Warming the Stone Child

By: Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Narrated by: Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Length: 1 hr and 30 mins

Publisher's Summary

The pain of abandonment, both real and metaphorical, can cast a shadow over our entire adult experience. Warming the Stone Child investigates the abandoned child archetype in world myths and cultures to find clues about the process of healing the "unmothered" child within us all. Spiced with Dr. Estes' wonderful storytelling, Warming the Stone Child is a unique listening experience with a practical edge.

©1990 Clarissa Pinkola Estes (P)1997 Sounds True

Critic Reviews

"Dr. Estes’s palpable emotional engagement (and obvious desire to speak to those in pain) can be heard in the flowing, calming sound she creates with each interlocking syllable, reflective pause, and change in vocal intensity. The arresting beauty in both her writing and narrative performance will make listeners believe that they can internalize the mother’s ability to soothe themselves and find emotional balance, whether or not they ever received such mothering." (AudioFile)

Warm, soothing, and inspiring

I listened to this on a day when I felt lost, overwhelmed, and frustrated with myself. I immediately felt soothed when Clarissa Pinkola Estes started to speak. Her voice is warm and authentic. She speaks of magic and wisdom and of the power of words to heal.

The stories in this collection center around the mythology of the stone child, who is not tended to or honored, and whose divine spark becomes obscured beneath hardness and darkness - symbols for the defenses that inevitably arise when the safety of a vulnerable child is threatened by abuse, abandonment, or neglect.

The stories are linked with psychoanalytic commentary on the causes and symptoms of this type of wounding from the Jungian perspective. More than once I recognized my own shadows being addressed - my own unmet cries for mothering, nurturing, and safety - in a way that was validating, reassuring, and heartening.

Clocking in at an hour and a half, this is a short, easy listen packed with powerful, insightful, soothing words. Highly recommended for those whose souls need a breath of warmth and whose hearts need a compassionate hug. Put it on, light a candle, and pour yourself a mug of tea. Listen and remember that you are cared for and needed in this world.

6 of 6 people found this review helpful

Warming the Stone Child

Poingant, compassionate and wise. A beauthiful delivery that gives the listner a way forward, a way to start the healing process. Eminantly sincere and breathtakingly hopeful. The light within us all lives on inspite of our woundedness

Anne moller Auckland New Zealand

6 of 6 people found this review helpful

a Healing Experience

Did not know what to expect but intuitively felt I needed this. I was right.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

A story to heal the abandoned child

I've read and/or listened to this book more than once and each time I've felt stronger. The symbolism is warm and inside I feel whole, complete. I'm sure I'll review it more as I grow into the mother that I am inside. A mother who keeps her home warm and protected and content. I love this book. Clarissa tells stories like no one I've ever heard before. We have lost many of the great story tellers of our time so we must become them. Great motivator. Love love this work

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Changed my life! A Light house guiding me HOME!!!

I absolutely love it!!!!
I am forever grateful to her, for her compassion, kindness, wisdom and energy to put this out there for us orphan children seeking healing. i know now i am on yhe right path to heal my inner child and prosper in SELF LOVE!
THANK YOU!

Huda Buddha💓

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

thank you for another powerful and healing work

thank you from another traveler of four generations of no mothers easy to follow wonderful work thank you

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Understanding is the first step

This book is eye opening and I will definitively keep listening again and again as I grow spiritually.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Clarissa has a gift for story telling.

What did you love best about Warming the Stone Child?

You have to set aside your preconceived ideas and just listen and feel the ancient story's. It's a great opening to your childhood memories.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Loved it!

It had me on tiers of sweet recognition of the pain and at the same time of gratitude for my journey and left me thinking what are my fairytales that guided my growth. Thank you Clarissa!

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Warming my stone soul

This reading is very precious and meaningful for me. It explained my archetype of an orphan and suggested a lot of seeds for thoughts.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

warming the Stone Child

Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estes speaks from a profound place of empathy and knowing. The knowledge and insights she shares about the pain and experiences of the abandoned child make a deep connection which I believe goes beyond our intellect and cognitive processes. She somehow managed to bring together the pieces of my fragmented soul. I wept as her soothing voice caressed the pain that had never been touched and was astonished to feel as if I had received a healing balm. To know at last that I was not born this way, but through lack of guidance and nurturance I had become this way. The myths and tales that she weaves through the book add rather than detract from the main theme, challenging false constructs of how we perceive ourselves and how we can change that view. I have since bought all of her other audio books and have not been left disappointed.

9 of 11 people found this review helpful

Mesmerising listen

If you could sum up Warming the Stone Child in three words, what would they be?

As all the books that are read buy the author are mesmerizing to listen to.

What did you like best about this story?

Even though I had an idea what it'll be about, I was surprised by Estes's vision.

What about Clarissa Pinkola Estes’s performance did you like?

Her voice and performance are true,real and sincere.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

A bit disappointed

Excellent content and voice, but the dragging out of the reading, words and what I can only describe as excessive breathing sadly spoils the enjoyment of the content. If the book was just read in a normal tone, I would personally have listened to it more often.

3 of 5 people found this review helpful

great book stories for the lost child

loved this book so glad these stories found their way to me .. my 2 nd Clarissa pinkola book very soothing voice also

ok read

not as enlightening to me as some of her other books. ok read/listen. wtf minimum word count. not much to say on it!

stories amazing, needs listening several times

the way to full life not so clear, but maybe that is the point of the stories, you live with them and thwy guide yoi as you go along.

such a storyteller

beautiful and inciteful tales to support us in mothering ourselves when our mothers failed to do so or be able to do so. profound and healinng

I wanted more

Loved the story and the telling with that trance-inducing, mothering voice of Dr Estes. I did not like the way the recording was broken into two episodes, with announcements re Sounds True, which made it feel like a radio programme, rather than an audiobook. This broke the spell.
I so much wanted more.

comforts and gives hope

at my darkest moments of angst and loneliness, this is my go to audio programme

tricky subject

tackled in the usual Pinkola Estes way. not exactly enjoyable but a worthwhile listen. I find her voice very engaging