Nine Hymns of Gratitude
-For we are pleased
By Dangerous Women and their Wise and
Wild Daughters by Pinkola Estes

For all the elders of the world, each and every kind ever created, those who have been carried gently by the waves, and those who have been half wrecked by any number of storms and squalls, those who have clung to wreckage long enought to make it halfway in, and thence to have gained land fall... For elders who in all their variegations, sorrows, and talents, now stand shy or certain, semi-dishelved or pulled together, but nonetheless hip-wide and proud... For rhe tribes of grand elder womwn... in their feather and pelts, all their leaves and skins and skirts, in all their las ropas guerrerans, warrior full dress, in their wings and shases and shawls with their ceremonial brooches, necklaces, and staffs of authority, in all their athletic, and tender pride, in all their beaks and tails and tulle and toile that flash and sashay, in all their sauthering ans sensuality, in all their unexpected and outrageous behaviors, inall their eccentricities and all their tribal paint and lace, in all their clan colors and insignias of power, with all their firece and gentle blood and shining eyes... for their supreme caring that decency, creative life, and care for the soul should not be vanish from the face of this earth.. for all this blessed beauty within them...
For them...
let us pray strength and healin
straight down into their courage bones forever.

For all the wily women who are learning when time is right to say their piece and not hold back--
or to hold back when silence will speak louder than words. For all the elders in the making, who are learning to be kind when it would be easy to be cruel... who can see they can cut when it is called for, cut sharp and clean... who are practicing telling whole truths with the wholeness of mercy. For all who transgress convention and instead clasp the hands of strangers, greeting them as though they raised them from pups and have known them forever... for all who are learning to rattle the bones, rock the boat--and the bed--as well as calm the tempests... for those who are keepers of the oil for the lamp, who hold the quietude of daily practice...for all those who keep the rituals, who remember how to make fire from flint and floss... for those whosay the old prayers, who reccall the the old symbols, the old stories, the forms, the words, the songs, the dances, and what the rites were once meant to set into place in the human soul... for those who bless others easily and often... for those elders who are not afraid--or who are afraid--who act effectively
regardless

For them...
may they live long
in strength and in health,
and in hugh unfurled spirit.

For the kitchen grandmothers from whose hands, hearts and minds, come many nourishments-- sweet, bittersweet, sharp, smooth, spicy nourishments that lastt in the soul long after first taste in the mind... for all the trailblazing, death defying, bold Omahs and Bubbes, and alle wild Nonnas and Zias who are living exemplars of what it means to be both embodied and ensouled for all the Traditionals ad for the Donnas saggias, quiet as rivers and life-giving to those who straggle or escape to their shores. For all the old ones who calm omever they touch in whatever condition they find them... for those who may at least once, travel far down to reach the sorely wounded whom others do not see, or will not touch... for those who dareto give shelter to angels who arrive unannounced... for the old ones who show up splattered inthe paint or festooned in racial ideas, or just simply show up for good reason when no one else dares...
For them...
may they ever be bold;
may their souls be protected by many other souls,
as they carry hard won resource
into a needful world.

For all the farseeing Tias and all those who stand as guardian grandmothers to any soul in need... for those who take on daughters, and sons, bloodline or not, and as easily and compatibly as flowers take on honey bees.. for the Khaleh, "the endeared ones" meaning any older woman who is loved by the younger... (five seconds younger or a thousand years older, matters not). For all the elders who are weaving a vivid life, filling the weft with at least onethread od daring, and two threads of wildness, and three threads of wisdom... for those las ancianas, ancient ones, who, out loud, make inspired expanisions, swervings, backtrackings, forgivings,unravelings and re-mendings in their lives and relationships... so that less experienced souls can see and learn to do likewise, and without shame. For all the root womwen; the Litas in black, all the elder church ladies in their fabulous crowns, all those in henna and saris used to veil the head in presence of elders and holiness,, those who wear the mantilla and carry the rosary,all those in saffron and mariin robings, all those who wear the dharma as their central raiment for all occasions
I will finish this later. thanks, vl

Continued on with Nine Hymns:

for those who wear the age-old hijab and those who pull the sacred fringed tallis over their heads to be once again in the tent of the ancient Sarai; for those who wear the beaded yarmulkes, and for those who wear the rainbow and star showers on their heads and the fashion their hair to represent squaush blossoms... for all those on sacred hills and at waterfalls, in forests and in temples made of earth and mud.... all those in "the church beneath the church"... and all the elders still able to visit the tiny red cathedral of the heart... for all these root women who petition for peace and love and understanding, and who thank, and praise so hard that white flowers pracitically burst open over their heads as they pray...

For them may they continue ever to show us
how to love this difficult and blessed world
and all the beings in it...
in ways that matter most to the Soul.

For all the smart and brave Las sympaticas, the Gran meres and the Nig Manas and Tantes especiales... for all the hearty Bon Manas and humble Mujeres Grandes who married Love itself, and gave birth to five unruly children named Peace, Hope, Far-seeing, Interference, and Won't be tamed... for those honored ones who poured 20, 30, 40, and 50, 60, 70, and 80 years ago, who poured a river of advices, admotions, who tucked in folded treasure maps for us to take into the wilderness... for those who challenged us and prodded and noodged and pushed... the very actions that grew us toward the exact pathways so we could grow more of our own souls... for their kind touches, their tender looks, their odd ways that encourage us to innovate and be as brave as they... for their whispering to us, Do not be afarid, I am with you, do not lose heart, I am right here; keep going, shine now, duck now, and no, that way not so good, and yes, this way, this way... for their winking jokes and sultry tastes; their outrageous behaviors and endearing proprieties, for their drawing the line, stepping up to thr line, and erasing the lines that bind to hard, tightening the lines that hold too loosely. For those grand women, Les dames, some venerably mature in years, some old in soul time, but certainly wise, who act as True North for others
--just for being..


