"She is called in Hungarian O Erdoben, She of the Woods, and Roszomak, the Wolverine. In Navajo, she is Na'ashe ii Asdzaa, The Spider Woman, who weaves the fate of humans and animals and plants and rocks. In Guatemala, among many other names, she is Humana del Niebla, the Mist Being, the woman who has lived forever. In Japanese, she is Amaterasu Omikami, The Numina, who brings all light, all consciousness. In Tibet she is called Dakini, the dancing force who produces clear-seeing among all women. And it goes on. She goes on."

"She canalizes through women. If they are suppressed, she struggles upward. If women are free, she is free. Fortunately, no matter how many times she is pushed down, she bounds up again. No matter how many times she is forbidden, quelled, cut back, diluted, tortured, touted as unsafe, dangerous, mad, and other derogations, she emanates upward in women, so that even the most quiet, most restrained woman keeps a secret place for her. Even the most repressed woman has a secret life, with secret thoughts and secret feelings that are lush and wild, that is, natural. Even the most captured woman guards the place of her wildish self, for she knows instinctively that someday there will be a loophole, an aperture, a chance, and she will high tale it to escape."

-Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves.