Becoming a Wild Woman
Hello! I’m Noelle, a recent college graduate and proud member of Be Wild Woman. I stumbled upon and joined Be Wild Woman online at www.meetup.com in September 2008. I remember being seized especially by the word “wild,” a word that really had no application in my own life and that I hadn’t even thought of claiming or seeking for myself. But that was really just a matter of semantics.
Conventionally, “wild” is something you hear in association with (non-human) animals or otherwise reckless and thereby dangerous people. But to be wild does not mean being totally out of control in an unhealthy or unsafe way. “Wildness” is the natural state. “Wildness” is what happens when we are living authentically, embracing and expressing all of the different parts of ourselves, especially those that we’ve neglected or tucked away out of fear of what other people may think of us. And (re)becoming a “wild woman” is so essential because women have traditionally and systematically been rendered “tame,” silent, passive, and self-limiting.
Through various studies and experiences, I had already begun to realize these things. I began to look at the state of modern society’s woman through a critical (feminist) lens, which then enabled me to reflect on my own situation. Was I being wild, free, true to myself and to others? Was I allowing my light to shine out into the world? Did I accept and love and take the best care of myself? The answer was a resounding “no” every time and that is when I knew there was some serious inner work to be done.
Though I was a virtual member of Be Wild Woman since September, it wasn’t until early January 2009 that I attended my first event and met Kiana Love in person. It was the night of the final full moon ceremony at Alex and Allyson Grey’s Chapel of Sacred Mirrors in Chelsea (Manhattan), NY, where Kiana held a Women’s Blessing and Healing Circle. Besides Kiana and me, there were two other women there that I did not know, but seeing how open and friendly they were made me feel more comfortable. We sat in a circle on the floor, eyes closed, getting into a quiet place within. Kiana cleansed the space and each one of us, fanning sage smoke with a feather around our bodies, guiding us to invite Spirit blessings into our hearts. Then there was a guided visualization, after which we worked with the Goddess Oracle Tarot. With the cards facedown, scattered on the floor at the center of our circle, each one of us picked up a single one-whichever card seemed to call to us through our fingertips.
I can’t explain the exact mechanism by which I found the right card (and am perfectly content leaving such things up to Mystery), but it was Hestia, Greek goddess of the hearth and home. The image showed a cloaked woman holding a flame in the palms of her hands. With the full moon in Cancer and my 6 personal month number and standing “issues” with my own hearth and home (physical & emotional, outer and inner), it all made perfect sense. Hestia was reiterating what I already knew in theory, but had yet to put into practice:
“Home” is within you;
tend to that flame
and everything else will follow.
After some communion with the cards, their images/messages, the women in the circle took turns sharing their impressions. I was the first to speak, which meant very little time for me to collect my thoughts or find the “right” words (a reminder to speak from the heart and not from the head). I concluded that “I know what I need and I know that I can get it.” It was an affirmation without my even realizing it; Kiana told me to repeat it to myself and doing that gave me a new sense of power-that I can really do it! Listening to other women voice and work through their own inner stirrings was equally as valuable, and it was that intimate exchange, simple and free-flowing, that made me want to go back for more circle experiences.
These intersections, these lines and arcs of communication, are the basis of this community of women and the means through which we begin to heal and dance free of the chains that keep us from being the wild women we were born to be!
*peace&love*