For them
may they ever be kept safe, fed from many sources,
be shown the kinds of love and gratitudes
that keep their souls flourishing above ground
for all to see.

And for all the dear daughters... for those who are learning to be whole and wise again-- or whole and wise for the first time ever...
Thus, for all the grand older women who sense they cannot exist without the young to meditate with, to teach, to learn from, to find humor in and potential for, to lean toward, to pour into... and thus, for all the younger woman who sense they would be left to lives less well lived without the essence of an quixotic and a bit wiser woman to meditate with, to teach, to learn from, to find humor in the potential for, to lean toward, to pour into. Thereby, for all the young, mid-aged and elder daughters who will yet come to the grandmother's fires for the first time, for the thousandth time, or for the last time... for all the granddaughters and the old grandwomen who will keep the fires of this tandem relationship lit through letters and books, teachings and gatherings, sayins and yoo hoos, travels with capes and feathers in their hats, and with simple next-doorness... to all the beautiful women, young and old and mid stream, who seek each other, who are realizing they are El refugio, a true refuge for each other so that the less experienced one and the more experienced one can ever find home... home: that soul place inhabited more enduringly as a woman gathers her wisdom years about her... home: any place where there is a need for, uplifting of... the fiery filament of
Love...
For them...
for all their pilgrim hearts....
may they ever find each other and never pass each other by,
but stay near and strengthen each other,
and thereby the perimeters and protals of the World Soul
they have been given to guard
will remain open...

For all the intelligent, unknowing, wandering, and know-it-all daughters whom we prize so much...
for the daughters who are on the straight-away or who proceed in fits and starts... for those who are learning to weep again or for the first time... for those who are learning to cackle... for all those, no matter if they are whole, or healed or not, no matter whichever class, clan, ocean or star... for all the daughters who were bequeathed a bounty of love by beloveds whi have passed, yet who still visit nonetheless... for all the daughters who once overheard a sage's wisdom meant for another's ears, but these 'right words at the right time' caused a spark that lit her world ever after... for all the daughters who heard wisdom and did not understand it, but saved it away for the day they would understand... for the daughters who have rowed alone and whose chosen elders are by necessity, found in treasured books, in the guidling images from cinemia, painting, sculpure, music and the dance... for the daughters who absorb the good sense and unconquerable attitudes carried by evanescent and craggy spieits of the wisdom who appear in night dreams... for the daughters who are learning to listen to La Nuestra Senora, the quintessential old wise woman who visits often and in many ways, for the daughters who carry that kind and uncanny sense of clear seeing, intuitive hearing, sensing and enacting... for the daughters who know that this wisdom source is like a fairy-tale pot of porridge that magically never goes empty no matter how much is poured out...
For them
bless all their beauties, sorrows, and seekings;
may they ever be blessed for remembering that questions
remain unanswered
until both ways of seeing are consulted: linear and inner

And for all the daughters and the elders who support what is good, and who seperate from the blind obedience to any over-culture that rewards flattered form only and decries creative thought... for all the daughters and elders who are becoming ever more astute climbers of mystical mountains, and sojourners over rough roads... for those who speak ever more keenly with soul, and for soul, as well as for creatures, waters, lands and skies... for thosewo keep even deeper cauldons, who are the magnifying isinglass for the lighthouse beacon, who rise up as as solid ground where there was once none... for those who are on fire with their teaching and learning, for those who are merely resting before they rise up with gusto again... for those night flowers whose fragrances affect deeply and linger though the blooms are hidden and never seen... for all the daughters and elders who keep their hands not only on the cradle, but also on the sterring wheel of the world within their reach... for those who abandoned something essential and life-giving and turned back to reteive it... for those who ruined something and apologized with humility for loves sake... for those who left something undone, forgot, didn't comphrend the importance of it--but eventually returned, rebuilt,softened, gave "the blessing" to the best of their ability... to all the daughters and the elders who took the role of the blameworthy and gave blood and bone to repair rending caused by careless, cruel others... for the daughters and the elders who are ever more interested in being loving
than ever being 'right'

For them...
May they realize how precious their lives are,
how despite any shortcomings, they are the exact bulwarks,
touchstones, ground notes, exemplars needed here and now.

For all the daughters and elders who are living proof that the soul, despite cultural denigrations to the contrary, despite crashes and burns... that the soul still comes back to life, still lives, and vibrantly so... for all daughters and elders, who have for certain, or are newly glimering, that despite all one's foibles, despite all ego natterings to the contrary, that they were born with the clarified wisdom in their bodies and their souls, and that this is their golden inheritance and their golden fuse, both. For all the daughters and elders who are creating the credentials that matter most; proof that a woman is like a great tree who, by its own ability to move instead of remaining unmoved, can survive the strongest storms and perils, and still be standing in the winds; still finding her way back to swaying, still carrying on the dance. For all the daughters who are themselves in training, whether they have just begun or are well on their ways to becoming"ordinarily majestic" which means as wise ans wild ans as dangerous as the visionary soul within them.
For them...
for all of us,
Mother, Father,
For all our young and all our elders alike...
May we all
deepen and flourish,
ever creating from the ashes,
protecting every art, idea and hope
that we have pledged will not be allowed to perish
from the face of this earth while we are here.
For all these, may we live strong,
and love one another,
forever and ever.
Amen

Khaleh for Iranian women means a special warm familial closeness or psychic kinship with another soul.

When I read this the first time I felt such a strong Uniting and enfoldment of understanding within myself. I wanted to share this with other Women for their own unique undestanding. vl

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Vonda,

It is much to grasp and so we read it again and again as if the whispers were unraveling some part of the old story in our bones.
Thank you Vonda