Where have all the flowers gone? A song from way-back just popped into my head as I wondered what muse would flow out of me today? In fact I don’t even know if I was a twinkling in my mum’s eye when that song came out, but I can certainly remember the melody. What springs forth from that little ditty (profound and political however!), came the question, “Where has all my female-ness gone?”
I ask myself, what brought that odd question on? Well, I’ve been doing this writing experience – in fact I’m smack back in the middle of it – and it’s called Re-Wilding. It’s really all about getting back the “wild”, the “fiery”, the “inappropriate” and “range of emotions” ME back again.
Because ladies, we have learned to tame ourselves. We want more pleasure, but we deny ourselves of it by distancing or distracting ourselves. We would love to vent what’s really hot and fiery inside, but we “behave ourselves” for fear of offending someone. We would love to be “given to”, have “me time” or indulge in some free time, but we think we have to act all super-man-ish doing everything ourselves and there’s no way we could enjoy some “frivolous” time having more fun.
It’s also much deeper than that. It’s what has lead us to feel misplaced in such a patriarchal world where we have lost ourselves, or can no longer find that deep, intuitive, impulsive, feeling, wild-woman healer within us. We listen to the media – I call it the external media – rather than our inner journalist for solutions to our day-to-day life and its myriad of challenges. We focus on work and getting ahead, versus serving and offering our inner gifts of presence, compassion and love for life. We fit things around a tight schedule, versus aligning with our monthly and seasonal rhythms, succumbing to the beat of someone else’s drum and not our own natural pace. We spend time within our home and work environment far more than in the natural elements. Our feelings of inadequacy are masked and “under-wraps” to keep up with the Jones’ family or to appear as good as Mrs Entrepreneur or another “amazing mum” when really we are feeling exhausted, under the weather and possibly quite soul-discontented.
The masculine and the patriarchy squashes us. The feminine expands us. The masculine tames us. The feminine tempts and teases us playfully. And the masculine freezes us. The feminine feels. She is feisty. She is honest. She is indulgent. She is receptive. She is wild. She loves to dance and have pleasures. She yearns to be unleashed.
So what have I personally noticed during this phase of Re-Wilding? I have learned that I often avoid the darkness, depths and the dive-down deep moments, in favour of hoping life can simply be easier and better without me doing anything, or preferring to “stay positive” with all of my self-help strategies. I have opted for staying relatively quiet and “good-girly” when it comes to my family dynamics even though I know I could change things by bravely speaking out even if they ostracized me further. I have tamed my movement, my sexuality and my vitality doing monotony, routine and stuff that kills my spirit, rather than makes my soul sing. I have allowed my creative spirit to be dampened and put on the back-burner by prioritizing others over myself. I have also largely been “in control” of my life (and people), but I am soooooo (and might I add an extra “o”) learning that I have no control over it/them really, and I would be better off surrendering and “letting go”. Ladies, we talk about that, but do we really do it?
So today I have no answers, no tips and no advice. For that really is the masculine.
I just however invite you, woman to woman, to share one of your “life stories” that is full of emotion and express that story somehow in poetry, song, on top of a mountain top, with a sage stick in hand, or even howling to the moon. The wild woman in you wants to become unharnessed, unsilenced and finally given permission to be less than “appropriate”.
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Janelle Fletcher