The Late Bloomer: Myths and Stories of the Wise Woman Archetype

What makes talent bloom? Ask what makes a tree blossom. They are the same.
It is not unfathomable. It only takes concentration. Concentration of energies is what makes a tree flower. Not bigger, not faster, not taking up more space. Rather … less space. Density … Pressure in hard places. Often, in the dark. Relentlessly. Freely. For as long as it takes.
Hold faith, a gestation can go long and for good reason, and nothing much shows above ground … But then, one day … —Clarissa Pinkola Estés, PhD

Return once again to the fireside with Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés for the next presentation of her masterwork on the Dangerous Old Woman. This six-session event shares more original stories, poems, and psychological commentary exploring the cycles of “burgeoning, blooming New Life.” With an audience Q&A and a blessing prayer following each talk, The Late Bloomer speaks to all of us who sense within “great talent untapped completely, touchingly wondrous yet wounded or held back by fate in some way,” inspiring us to break through into worldly life using the creative fire of interior life … to burst into bloom time and again.

Session One
La Artesaña: Bursting into Bloom “Late” … Nothing of Your Life Has Been Wasted: For Everything There Truly Is a Season

Program highlights:

Aunt Edna on How to Misbehave
The Tree Who Waited A Long Time: The Perseverance Tree
La Artesaña, The Sacred Artisan
Backwoods High Tea: How Going Wrong Can Be A Horrible Blessing
Vedic Story Of Ushas Who Does Not Brook Regret, Rather Lights Fires
It Is Never “Too Late”
“The Emperor’s New Clothes”
Thieves of the Psyche: Seven Lies That Block Reinvention And Creativity

A question-and-answer session with audience members follows Dr. Estés teachings, and we conclude with the blessing prayer, “The Maker of Pencils.”

Session Two
El Duende and The La Que Sabe, “The Old One Who Knows”: On the Necessity of Reinventing Oneself in Order to Bloom Again. And Again. And Ever.

Program highlights:

The Tree of Pages
Archetypal Personification: El Duende, The Inspiratrice; The Original
The Family Shoe Shiner
La Que Sabe Creates: The Old Woman And Her Red Boots
On the Necessity of Reinventing The self in The Shapes of The Self
What The Poet Lorca Said One Needed To Live in El Duende
“How To Animate The Life-Force”

A question-and-answer session with audience members follows Dr. Estés’ teachings, and we conclude with the blessing prayer, “La Danzanta—An Old Woman’s Rules for Ever-Renewing Creative Jing.”

Session Three
The Naysayer: “The Terrible-Horrible Brobindas-Nag”: Saying No To Hungry Ghosts Who Steal the Flowering of New Life

Program highlights:

The Naysayer; The Terrible-Horrible Brobindas-Nag
Uncle Bob-Bushka and his Ancient Advice for Modern Fishermen and Fisherwomen
“The Fisherman’s Wife”
Swallowed by Cerberus: Fooled Into the Costly Myth of “Having It all”
Possession by the Overculture: Stockholm Syndrome and the Creative Force
“The Woman Who Was Eaten by Her Relatives”

A question-and-answer session with audience members follows Dr. Estés’ teachings, and we conclude with the blessing prayer, “As a Woman Learns to Be Queen of Herself.”

Session Four
La Grúa, The Shapeholder: Delaying Blooming: The Truth about Seeking Conformity But Losing Oneself. The Counter-Ability Not to Lose One’s True Shape

Program highlights:

The Taproot Knows the Way Through Hardest Ground
La Grúa, The Shapeholder, The Animating Life Force
What Can Be Made From Fallen Groundwood
The Innkeeper and Prokrustes’ Bed
“The Anima Woman” Who Morphs into Anything Others Want
“Four Degrees of the Lost Anima Woman”: How to Disentangle

A question-and-answer session with audience members follows Dr. Estés’ teachings, and we conclude with the blessing prayer, “Words for Walking Back to the Strong House.”

Session Five
Old Marszana, The Transformative Spirit Clears the Way to Blooming with New Life: The Old Frozen One Who Miraculously Creates New Life From What Seemed Dead and Bitter, But Rather Has Only Been Sleeping

Program highlights:

“Bitter River”—on divesting of bitterness
The Yellow Jack Pines and the Fire of Necessity
Swabian Marszana, Old Woman Winter and Old Women Spring in Village Ritual
Attar of Roses; The Mercurochrome Sisters
The Rose Tree Warrior, and Redemption from Vengeance and Envy
On Cleansing the Field for New Life to Take Hold

A question-and-answer session with audience members follows Dr. Estés’ teachings, and we conclude with the blessing prayer, “The Child in the Ice.”

Session Six
Chac ma Blooming in the Midst of Anywhere/Everywhere, Including Ruins: The Visionary Stranger Who Steps Out from the Side of the Road to Cut Doorways to New Life in Seeming Blank Stone Walls

Program highlights:

The Tree of Heaven
The Friend Who Steps Out from the Side of the Road
Detained during Civil War in Guatemala
“The Dream of Chac Ma”
“The Dress”
“The Tin-Curler Lady”
The Elder’s Aerial View: Becoming one-of-a-kind, more, in addition to, and/or at long last

A question-and-answer session with audience members follows Dr. Estés’ teachings, and we conclude with the blessing prayer, “Your Soul, the Ancient Incandescent Force, Ever Rowing You Forward.”

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