Embracing the Wild

One if the simplest of my Mandorla process’ was in the honoring of my yin and yang. I had a very strong sense of my feminine energy, as a mother this was paramount in my life. But also as a nurturer of animals from a very young age and a natural empathy that I had towards all living beings. A love of the natural world, of poetry and prose and of the silent need for contemplation of life. I could very easily be with and by myself and had a healthy response eventually towards my   body and sensual needs.

 Growing the empowered feminine spirit, without losing the wild woman.

As women I believe that we need our yang energy if we are to survive in the world with our creativity, our careers or artistry. What we are wanting to ‘do’ to be part of a functioning community that is making a difference in the world needs a good balance of yin and yang, especially if we do not want to fall into the traps of having to tighten up, dress for the corporate, watch our p’s and q’s or become the brash outspoken, heavy-handed domineering Cruella D’Ville type mistress of the commercial race. Or else we become a flailing, new-agey, femme fatale who dreams of manifesting abundance, covering her fridge door with yellow sticky notes and messages of affirmations of what she is, generally not, really creating.

I’ve heard the words that ‘success means being a bitch or being a man!’ I wonder of the truth in this. But if not does she fail and give up, jumping from one idea to another never really committed to a set goal.

I know some of these places because I tried them, for a while, recognising that there was deep work to be done to really find my authentic yang energy. I knew it was there but always thought it needed to be coming from my partner, and when I did exercise it as fully as possible, it never really felt authentic to me and who I really was.

I attempted a little time within the corporate world, offering some movement and a few skills I had explored that I thought would ‘fit in’. But who was I in this place, who did I become with my suit and healed shoes? The black bag and the ironed hair did not quite fit with my spirit, with my soul. But it was good to explore for a while. I recognised my father energy, the one who had to be both father and mother to my children at times. I learnt a new way of being in the world, but once I knew it, I was able to simply ‘be it’ with no need to dress it up. I look back at it, at her, it was a brief moment in time, a useful moment but I would not stay there for long. The discomfort of being tightly dressed into that particular form, of being seen to be something I was not. The time it took to sit at a mirror to don that perfect hair style, ironing out the creases, starching fabric and fitting into the right clothing, to find a lipstick that matched my skin! I found it utterly exhausting and  once my skin could breath once more, and my hair fell the way it was meant to naturally and the clothes wrapped around my flesh in a way that was comfortable and uncomplicated, then I knew I was home. Not without the yang, punctual, functioning, determined being, rooted deep within the body and providing access to a world where the offerings of my soul could be made clearly and with authentic and genuine support. The wild woman was free to carve her path, to ride the storms of personal empowerment and create from her own story the medicine ways of movement, story, dance and poetry.

The feminine spirit is free, for she is wild. She is creative, sensual and knows her own dance, she speaks the truth and has no fears about being who she is. She doesn’t try to conform.

She knows her yang energy, but has little need to show it, unless called upon to stand guard, to speak her mind in difficult situations and to protect and witness her kin from a place of inner authority. She does not need to dress it up for she harbors it deep within her, she might bring it out for fun, to play with the masculine that she knows is part of her energy field but she remains truthful to the one she is, which many would not understand. Can they trust this, can they be sure about what she is thinking or doing?

Her many expressions would frighten the strongest of warriors for he is unsure where he stands. For she might create earthquakes and volcanoes, storms of passion and bloody red yells of torture at any moment, yet once this body of flesh and bone has erupted it will soften back to silken skin, purr like a kitten and fold itself in his arms for a tender embrace.

He is left unsure, finding his feet on the ground, who is this creature? Can he trust the eruptions will end and stand strong in the masculine, waiting, breathing, silently observing?

She watches and she listens to her own hearts callings, waiting for that time when the truth will be known, free to wander the shores of a lonely heart, to find company in her strong sisters who she knows will rise to any challenge as well as any fun-loving-party-giving celebration of life. She will write the poetry that is gathered from her soul and wash away her tears to give back to moonlit lakes.

