Inhabiting your Wildness

I know who you remind me of, by Ariel H.

How much time do you spend at the periphery of your comfort zone?  Growth is grace with a push. It’s a continual question. It’s a match in the dark lit by an inquiring mind. We’ve all got these layers of stories and opportunities and depths but you have to get out of the nice safe world of all you’ve known before. 

Aren’t you curious about why your thoughts snag where they do? Why you’re bold and fearless in your head until you have to stand up for yourself? Why when you need your voice most your throat tightens and your mouth goes dry?  Why you feel like a smokin’ hot siren until confronted with the object of your lust?  Why you keep agreeing to things you don’t actually want to do, or have the time to do, or have an interest in doing? 

I like to imagine “Normal” is a village in the center of our mind made up of all of the voices that kept us “safe”. Outside of the village there are deep dark woods filled with extraordinary and dangerous things, just like any truly wild place.  The forest hides our fears, our inner capacity for monstrosity, and our stories about cultural taboos like sex or femininity, and the villagers of “Normal” will discourage you from exploration at any cost.  When you push to the periphery of the village and fearlessly confront the darkness that surrounds you, you’re embarking on a quest to dismantle the power of your shadow.

You don’t have to love every part of yourself.  You don’t have to be proud of the catty bitch side that wants to put other people down when it feels threatened. You don’t have to actively engage with your toxic and poisonous parts, you just have to acknowledge that they are there so you don’t accidentally give them power.

There are also incredibly beautiful and powerful parts in your internal wilder land that you have been taught to fear or mistrust.  Our sexuality is too often turned into succubi and big bad wolves that will devour and destroy, instead of seen as a meaningful and important part of the human experience. 

The archetypal feminine (even and especially if you don’t identify as a woman) is exiled into cottages on the outskirts unless it is willing to play the roll the folks of Normal have cast it in.  Sure you may feel connected to the angelic and faultless Mother Mary, but as a result you do not accept the complexity of yourself or of the women you encounter. You may see many overbearing Queen Bee types, but you distrust kindness and see compassion as weakness.       Inhabiting your wildness means learning what is worth enhancing and what is worth diminishing inside of you.  It’s understanding that life is largely out of your control and instead of trying to control it all the time learning how to ride out whatever comes your way like Godiva.

I think a lot about the feral parts of the heart.  It’s part of the legacy of being a musician, at least the way that I’m a musician. I exist in between the “real world” where my bills demand my attention, and the wild world where my wants howl. On my best days I find something worth sharing to bring back, always extending an invitation to come with me this time.  See what exists outside “Normal” and inhabit your own wildness.