Battle Scars:
Membership in the Scar Clan

This was written for women,
but I encourage men to learn the art of crying as well.

Tears are a river that take you somewhere. Weeping creates a river around the boat that carries your soul life. Tears lift your boat off the rocks, off the dry ground, carrying it downriver to someplace new, someplace better. There are oceans of tears women have never cried, for they have been trained to carry mother’s and father’s secrets to the grave. A woman’s crying has been considered quite dangerous, for it loosens the locks and bolts on the secrets she bears. But in truth, for the sake of a woman’s wild soul, it is better to cry. For women, tears are the beginning of initiation into the Scar Clan, that timeless tribe of women of all colors, all nations, all languages, who down through the ages have lived through a great something, and yet who stood proud. (Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who run With the Wolves.)

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