Women Who Run with the Wolves
Seventh Chapter: The Butterfly Maiden
Sunday, November 23, 2025 11:30 AM MST
In this session, our book club enters one of the most luminous chapters in Women Who Run with the Wolves: “Joyous Body: The Wild Flesh,” where Dr. Estés offers the story of the Butterfly Maiden — a radiant embodiment of vitality, instinct, sensuality, and the deep joy of inhabiting a living body. The Butterfly Maiden is the archetype who dances life back into the world. She reminds us that our bodies are not burdens or projects, but instruments of transformation, capable of renewal, pleasure, intuition, and sacred rhythms. Through her, we explore how women can reclaim the right to feel alive in their own skin.
Reflection Questions
The Story of The Butterfly Maiden
1. In what ways have you experienced your body as something to be managed, judged, or performed rather than inhabited?
2. What parts of your body have felt most shaped by the collective gaze rather than your own inner knowing?
3. How does it feel to consider your body as a vessel for soul and instinct, rather than a reflection of external expectations?
4. What does somatic aliveness mean to you in your lived experience, not as a concept, but as a felt sense?
5. When in your life have you felt most at home in your body?
6. Do you associate joy with permission, safety, rebellion, or vulnerability?
7. How does it shift your understanding of your body to see these phases as natural processes of transformation rather than problems to fix?
8. What messages about the body did you inherit, from family, culture, religion, or media?
9. Can you identify places where shame may be collective rather than personal?
10. What forms of movement feel instinctive and nourishing to you, not performative or obligatory?
11. What would it mean to let movement be an expression of inner truth rather than external discipline?
12. Where do you feel most disconnected from your instinctive body, and where do you feel most aligned?
13. After reflecting on this chapter, what is one small way you could honor your body as a living companion rather than an object?
14. What does your body need more of right now: rest, movement, warmth, expression, stillness, or permission?
15. What would it mean to trust your body as part of your inner wisdom?