Her love of the earth deepens with every step she takes and sweeping herself across its rough terrains she kisses rocks and clay with her feet, brushes through the grasses with matted hair and calls in the wild creatures into her bosom for safety and nurturing.

She knows what she is able to do, and does it freely without reward, she knows what needs her attention and has no need to hold back or shrink for fear of failure, for failure is one of her many teachers, she knows it is necessary and will teach her how to persevere until she gets it right.

Then there is no failure in the wild woman’s eyes, for each lesson learnt will encourage her to follow her path more determinedly.

There would be of course the parts that try to control her. Kindly at first and with a knowing glance, inward and outward, of ‘I know best’ and she will allow that game to run its course, taking from it what she finds useful and giving back the rest, for she is not greedy and will not take for the sake if it.

But the controlling force may hit a heavy hand on the table and she knows this, she will be watchful and awake to that threat of need that comes from the fear of not being in control of what is happening, it will not trust the feminine creature, too beautiful, naive, vulnerable, to possibly lead the way, in front or even from behind.

Yet she does lead the way, the feminine always leads through the not doing, the not making happen but with a gentle force of guidance, leading by following all she is witness to. And the controlling force knows this, yet cannot trust it fully, so still it makes demands on the creature until it speaks out and says ‘no more.’ This it needs to hear, to know the battle is won and there is no gain from simply endlessly demanding, but learns now to wait until it is called upon, understanding that eye, that smell, that touch, that flicker that says ‘yes, the time is now.’

When these signals can be read, within and without, then the feminine wild spirit knows there is a love so deep, so mature and committed, she will rest, trusting the nature of the coming together as a necessary force. A birthing of new and sometimes unspoken dreams, dreamt into being.

There is nothing more to wait for, she has led this journey to its fullest and here she will remain, committed to the truth, wedded to the love, the bliss and the knowledge that comes in shapes of gratitude, the caring and planting of seeds that continue to grow together through-out all of the land.

Seeds becoming mighty trees of potential, bearing leaves of new life and well-being into the world.

The potential of the yin and the yang marrying themselves together, ego and soul, creator and creation, earth and fire, within the body and mirrored all around, from one story to another, it emerges and transforms the negative patterns and mediocre habits of words spoken to keep her small, keep her in perpetual cycles of disempowerment.

Yes, we do it to ourselves and we do it to each other, yet there is a way to embrace all that we are and take that final leap to fulfillment and realisation of who we really are.

Stepping into the Mandorla process time and time again, to explore this human, my human as yin and yang, as feminine and masculine became a practice I would keep deepening. I found it was not something I needed to do once, but many times. Mainly because there were so many levels of it. So many areas of my life that needed this process so that I could fully understand them. I knew I would have much to learn and experience in this place of discovery.

There were different areas of my life where this yin and yang dance needed specific work, like in the place of work, the place of family, the place of finances, and the areas in my life that took on different parts of my psyche needing to address certain issues. My relationship needed to be understood as to when I would need to embrace my feminine much more in contrast to my partners masculine, and how could I engage with my man when I really needed my own masculine to emerge. What effect would it have on him?

So every time I found myself needing to explore a new area of this, I would mark out my circles, stepping from one to the other to feel into their energy and then place myself strongly in the center to be both, moving with their equality and their polarities, sometimes feeling hugely pulled apart, vibrating and struggling with the need for both of these parts of myself to be able to feel complete.

My own yin and yang were learning to dance together, to fall in love together and be that unity that was needed in my life in order for me grow and be fully with myself. Not only be with myself, but to find the medicine inside me that was sometimes in conflict and that I did not understand.

This medicine field would bring about a new awareness, a new sense of how to move forward and what I needed to do to heal certain issues that had become difficult for me. This learning would free me up and enable much more connection to myself and others.