La Loba: My Bone Mother
And so,
You can dent the soul and bend it. You can hurt it and scar it. You can leave the marks of illness upon it, and the scotch marks of fear. But it does not die, for it is protected by ‘La Loba’ in the underworld. She is both the finder and incubator of bones…
…within us is the old one who collects bones. Within us there are the soul-bones of this wild self. Within us is the potential to be fleshed out again as the creature we once were. Within us are the bones to change ourselves and our world. Within us is the breath and our truths and longings – together they are the song, the creation hymn we have been yearning to sing…
My connection to bones comes from collecting and cleansing them, using them in rituals alongside tarot cards—they hold ancestral power, crucial to my practice. La Loba's story inspired me to reshape my spirituality and embrace my true self. Estés's "Women Who Run with the Wolves" captivated me nearly a decade ago, but I wasn't ready for it. Now, I revisit it, marking insights for my future, believing we receive what we need in due course.
Art | "La Loba- Bone Whisperer" — Marissa Quinn
The story of La Loba intrigued me deeply, so much so that it evolved into my primary framework for furthering my journey as a dedicated magical practitioner. This was the impetus that propelled me to a stage of personal development where I finally felt empowered to begin restructuring my spirituality and nurturing my soul in ways that I had never truly explored before. I was finally on the path to becoming me! She poignantly writes, “[The story] promises that, if we will sing the song, we can call up the psychic remains of the wild soul and sing her into a vital shape again.” This powerful idea compels us to nurture and uncover the layers of our true selves.
Nearly ten years ago, I read Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. At that time, I found myself utterly transfixed by the immense power of the book and its profound leverage on my current life, yet I realized I was not quite ready to fully embrace its teachings.
If you have ever read something that resonates with you deeply but still feels slightly out of reach, your intuition may be signaling, “place it on the bookshelf and return when you are truly ready.” Fast forward to today, and all these years later, I am once again picking up this transformative book, now absorbing every detail, and cluttering its edges with marginalia and thoughtfully placed post-it notes. I firmly believe that meaningful things come to us precisely when we need them, and this remarkable book, along with my two decades of magical practice, will truly inform the years that lie ahead of me.