Mother Night: Myths, Stories and Teachings for Learning to See in the Dark by Clarissa Pinkola Estes PhD is a truly satisfying treat that nurtures you at soul level. This audio course began life as a series of weekly broadcasts to reach out to what Dr Estes terms her tribe, to the sensitives and creatives scattered all over the world.

I knew of Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ seminal work, Women Who Run with the Wolves, but I had never heard her speak. What a beautiful, warm and sensual voice! What healing, poetic, lyrical tones! I could listen to Dr Estes read a shopping list and enjoy it. Each of the eight CD programmes is well over an hour long and so you can really relax and let her words sink in. I thought this was the closest audio equivalent I could have to a long hot soak in the bath.

Dr Estes method is to teach through story and there are many magnificent tales spun within the course. I have a personal love of storytelling. I think story connects us to a time before television was our main mode of entertainment, back to a time when we entertained each other and our shared stories had the power to hold communities together. It is something we are in danger of losing by hiding away in our living rooms at night staring at the flickering screen instead of gazing into a flickering fire.

Mother Night is so rich, multi-layered and textured that to listen to the programme once is to hear only the beginning of the wisdom that lies within these sessions. Listen again and again to hear new things each time and let the realisations drop through the barriers of your conscious awareness deep down into your soul where they can be nurtured like little seeds, germinating new thoughts and supporting newfound confidence in expressing your creative spirit.

There are several important teachings explored through the course that creative, sensitive people would do well to integrate. A key lesson is that if you feel different from others around you then don’t assume you are wrong or faulty in the way you perceive the world. Understand that you belong to a different tribe from the dominant over-culture, a tribe of sensitive people, the healers, psychics, artists and writers that Dr Estes terms the Tribe of the Sacred Heart.

Other people may not understand you, but you do not need to apologise for being different, you do not need to hide your gifts, you need to explore them and create so that the world is so much richer for having you within it. Again and again Dr Estes encourages us to honour the medial nature and give thanks for our connection with a deeper knowing that digs beneath the surface and brings treasure up from the soul level.

I love that Dr Estes places a blessing upon us at the end of each session and encourages us to put down what we are doing and be open to receive. Sometimes this is a poem, a prayer or a little story. Some made me weep tears of gratitude that this big-hearted lady had taken such time and care to nurture me and all that listen to her.

Mother Night is simply the most nourishing audio course I have ever come across and I am so grateful that Sounds True sent me a copy for review as I probably wouldn’t have found it by myself. If you feel out of step with the dominant culture and need to acknowledge your creative, intuitive self, then Mother Night is for you.