Words: “…Culture Is The Family Of The Family…”

Culture is an important dynamic in our communities and in life.  It can be a source of nourishment, protection and guidance.  It also can help us grow strong, loving and courageous.  When culture is based in fear, anger and revenge, it steal our most precious gifts to the future.  I love this quote about the power of culture for good and ill:

Culture is the family of the family

“…Culture is the family of the family.

If the family of the family has

various sicknesses, then all

families within that culture

will have to struggle with the

same malaises. There is a saying

cultura cura, culture cures.

If the culture is a healer,

the families learn how to heal;

they will struggle less,

be more reparative, far less wounding, far more graceful

and loving. In a culture where the predator rules,

all new life needing to be born, all old life needing to be

gone, is unable to move and the soul-lives of its citizenry

are frozen with both fear and spiritual famine.”

~~ Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With
the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the
Wild Woman Archetype, via Goodreads

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CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTES
(1945 – )

Mother
Poetess, author, editor
post-trauma recovery specialist,  psychoanalyst

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