Asking the proper question is the central action of transformation- in fairy tales, in analysis, and in individuation. The key question causes germination of consciousness. The properly shaped question always emanates from an essential curiosity about what stands behind. Questions are the keys that cause the secret doors of the psyche to swing open.
There's a reason poets often say, 'Poetry saved my life,' for often the blank page is the only one listening to the soul's suffering, the only one registering the story completely, the only one receiving all softly and without condemnation.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the therapeutic nature of poetry, suggesting it offers solace and understanding to those in pain.
In this quote, Clarissa Pinkola Estes highlights the profound connection between poetry and personal suffering. She suggests that when individuals express their deepest emotions through poetry, they find a safe space where their struggles are acknowledged and validated. The blank page becomes a confidant that accepts their emotions without judgment, providing comfort and healing as they articulate their experiences creatively.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about mental health, one might say, 'As Clarissa Pinkola Estes noted, poetry saved my life during tough times.'
More from Clarissa Pinkola Estes
All quotes →Tears are a river that takes you somewhere…Tears lift your boat off the rocks, off dry ground, carrying it downriver to someplace better.
Though fairy tales end after ten pages, our lives do not. We are multi-volume sets. In our lives, even though one episode amounts to a crash and burn, there is always another episode awaiting us and then another. There are always more opportunities to get it right, to fashion our lives in the ways we deserve to have them. Don't waste your time hating a failure. Failure is a greater teacher than success.
Stories are medicine. They have such power; they do not require that we do, be, act anything - we need only listen.
To love means to embrace and at the same time to withstand many endings, and many many beginnings- all in the same relationship.
That is what the intuition is for: it is the direct messenger of the soul.
Similar quotes
Art, like Nature, has her monsters, things of bestial shape and with hideous voices.
The trouble with a series as it gets older is it can feel like a tradition, and tradition is the enemy of suspense, and it's the enemy of comedy. It's the enemy of everything, really. So you have to shake it up.
Then the voices of the Ainur, like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with words, began to fashipn the theme of Iluvatar to a great music; and a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of Iluvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void.
I've never made any picture, good or bad, without paying for it in emotional turmoil.
You like it, that's all, whether it's a landscape or abstract. You like it. It hits you. You don't have to read it. The work of art-sculpture or painting-forces your eye.
I love to see lack of clarity in a performance as well as clarity, as well as trust, as well as the kinds of things that human beings go through. I love to see spontaneity and 'inevitability.' How it gets there is going to shock the hell out of me, but it will get there somehow.