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
I believe in living a poetic life, an art full life. Everything we do from the way we raise our children to the way we welcome our friends is part of a large canvas we are creating.
All creative art is magic, is evocation of the unseen in forms persuasive, enlightening, familiar and surprising.
Martial arts, like any art, is an unrestricted athletic expression of an individual soul.
For me, playwriting is and has always been like making a chair. Your concerns are balance, form, timing, lights, space, music. If you don't have these essentials, you might as well be writing a theoretical essay, not a play.
The thing I love about music is that you can take things that are painful, deep things that hurt you, and you can turn them into something beautiful.
The genius of poetry must work out its own salvation in a man; it cannot be matured by law and precept, but by sensation and watchfulness in itself. That which is creative must create itself.