Through the lens of Pinkola Estés and the Sufi Masters—those wild mystics who first traced what’s known today as the Enneagram’s wisdom— one which is a blueprint for freedom. My freedom came as a descent into darkness. A quest to enter the Crone’s lair, to unearth what remained buried to release the water that was stagnating, and breathe air into a fire left smouldering in embers. Estés tells stories of women who drum the earth awake, who chant to missing starlit bones in the desert’s hush—who call out to the longing to awaken our freedom, our true nature, it was a call I couldn’t have unheard.
I was the Handless Maiden in Pinkol’as story, hands severed, power bleeding outward, stumbling blindly through a corporate life I didn’t know to re-claim. Lost in the shadowlands of the enneagram type 5 seeking ‘competence,’ sinking under the weight of ‘should’ or ‘should not’—a woman carved almost hollow by the need to know, to be ‘someone, to belong’. Creativity flickered, a ghost at my edges, while a crack so seemingly wide in my soul’s walls, appeared raw and glaring, it felt as though everyone else around me could set it, I sought to hide my soul away in shame. Yet my bones, the ones in the desert —a ‘howling’, uncover ‘me’ from being buried.
The Sufi dervishes spun their truth long ago, ecstatic swirls weaving a map—the Enneagram, a living design. Nine points flared from its origin, and elements of Earth, Fire, Water, and air threaded together what is now called the ‘personality’. It was as if Ichazo and Naranjo had pressed it into my palms, becoming part of a greater weave to stitch me whole. Leading me back to Estés, the story of the La Loba, to the Crone in the twilight desert who gathers skeletons—wolves, dreams, splintered selves—and breathes them alive with song.
That tapestry and song from my bones pierced me and the Type 5 with a 4-wing personality—my thread unravelled, the ‘whole truth’ of omnipresence and origin revealing itself through movement, discovery and inquiry. It echoed the Maiden’s loss, La Loba’s promise—a song to mend my fears, to trace paths I was born to heal. She growled into the darkness, ‘Play, unearth your song,’ and handed me a drum. I beat it, sang it —off-key, wild, messy—the story of a soul’s cry spilling free against the dark.
She drove me across continents, unravelling me in the dirt and smoke. Seating me with Shamans who sang over crackling fires, and danced to the music of the ancestors, calling forth my healing in torrents and whispers. She bought me to sit with weavers threading cotton and wool telling ancient tales in pictures. She asked me to feel the earth’s pulse, sense the fire’s shift, and hear the wind and water’s voice, flowing through the cosmic hum. Listen she howled, let all these ancient rhythms stitch you whole. The Sufi circle in all of this, spun me loose, and I wailed—a cracked, feral tune—finally seeing the light no shadow could bury.
There, I found my bones—the losses I’d entombed, the creativity I’d banished, the beat I’d choked silent by the need to know, the intellect, the roles all ghosted by me in the dust. Music, movement, story—The Wild Woman’s Tongue—I realised wove herself through me, as she does in us all. The Crone showed me there’s ink upon my hands, calling to me to ‘Write it. Listen to it, move from within it, draw it, become it.’ This was my discovery: she lives in every soul, the thread of freedom just waiting to sing.
It seems to me before the world was cornered and caged by clocks, stifled by concrete and structure, the young woman ran barefoot at dusk all filled with joy and laughter. Singing her song, dancing in the dust, her gift to me is the chant humming on my lips, water’s scent weaving through the air, the forest pulsing in my bones, fire’s dancing alive, and whispers from my heart where true words bloom. Creativity isn’t some pastime—it’s the Crone of the cosmos threading us back into trust, to all that is, a unity reclaimed.
Estés lights the fierce in us—the Crone, La Loba, collector of lost things, singer of soulful howls. She’s the ink on my skin, the drum’s strong beat, water’s sigh, wind’s rush, fire’s crackle—bringing my words rising raw from the chest. The Sufi Masters knew her too, their whirling a hymn to the divine weave. She thrust life into my hands, movement into my feet: she laughed out loud crying ‘Write, move, sing, be.’ This is my dance, my story—unearthed creativity, ancient echoes, and the wild soul’s freedom.
The gift from this unravelling is what forged ‘ Nacido Libre ’, Born Free—it has become the pen, the breath, a creative program, a calling to women sparked by this journey, by Estés’ Women Who Run with the Wolves , forged in the dervishes’ swirl and time spent before in spiritual inquiry’s plunge—all braiding ancient wisdom into my own freedom’s unfolding dance. It cradles this program—curated music, using tones humming the like stars, Qigong’s sway, and vibrational medicine’s beat. Where is your creative soul calling from, is it the Type 1 from the earth, The 4 from the water….. Let us call to each other and sing ourselves back together… Photo Credit: Miguel Bruna
