TONTS. - La Loba The Wolf Woman

Episode Date: December 9, 2022

Trigger Warning - this episode discusses themes of emotional abuse and trauma. If this brings anything up for you at all please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 Tickets to the live album launch are available hereThe last episode of season 3 for 2022 and I'd like to share my single Fear to Feel with you and tell you the story of La Loba the wolf woman.You can find subscribe to more music from me and listen to Fear to Feel on Spotify I'd love you to.Editing – RAW Collings, Claire TontiMusic – Claire Tonti Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which I stand and create and write and sing today. They were wondery people of the Kulin Nation and I'd like to pay my respect to their elders past, present and emerging. I'd like to acknowledge the women that have stood on this land and given birth on this land and I would most like to acknowledge that this always was and always will be Aboriginal land. Hello, this is Tons, a podcast of in-depth interviews about emotions and the way they shape our lives. I am your host, Claire Tonti, and I am so glad that you are here for this, the final episode

of 2022. Each week, I usually speak to writers, activists, experts, thinkers, and deeply feeling humans about their stories. But instead today, I want to tell you a little bit more about my story. So I'm a singer, and I always have been, a creative being, and a writer, and curious, and enthusiastic, and so many other things as we all are. And maybe 10 years ago, I took all of that energy and heart and drive and I went to teach in a really remote community in the Kimberleys. While I was there, I came face to face with, I think, the embodiment of patriarchy and I was emotionally abused. Now, I don't want to go too much into

the story other than to say I had a fire and the person that was in leadership in that school took that fire from me. And I think deliberately took it because I was singing and loud and questioning the way that he was running his school. Now, I know I'm not alone in the abuse that he inflicted on people within that community. And I want to say right now that if this is a story that resonates with you, I'm so sorry. I think as women, often we are robbed of our drive and our desire and our fire and sometimes even the very essence of ourselves. When we stand up, when we are brave enough to put our head above the parapet and put

our hand up and say we want things to be different and we want things to change. And at 25, I don't even think I really understood what patriarchy was, let alone that questions can sometimes lead to physical or emotional violence. And for me, it was emotional. However, at 37, I finally come to understand what happened to me in that moment and why for 10 years I've hidden so much of myself. And I know that sounds strange because I've been making podcasts for a few years, but those who've been listening to me for a while will know that Just Make the Thing, my first one, took me a huge leap of courage to even feel like I had a voice, which is strange because as a person, I'm incredibly loud and vocal and

have always been putting up my hand in class and sharing my opinion, regardless of whether people were interested in it or not. All of this is to say that I have spent the last six months thinking and exploring and creating and writing, and it has come out as a fully formed album called Matrescence, which will be out in February. And I wanted to share the very first single today called Fear to Feel with you. If you haven't listened to it, it's on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, Apple Music, I should say, and all the places. And I think I wrote that song for so many reasons. And as I was reflecting on it today, I think I also wrote it because of fear that I had about feeling what happened to me through that experience

in teaching, through the experience of birth trauma that I had with my son, and so many other things besides that happened to us as women as we walk through our lives in a world that isn't set up for us to thrive necessarily. Now, as I was writing this album, before I share that song with you here, I wanted to share the story of Lolobe. And strangely, as I was writing this album, I wrote a song called Self that had the imagery of a wolf in it. Partly, I think, from Glennon Doyle's writing and from Abby Wambach's writing about the wolf and the wolf pack,

but also something deeper. And the image of the wolf had come to me multiple times. And then I discovered this story of Lalober. Now, I'm going to read an excerpt today from the work of Clarissa Pincola-Estes. She has written a book called Women Who Run With Wolves, and she's a US poet, psychoanalyst, and post-trauma specialist, raised in a nearly vanished oral and ethnic tradition. So, here is the story of Lalober. And wanted to say and just as a side I think if you've been through something in your life that's been traumatic and I think for most of us we have I know a dear friend of ours passed away very unexpectedly over the weekend at 39 and it shocked us and the reverberations kind of spread out through

