The Holy Wild. Danielle Dulsky

see whether she was being watched. In that moment, she cared little for what laws had tried to contain her. She hoped quite fervently that she would be seen as she wrapped her shaking fingers around the apple. Heaven help her, she hoped some vengeful deity was looking down as she sunk her teeth deep into pure, sweet passion. She was defiant in the face of her continued captivity, a rebel heathen who was no longer content to stay in this unholy Eden. In this moment, Lilith would risk it all, everything she knew herself to be, for just a taste of the Holy Wild.

      “Yes, my serpentine Sister,” Lilith hissed. “I beg you forgive the fear that kept my lips from this righteous fruit for so long, that keeps me tethered to a Garden of Lies out of a bone-deep resistance to loneliness. They called me evil, and I believed them. They promised salvation from my sinfulness, and I waited for redemption. All the while, the skeleton key that could unlock every vine-wrapped cage, the sharp blade that could slice through these thin-growing binds of mine, was blooming and bearing beauteous fruit.”

      This one small meal was Lilith’s instantaneous descent into the red realm of soul, a particular and empowered individuality entirely her own. Every time the gritty marrow of the fruit touched her tongue, she caught a glimpse of her destiny. With every hearty swallow, she saw the rainbow shades of her liberated life. This garden-hell, this too-small life, was now completely colorless, devoid of fiery purpose and sensual majesty, but she had not realized it until this moment. Never before had she so clearly known the way out of this lifeless cage, and, sucking the juice from the core, Lilith vowed to seek out a wilder home.

      She stood in her own power for the first time since she had been brought to this place, and she howled into the depths of the garden, calling any other living creature to join her in her escape. Uncoiling her scaled companion and looking it square in its black-diamond eyes, Lilith offered the creature heartfelt gratitude and a bone-deep affirmation: “Thank you. We don’t belong here.” Spreading her black wings wide, Lilith kissed the Tree of Knowledge before taking to the ever-spiraling Red Road, the escape route that had been there for her all along, the homeward path to the wilds.

BLESSED BE THESE MANY GARDENS: WHERE SHE RIPPED UP HER ROOTS

      Blessed be our many gardens. Without such confinements, we would not have known the bliss of wilder ground. The mechanisms of feminine suppression are pervasive and stealthy, and, within the garden that houses a Wild One’s too-small life, these limiting forces are the primary shapers of her perception for a time. The rules of the garden may not seem unjust until the awakening begins — but, like Lilith after she tastes the forbidden fruit, a wild woman will refuse to settle for a colorless way of being, viscerally rejecting it, after she has seen the brilliance of a better, brighter way forward.

      We are always busting open and out of the worlds we outgrow, the circles, partnerships, and safe spaces we once held so dear but which now, for various reasons, do not command our respect or deserve our allegiance. My love, I ask you to consider your personal Edens, to reflect upon your unique experience of your many gardens as you would define them today. To reflect means “to bend back,” with any memory being merely a reflection of who you are now as the reflector. You may never remember your gardens the same way twice, so do not feel limited by your in-the-moment answers to the questions I pose here. We are cyclical creatures, and your many initiations, rebellions, and homecomings all serve to shape and reshape your her-story, your epic heroine’s journey toward authenticity. Remember, the story of the Priestess of the Wild Earth archetype, like those of the other four archetypes offered herein, holds meaning only where it meets your lived experience. This is where the verses spark to life, and this is where you find your tools for making sense of your many initiations.

      Lilith’s time spent trapped within the boundaries of an unequal relationship is a familiar wound many wild women share, and I ask you to consider her story a metaphor for your own story of spiritual confinement and liberation, whatever those words might mean for you. I will ask you, Priestess, to know yourself as her, this Goddess who risked it all to save no one except herself, and I will ask you to be positively guiltless in your memories of jailbreaking your feminine soul from the confines of the too-dull, too-small garden. We all have our own gardens, be they tangible spaces we lived in so long that we could almost smell them or psychic spaces where it was sparkling, seemingly flawless belief systems that caged us. The garden is often perceived initially as a sanctuary of sorts, safe if only for its predictability. For wild women, our gardens may be our parents’ homes, our first marriage or long-term romantic relationship, a spiritual community or a particular religion, a workplace with a strong, cohesive culture, a close circle of friends, or any other physical or energetic space that felt necessary at first, only to become far too confining for the Wild One within. A budding Priestess is quite content in her garden for a time. It suits her well to know precisely where everything grows. The garden is predictable and, for a limited duration only, is a fulfilling place to be. The wild woman is born in a garden, but she’d rather be damned than die in one.

      When does the heathen choose to leave the manicured garden and seek out uncultivated land? There is no universal force that prompts the reawakening. For some of us, the veil is lifted when the wild woman sees an egregious injustice within her safe space. Her values, her deepest convictions, and her very sense of self-worth are threatened by this thing, and she can no longer will herself to hold still. Mind you, very often the garden itself has not changed; she has changed. Once the integration of her soul-designed passions and purpose begins, once she endeavors to find meaning in her wounds and more closely examine the role of choice in her life, once recovery from addiction has been initiated, or once a certain level of genuine self-inquiry has been reached, these traits that were so easily buried in the garden begin to stretch upward and sprout to the surface, but the rainbow hues of this new growth do not match those of the existing garden vegetation.

      The awakening wild woman begins to feel a deeper kinship with the Earth, and nature begins to fill a need the garden no longer satisfies. For many of us, a sign straight from nature is what beckons us home. These sunrise epiphanies, lonely walks on a beach, and overgray days spent in the depths of our longing all call us away from the garden and toward our wilder home. Whatever the essence of the knowledge that bids her to wake, whatever the scent of the forbidden fruit, the wild woman begins to feel she no longer belongs there among those blooming-garden illusions she knows so well.

      This soul growth is triggered by an irrevocable acknowledgment that something is amiss. She has been licked alive, and for all its flowery glory, the garden now contains a festering stink to which her duller senses were immune. The particular injustice that, upon first sight, ignites the wild woman’s fire may simply be unconditional rules that succeeded in taming her for years or more. It may be the mistreatment of others who are in the garden with her by some authority figure, abuse in its myriad forms, spiritually predatory behavior, or, less specifically, the recognition that others are carving their own wounds out on her skin. This is the moment in the early chapters of a wild woman’s story when she may not be sure where she is headed, she may not know where she wants to ultimately be, but from deep within her bowels a single, persistent mantra begins to echo: Not here. Not here. Not here.

      Handwritten Verses: A Letter Sent to Eden

      May all wise women strive to be those gracious mentors they needed in their younger years. In your journal, begin by writing a letter to your younger self, a promise of redemption. Write the words you needed to hear when you were Lilith trapped in Eden. You may use the prompts I offer here or adapt these words to make the letter more authentic to your story.

      Dear Priestess of the Wild Earth,

       I understand the pain of this garden you find yourself in, and I promise...

       Always remember that you are...

       These are days when you find yourself searching for the Tree of Knowledge; look for it in...

       In this moment, I can offer you this one, single hope:...

       May you always remember the sheer beauty you are, and may you grow to