Deep within the mythic imagination of the Desert Southwest, La Loba—Wolf Woman—gathers the buried forgotten bones of Wolf, singing them back to life again. Today, a 700-mile steel U.S. Mexico border wall cuts through this ancient landscape, disrupting wildlife movement and human migration, inviting us to reflect on whether borders protect or harm, stirring deeper questions about security, sovereignty, and national identity. Yet the wall is only one expression of a deeper condition: a world increasingly shaped by fracture, division, and polarization—like a body of bones scattered beyond recognition, awaiting the one who might learn to see their relation again. What might La Loba offer us today if her voice were invited into this contemporary conversation? When the world stands at a threshold, the questions living inside our oldest stories return to meet us —offering what they have always carried, if we are ready to listen.
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Photo Credit: Thirdman on Pexels
The Trickster's Timeless Tango: Puss in Boots and the Endless Dance of Tradition and Change
Should we preserve ancient stories exactly as they were first told, or do we have the right to reimagine them for our own time? From the centuries-old folktale of a mischievous cat to the swashbuckling charm of Universal Studios’ recent animated Puss in Boots, this beloved feline trickster slips nimbly between worlds and eras into our modern day hearts. Reflecting on the reinvention of Puss in Boots feels timely and meaningful. His story offers a vivid example of how a classic folktale can be reshaped to capture the imagination of new audiences. What if tradition and change are not in a battle, but are dancing a flirtatious two-pawed tango—an intimate, ever-shifting eternal dance of lead and follow, keeping stories vibrantly alive.
Read MoreCarving Memory, Gathering Bones, Singing Her
La Huesera, the ancient folktale of the mythical Bone Woman of the desert southwest, wanders the arroyos gathering scattered bones of wolves, singing over them until they reassemble and return to life. Bone Woman’s song is sung the world over, it is the mythic medicine we can heal from if we dare to gather what’s been forgotten and scattered together into the same circle of honoring. This is Old Story Medicine, the elixir She offers from her sacred cauldron when the world seems starved of connection, and in need of healing and repair.
Read MoreThe Sky Goddess: Generously Weaving Together Worlds
Bridging continents and cultures, the Eswatini folktale of Cloud Princess from Africa and the Haudenosaunee folktale of Sky Woman from North America, offer us their shared and relevant wisdom enriching, deepening and expanding our understanding of the meaning of “generosity” in unexpected ways. We learn generosity is the vital and sacred choice that can weave us back into relationship with each other, draw us into closer kinship with the wild, and open ourselves up to belonging to a larger whole.
Read MoreBoreal Bears and Feral Females: Twin Bear Folktales from East and West
From Norway to Ainu lands, two distant stories echo the same ancient pulse: love lost, love sought, and a woman who dares the threshold between the world of humans and the world of Bear. In her quest she does not merely save another, but awakens to the power that has always lived within her. Giving voice to how these stories mirror each other deepens our sense of interconnected history, and rekindles a feeling of belonging to a shared storied boreal landscape, weaving together people, bears, ancestry, stories and hearts. . .
Read MoreAntler Bone Necklace: The Mythic Cartography of Kinship Redrawing Borders of the North
Reindeer folktales can be found in Finland, Russia, Greenland and Canada, and the United States (specifically Alaska) circling the arctic like a wide necklace made of woven strands of interconnected stories and antler bones that tell of a time when humans and reindeer lived together as one family. These folktales transport us back to an ancient magical world where humans lived in fidelity to the migration of reindeer rather than confined to national or political borderlines encouraging us to rethink people, place and belonging.
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Photo Credit: Thomas Bonometti on Unsplash.
Where the She-Wolf Howls: Awakening the scattered fragments of our wild humanity back into belonging
There is an ancient folktale from the desert Southwest about “a woman who was a wolf who was a woman” also known as “Loba Girl” or Wolf Woman who climbs the canyons, and sifts through the arroyos or dry riverbeds, gathering wolf bones over which she sings, until they spring back to life and run off laughing with the voice of a woman. Inspired by Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ retelling of this story in her book Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype, this folktale invites us to call back to life those buried and discarded parts of ourselves, so that we can find our true voice again.
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