our friendship group. And I think that it was again a reminder to me of how fragile everything is and how no one escapes this life on our planet without trauma, but that there is also immense wisdom from thousands of years of people, of women who have learnt and moved through trauma and we are all able to find that healing. And so this is a powerful story of Lalober. So I hope you enjoy it. Lalober, the wolf woman. There is an old woman who lives in a hidden place that everyone knows but few have ever seen. As in the fairy tales of Eastern Europe, she seems to wait for lost or wandering

people and seekers to come to her place. They say she lives among the rotten granite slopes in the Tarahumara Indian Territory. They say she is buried outside Phoenix near a well. She is said to have been seen travelling south to Monte Alban in a burnt-out car with the back window shot out. She is said to stand by the highway near El Paso or ride shotgun with truckers in Morelia, Mexico, or that she has been sighted walking to market with strangely formed boughs of firewood on her back. She is called by many names, La Huesera, Bone Woman, La Trapera, The Gatherer, and La Loba, Wolf Woman. The superstitious call her Soul Stealer, claiming she weaves a dream catcher to snatch up those

who would cross over and cage them in the light of her fire. The soul work of Lolobe is the collecting of bones. She is known to collect and preserve, especially that which is in danger of being lost to the world. Her cave is filled with the bones of all manner of desert creatures, the deer, the rattlesnake, the crow, but her specialty is to be wolves. She creeps and crawls and sifts through the mountains and dry riverbeds looking for wolf bones and when she has assembled an entire skeleton, when the last bone is in place and

the beautiful white sculpture of the creature is laid out before her. She sits by the fire and thinks about what song she will sing and when she is sure she stands over the creature, raises her arms over it and sings out. That is when the rib bones and leg bones of the wolf begin to flesh out and the creature becomes furred. Lalobe sings some more and more of the creature comes into being, its tail curls upward shaggy and strong. And Lalobe sings more and the wolf creature begins to breathe. And still Lalobe sings so deeply that the floor of the desert shakes. And as she sings, the wolf opens its eyes, leaps up and runs away down the canyon. Somewhere in its running, whether by the speed of its

running or by splashing its way into a river or by a way of a ray of sunlight or moonlight hitting it right in the side, the wolf is suddenly transformed into a laughing woman who runs free towards the horizon. So it is said that if you wander the desert and it is near sundown and you are perhaps a little bit lost and certainly tired, that you are lucky for the loba may take a liking to you and show you something, something of the soul. To me, singing is a part of my soul. And I really invite you to figure out what is a part of your soul, what you need to heal, what you need to feel free, what you need to dream up and then sing over and then give life to, to run and be wild. This is the first song on my album, Fear to Feel. I hope you listen to it and set yourself free. Are you watching with your fingers?

Your eyes don't want to lose a mind. Smoking rollies, playing music. Fly flickers, leather jacket. Do you need me? Do you need me? Do you want me? Let me show you how to feel, how to feel Cause I'm walking slower than I need to Hand for me on the pocket Stride wider, hip popping Head tussled, black mascara Do you need me? Do you want me? Etta sole black mascara

Do you need me? Do you want me? Let me show you how to feel How to feel Cause you feel to feel you feel to feel drinking hand lips parted eyes dark

and face is lit Love louder, music pulsing Small movements draw you closer Do you need me? Do you want me? Can I show you how to feel? How to feel Look down, look up through lashes Brief touch, whisper laughter

Do you want to? I think I need you to Let me show you how to feel How to feel How to feel How to feel Cause you fear to feel Cause you fear to feel Cause you fear to feel Cause you fear to feel No voices, only bodies It's time, baby, it's time

Spellcasting, come into my open It's time, you just gotta give in Let me show you how to feel How to feel How to feel How to feel Cause you feel to feel You feel the feel