Woman Most Wild. Danielle Dulsky

our light.

      From the time we are girls we learn to shut down our natural and intermittent inclination to run into the dark void of nothingness. Idle hands, after all, are the devil’s playthings. Who knows what the wild child might do if her imagination were left unbridled? The technologies of woman taming are as old as dirt, my love, and the most sinister of these has been the strategic condemnation of the Still Woman. Remember that when I say “wild,” I do not mean out of control; rather, I refer to the freedom of both stillness and doing, a sacred liberation that was slowly taken from us when we were young. The wild is your human way of relating to the life-force that is beyond human but wholly natural.

      Little girls are kept wild when their caregivers affirm their right, and affirm it often, to be of the world. A good deal of preparation for the battle of adolescence is necessary in order for children of all genders to psychologically survive the woundings that will inevitably occur. Particularly for those who do not neatly match our culture’s presented image of normalcy, the survival skills required are immense, with the suppression of the wild a common response to the threat of abandonment. During adolescence, we fear looking or acting out of alignment with what our peers have deemed acceptable. We conform in order to belong, in order to keep from being left behind, with every act of perceived rejection driving the wild self deeper into the shadows of our psyche.

      It is beyond terrifying, I know, to crack wide open the shell that has been layered so thickly around us by so many years of snickers, eye rolls, turned backs, insults, and punishments. Hear me when I tell you that you are not who they say you are, and the greatest gift you can give to the global community is to be fiercely authentic. Unlearn the mechanisms of control that keep you believing that you must keep going no matter how loud your heart-voice is screaming for rest. Reclaim your wild rhythm, and awaken your Witch consciousness; she is sleeping, small body curled with the petrification that comes of allowing ourselves only small movements these past years. Wake her now. Wake her up, and let her show you the way home.

      I see you now, my Sister-Witch, ear pressed against the door, hearing the call of your wild nature like a gut-born drumbeat. The pingpat of raindrops, the mother wolf’s howl, the songs of birds you cannot name: All these things have been nested in your soul since you were a young girl. Remember now. Remember the nourishment of nature-aligned rhythm, and insert that ancient, rusted key into the lock. Remember the electric buzz you felt in your heart when gazing upward at the maternal full moon. Turn the key, letting it groan like the ancient iron it is. Hear the sound of your inner Witch waking up with a soft, sultry yawn bellowed from beneath your ribs. Embodying the rhythms of this strong Earth is your first act of liberation, and it is the most fundamental, central pillar of wild woman spirituality. Once you have acknowledged the organic power of the world around you as kith and kin to that which lies within you, once that is done, there will be no turning back.

Chapter 1

       The Holy Moon and Your Witch Consciousness

      Every living aspect of our natural world embodies the masculine and the feminine, including you, my Sister-Witch. The philosophy of Tantra teaches us that both the masculine and feminine energies are divine, with the feminine being immanent within all things. The sun and moon are the celestial reflections of these two polarities, with the sun as the pulsating, ever-burning masculine and the moon as the mysterious, ever-spiraling, and oh-so-cool feminine. By day the sun feeds our hunger for action and clear vision. By night the moon quenches our thirst for intuitive foresight and shortly lived cycles of birth, fullness, and emptiness. Both the solar and lunar rhythms of this world are cyclical, and we, as human beings, are fed by each of these Earth-sustaining bodies; the masculine is our spicy sustenance, and the feminine is our chill mineral water. We eat of the sun and drink of the moon; both nourish our bones and our blood.

      In this chapter I will share with you the clean essence of the moon’s cycles as they live within your wild nature, but the most critical piece of information is this: Just as the moon is an alchemical celestial body that, to our Earthly perspective, is always in a state of change, so, too, is the Witch a creature of ever-spiraling transformation. You have no one way to be, and this chapter offers you glimpses of a woman’s cyclical nature. You may read a certain passage and wonder if the image I present of a woman weeping in the dark could possibly be lived out by the same woman who was dancing by a fire in the woods on previous pages; I say yes. By all that is blessed and holy, yes. We take for granted the ways of the moon, but we understand the symbiotic relationship between the bright fullness of fruition and the nail-thin silver sliver of near-nothingness as a perfect metaphor for how changeable we are. To be in flux is the feminine’s nature, and such is the way of lunar life. You must give yourself permission to change constantly, every sleep a restful sort of moonlit labor during which you give birth to a new version of yourself just as the sun rises.

      Your Witch consciousness is very much bound to the rhythm of Mother Moon. Intuitively, you have known the promise of the waxing lunar cycle, like a well-built wood stack crackling just after the kindling is lit. The height of the flames, like so much unbridled energy and surging heat, you have known as the full moon essence, with the dying fire akin to the waning lunar cycle. After the fire has completely fizzled and there is naught but smoking ash, you are in dark moon time. Each of these four phases is framed within the enduring boundaries of the twenty-nine-day period, and each of these four phases is mirrored within your energetic womb.

      Your age matters not. These moon beats live inside you regardless of your stage of life or status in the world, as do the archetypes of the sensual Maiden, creative Mother, and wise Crone. Know these time-worn concepts of the Triple Goddess nature not as successive life phases, for such predictability is the stuff of linear time. You can liken your inner Maiden to your rawest sexuality and fluid emotionality, your inner Mother to generative work and high-fire creativity, and your inner Crone to your deep intuitive, receptive nature. Even a young girl embodies Crone, just as a wise elder holds much sensuality. Women are the spiral dance, and our time does not move in straight lines.

      Living in alignment with lunar changes will serve you so much more than living in accordance with any calendar. Your soul will be nourished every time you invoke the essence of a lunar phase, harnessing the warrior-woman energy of a new moon, the sheer, electric force of a full moon, the release and acceptance that comes with the waning phase, and the oh-so-potent thick void of a dark moon. These rhythms are already internalized within you, Woman. You need only acknowledge them as part of your truest self, allow them to inform your movements through the world, and learn what they have to teach you.

      Before you continue reading this chapter, take a moment to recall your childhood memories of the moon. Remember the intrigue of that changeable gray-white celestial body with the mystery-laden face and soft blue halo. Remember the moon before you learned to take it for granted. Just in this moment, be that restless little girl again who cannot sleep and looks longingly out her window, wondering how she knows this maternal light so intimately.

DRINKING MOON MILK: A LUNAR MEDITATION

      As you read this now, flip your palms skyward and tilt your head back just a bit. Lift your gaze, and sense the energy around you. Visualize the perfect moon above you, regardless of whether you know its current phase. Sense the celestial body’s steady path around the Earth, and know this moon as the essence of the primal, ancient feminine. Envision the lunar energy field as vibrating with a soft diamond-white glow and, now, with every inhale, pull the moon’s essence into you. Down, down, down the moonlight descends, entering your third-eye center, the intuitive space between and above your brows, with every inhale. As you exhale, let this diamond-light get more vibrant. Inhaling, draw the moon essence deep into your being, slowly being filled with these vibrations all the way down to your roots. Exhaling as the moon milk fills your sweet, soft body, let the brilliant energy glow brighter, and