Wild Woman Rising

Wk 3- August 17: Deity and the Divine – This will be the third week’s topic every month and an opportunity for you to share with everyone those who guide, inspire and inform you. Tell us about your favorite Deity of Learning or Harvest this week!

I spent last week with a tribe of wild women at Women's Wilderness Workshop 2015. This event is a four day gathering of women, a transformative and joyous adventure in learning, and a deep retreat in nature. Our teachings focus on skills to bring one closer to the Earth, skills to both survive and thrive on your earthwalk, including things like hide tanning, fire making, basketry, harvesting animals, herbal medicine, Yoga, belly dance, and spiritual tools.

Each day, I rose at dawn to teach a Yoga class, then taught my Meditative Archery in the afternoon. In the evenings, I helped to lead our ceremonies in the moon lodge and around the fire. In my (*cough cough*) spare time, I revelled in our beautiful community and learned new things for myself. It was a busy, full week that I am still unpacking mentally and emotionally.

Together, we built a sacred wild woman sculpture, a kudzu goddess. She was a bit taller than a person, with a wood and kudzu frame, a head covered with burlap, flowers for eyes, and ah, what was the word...she was anatomically vivacious. She was complete, I hear, with aureoli, a yoni and luscious buttocks. I didn't check underneath her sarong, but I trust in the sisters who constructed her. We all contributed something to her being, whether it was a borrowed piece of finery, a birch branch, a trailing garland of kudzu, or a clothespin infused with our essence.

Our Sacred Wild Woman presided over our ceremony by the fire on our closing night, the New Moon in August, the Healing Moon, the Harvest Moon. We called out to the five sacred things - air, fire, water, earth and spirit. We drummed, danced and sang. We did many a thing not to be spoken of outside the circle. It was a beautiful and sacred occasion, to me made all the sweeter by the collaboration of the musicians, facilitators and our lovely celebrants.

Several people said afterwards that the Wild Woman loomed over us during the ritual, seemingly ten feet
tall. Dear friends, you and I know that Goddess entered our sculpture. We chose to call her "wild woman" because the gathering included women of many faiths. That doesn't matter; it is true that she personified the archetype of wild woman. Regardless, She is what She is, no matter what name by which She is known. Whether Goddess enters a living priestess or a sculpture like this one, She stands tall, filled with power that crackles like summer lightning, lifting the hair on the back of our necks. And so it was.

There is so much more to say about this gathering, of tremendous vulnerability and strength, power and curiosity, creativity and healing, community and compassion...so many beautiful things, moments, people. But I find it hard to write about; perhaps it is just something that must be experienced.

One more thing I will discuss: this event and others like it are important. It is valuable for those who are just beginning to see another way of living. It is valuable for Pagans who struggle with their connection to the natural world - of these, I have met so many; but that is a story for another day. It is valuable for women who struggle with their identity as women. It is valuable for women who struggle with their relationship to other women. It is valuable for those who have knowledge to share. It is valuable for those who are searching. It is valuable for us all in some way.

One of our sisters, a woman of color who lives in an urban area, spoke of her struggle to find her place in this community. She is not particularly outdoorsy, does not teach survival skills...she wondered if she belongs with us, why she is drawn to this community. She asked us to share why this event is important to each of us, so that she could better understand her own place within it.

My answer is this: our world is at a crisis point. We are on the brink of ecological disaster and possibly a financial collapse of unprecedented scale. Maybe. Or perhaps we are not, but it is certainly true that things are dire in many respects. People speak of political change, of laws and regulations. It is true that governments need to take action.

But I am starting to see another truth. We need cultural regeneration, especially in my home country, the USA, but in many, many parts of the world as well. Without a change in our collective consciousness, a shift in the zeitgeist of our age, mere regulations will not fix the problems that we face today. We must realize our place as citizens of the global ecosystem, and as stewards tasked with its preservation. We must rise above the use of force to settle our disagreements. We must heal ourselves of our greed and selfishness. We must work together to create global change.

With all love and respect for men, I believe that this cultural healing may need to come from women. Are we not the keepers of life? Are we not the preservers of beauty and culture in times of natural disaster and war? How else can we heal from the wounds of patriarchy? Who better to bring forth something new?

So we begin with healing the relationships between women. We continue the work of our mothers and grandmothers. They stand behind us as we reclaim our connection with Mother Earth, with Gaia, with Pachamama, with Goddess, and by doing so, we reclaim our power. We heal ourselves, and by doing so, we heal womankind as a whole.

Each woman that is healed becomes whole, and she can birth a new life who will stand on her shoulders to take the work further. As creators of life, women must lead the way as we heal our families, our communities, our tribes, our nations...our world.

What do you think? Have I flown off into flights of feminist fancy? It seems strange to me that I would now be writing such a post. For most of my adult life, I have not identified with the feminist movement.

Instead, I have called myself a humanist. I have thought that our task is to stop focusing on gender and start focusing on becoming the best human beings that we can be. Age and experience have taught me that this is naive. We are not past feminism yet. Not while human trafficking still exists. Not while women are treated as chattel by religious extremists. Not while men are oppressed by their gender roles. Not while animals are treated as objects. Not while we exploit our natural resources, our sacred home, the Earth. No, patriarchy is still in place, and it harms all of us - all genders, all sexual orientations.

Here in the US, the foundations of patriarchy are wobbling. We have a black president who, while a product of our flawed political system, is making historic changes. A man who fights for the equality of all. A president who, in this twilight of his final term, seems to give no fucks at all about his many naysayers. A man who is charging ahead, making every effort he can with the power that remains to him.

The cultural backlash is severe at this time. I have said many times that the cultural war has been won, and this agitation we now see is the result of the old guard making a last ditch effort to turn the tide. Let it be so. Let their hysterical cries of fear and hatred die with them. Let the oligarchy die with them as well. Now more than ever, we need democracy. We need change, and we need something new.

At the end of our magical conference, our convocation of wild women, we did not burn our kudzu queen, our Sacred Wild Woman, our vegetative Goddess. No, some said that our ancestresses who died by fire precluded this idea. Instead, we reverently removed her finery. We dismantled her body, and we returned her to Mother Earth. We put her to rest in the bed of kudzu from which she came...until next year.

One thing is certain. It is time for all wild women to rise. Cast off your fetters and rise, women of Earth! Come back to the Goddess, if only by reclaiming your own sacred power. Heal your relationships with your sisters. Rise and spread the teachings to others. Rise and pay honor to wild men in partnership and mutual respect. Rise and heal the Earth.

RISE, WILD WOMEN!

This week, Wild Woman is my favorite deity of learning, of harvest. So much of the spiritual work that I have done in the last five years has led up to the beautiful harvest brought in at this gathering. It was transformative for me on a personal and professional level. I am happy to call myself a wild woman and a priestess, in the old sense of the word. I hope to help many other women find their own wild woman within in the years to come. I have found my tribe. My Clan grows stronger with each passing Moon. I will howl at the moon, sing to the stars and always, always listen to the wisdom of the Earth. I am rising. Join me, sisters!

So mote it be. 

And so it is!