I remember seeing this book in my mother’s bookshelf when I was a child. It caught my attention by its mysterious title, but I knew, judging by the cover, that it was a reading for grown-ups.

More than 20 years later, I was looking for some reading to reconnect with myself. “Women Who Run With the Wolves” was already a classic. I decided to give it a try. I bought the e-book and extended the reading of its many stories for two years.

The book is dense and divided into 15 tales of ancient traditions. The author, Clarissa, dissects every piece of those stories, as someone who disassembles a puzzle. She takes every piece and says: do you see this old lady? It represents an old and wise woman we all have inside of us.

One of my favourite tales is a Russian one about Vasalisa, the wise doll given to a girl by her dying mother. As Clarissa explains, a doll in a tale is never just a doll, and the dying mother is not a dying mother, but something inside us we need to let go. And yes, it is mostly a book for women, but I don’t see why men can’t enjoy it.

Clarissa tells us, women, to regain the intuition we have inside us, a sort of Wild Woman that guided many of our ancestors during hard times of no modern medicine, internet or big cities. This wise woman inside us is called La Que Sabe.

And if you are a woman, chances are you already know her.

It is not a calling to become a hippie and hide in the forest (or maybe it is?), but to listen to that voice inside of us that warns “this is wrong,” “this is strange.” We all had that inexplicable feeling in our guts about situations and people. But because there was no logical explanation, we often kept it shut.

But some truths can survive time, and that’s what Clarissa brings back with her old stories. These tales survived because they touch people in a particular deep point, that makes generation after generation keep telling the same words. We keep telling them because they feel real.