ABSTRACT
As Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes (1992), “we as woman must look to the killing thing that has gained hold of us, see the result of its grisly work, register it all consciously, and retain it in consciousness, and then act” (p. 58). The thing that has gained hold of us, of our female energy, is what Naomi Wolf (1991) names “the beauty myth.” The tracks of it gouges, picks, marks, hides and embeds itself upon the flesh of our souls— the spirits of our bodies. It is an act of denigration of our fecund forms, our bushy eyebrows, flat-wide feet, nurturing flesh, musky smells, wise eyes, belly-deep voices and wide hip bones. We as women are to be captured in an image, forced into a relationship between that which isn't yet, and that which can never be. It is a place of nowhere and a state of nobeing. How are we to find that slip of light revealing the forbidden door of knowing, of liberation? Where do we begin? We begin where all stories begin.
