ themes from these stories without always using our ‘logical minds’. I’m personally always surprised by what I end up creating, and I am very enthusiastic about celebrating what others create from this process as well.
All the art practices and supplies are provided.
While there is never any pressure to share, almost nothing delights me more than when people decide to anyway. This is an open invitation for anyone traveling along this journey to share their art with me. I would love to feature on my website, this substack, my social media—or keep it sweet and private between the two of us and be a loving witness around what’s moving through you as you move through this series for yourself.
Ready To Embark On A Winter-long Journey?
If you’re still here reading or listening to this, maybe this is a nudge in the direction of something calling to you. Even if it feels a bit ‘off-brand’ for what you normally might engage with, what might it take to stretch into something new?
The great news is, you don’t need to decide right now.
You can jump in the deep end and come to the full series, or just come to one of the stories that calls to your heart the most.
However, if you are curious about attending at least one session for the season—I’d highly recommend attending the first session on January 4 to get familiar with the space, make it through some introductions, and be thoughtful about what might support you through this winter.
For the full course description you can find some more succinct details below:
If you’re ready to sign up and join us on a winter, community journey feel free to head straight to registration.
Whether you show up ten times, or none at all—
I look forward to winter with you.
Thank you for being here.
Wildly,
Dagny Rose
Welcome to The Art of Rest. A place where we believe if we live our lives creatively—the art will take care of the rest.
This sub-section of The Art of Rest is where we will be regularly announcing and updating about our events, offerings, and opportunities to get involved with our work.
The Art of Rest is a multi-faceted hub of all things art and rest. While you can always head to our website, we will also be regularly posting here about more specific details of how to get involved. Whether it’s about our 1:1 guidance work, our upcoming workshops, and ways to engage in our art. “Events and Offerings” is going to regularly keep you up-to-date on what is going on here at The Art of Rest.
Admittedly, I’m obsessed with this book and read every single word, every single time I host this series. I have lost track of how many times I have read this book and I know many others who feel the same. I ALSO know many other folks who find the writing to be too dense and circuitous and prefer to just so up and listen. There no wrong way.
I personally have been known to facilitate a session or two shamelessly in my adult-Batman-onsie pajamas on the toughest weeks of winter
from her Mexican Mestiza and Native American heritage, combined with being adopted by Hungarian and Swabian (German) immigrant and refugee families
I just explored this book with a crew. Deep deep work. I spy a kim krans card