Women are Wild Criaturas. More so than we know.
We have so civilized our personalities placing our focus on fashioning our identities that we have all but forgotten our deeper nature. Wild. Instinctual. Sensual. Creative. Fertile. Barren. Nurturing. Withholding. Healing. Ritualistic. Ferocious. Tender. Joyous. Reclusive. Sexual. Connective. Protective.
Many animals come to mind. Pinkola Clarissa Estes figured the Wolf. Others, the Cat. The Snake. The Mother Bear. We are the Woman animal. And the forces of creation have gifted us with a natural intelligence as brilliant as the finest creatures.
We have forgotten ourselves and our tao. We have been led so long by images and constructs formulated by men through the metaphors of their bodies and language that we are confused in our own. We languish when we have the resources to flourish.
The greatest resource we have is our body. Our soft animal body, as Mary Oliver so beautifully wrote to in her poem.
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
~ Mary Oliver
How do we make contact with this pure primal force within us?
Dancing naked round a fire in the middle of the forest under the light of the full moon is guaranteed to draw out the Wild Criatura. Unfortunately these opportunities are rare for most of us.
How can I connect with these primal forces while in the heart of Manhattan or LA? How can I tap into and express my deepest primal self today in this moment in my home, this room, to infuse my life with this dynamic force of strength, power, healing, creation, wisdom?
My Quest
Without realizing what I was seeking, this was the quest that broke through in my early 40s when I could no longer bear the confines of life as mother, musician, teacher, spiritual devotee, lover. I had worked hard and accomplished much in all of these areas, was renowned as a master teacher, yet something in me was desperately languishing. My health started to decline as did my relationships. I turned my back on organized spirituality and found myself becoming less tolerant of my children, my partner, my work. Something was calling me. Howling.
I could feel the presence of her encroaching wildness. She prowled in my dreams. My sexuality exploded on the scene. The energy was ferocious and scared the shit of me! I knew the power of the wild dark side as I was nearly destroyed by it as a teenager. Yet I also knew its gift. Dark eros. The jewel in the darkness. And in this dark jewel I was experiencing the radical drive for creation. Self Creation! I had birthed enough babies. Now I thirsted for Art. My art. My personal self expression.
I began to follow my instinctual intuition. Smelling. Hearing. Touching. Imagining my way through the unconscious. I was seeking something new. Something ancient.
My pursuit finally brought me to the feet of the wise grandmothers of depth psychology and art: Marion Woodman, Aviva Gold, Neala Haze, Jill Mellnick. They taught me to return to the ground of my body. Trained me in the arts of the bodysoul. Here it was that I contacted the ‘uncontacted woman’ in the wilderness of my bodypsyche. Here it was that I discovered the true source of my power, inspiration, wisdom and transformative love.
Next week I will begin a series of posts on the Embodied Arts I was trained in and now use in my program – Unleash Your Wild Creative Genius & Embody Your Legend
To experience the Embodied Arts be sure to subscribe to my site and receive my free gift book and mp3 recording of: The First Gateway to the Mysteries of the Embodied Arts: The Wild Criatura. Sign up above in the sidebar or go to my homepage.
The short video below is a montage of my embodied paintings and ritual performance art.
[vimeo width=”800″ height=”700″]http://vimeo.com/32428345[/vimeo]