Thoughts on the Feminine, Fire and the In Between

There is a force inside of me I have feared would eat everything alive if I let it. 

Like the wildfires and the raging seas consuming life all over the Earth. The wild in me is powerful that way. It comes from the same place.

It holds hands with the Earth. It roars with the sea and the fire and the wind. It destroys and then honours what is dying. It is hard for me, in this human form, to know what to do with this force. My body claws itself from the inside. My energy swirls darkly making me sick. My emotions burn black holes in my skin. My mind races to find solutions. My spirit trusts, but only just barely, sometimes.

I am struggling to break free of the conditioning of this mighty system. These walls, these rules, these structures, these ideas, these toys. All created to keep me safe from this wildness, this force.

All the stories that I know are suffocating. They have been stifling this force inside me since the day I was born. Tying down my wildness. Silencing me. Forbidding me to be who I really am. This is not what it means to be safe. My heart knows.

I am trying to break free! I scream. Do you hear me?

But there is only silence. I am heavy. Weighed down by the stories. It is hard to speak my truth from this in between place.

And so I dance. And I write. And I dance. And I write. And I find moments, small ways, to reconnect with what is lost – my creativity, my cycle, my curves and the moon. I find spaces where my wildness can be held, and where I can hold the wildness of others. I find spaces where we can burn.

Sometimes I collapse into a ball and shake furious with tears. Sometimes I snarl like a predator about to pounce on its prey. Sometimes I laugh hysterically in a voice that is not mine, from a place beyond this place and time. Sometimes I breathe deep into my womb and howl into the night.

There is no space for this kind of wild in our world.

This kind of wild is labelled dangerous. Crazy. Stupid. Silly. Overly dramatic. Witchy. Not too long ago women were burned alive for these things.

Sometimes I believe these stories – that my wild nature is dangerous. Look to the past, the voice says. See all the times you have listened to this voice, allowed this force, acted from this place. Do you remember the destruction? Careers dropped, people left, homes abandoned. Lives destroyed. Hearts broken. Reckless launching into unstable, unsustainable, insatiable things.

There is plenty of evidence, the voice says. The wild woman cannot be trusted. It is she who makes us unsafe. What we need is more rules, more structures, more systems to keep her tame and in place.

FUCK NO.

In my heart, in my soul, in every ounce of my body – with all of who I am – I say, FUCK NO.

These stories are simply not true. They are not serving me. They are not serving Life. They are not needed. They must be let go. It is no longer their time.   

If you starve yourself all day, you will gorge at night. If you suppress your wild for years and years, at some point she will burst free screaming, ready to fight. The wild feminine cannot be eliminated any more than the need to eat.

The Earth is the Divine Mother, nurturing bearer of new life. But she is also Kali, the Fire Goddess, the bringer of destruction, alchemy, death and rebirth. If we do not take off the shackles of shame we have placed upon the Feminine and love her for all that she is, she will burst free and restore balance by destroying all that is structured and masculine to the extreme.

Look around. She already is.  

Every night I stare into the small flicker of my candle and I pray that I will find strength to let go of my own stories of controlling and keeping safe. Every day I work with my own Fire. I forgive myself for the misguided bursts of pent up destruction. I remind myself I am learning to be with my wild again. I am bringing myself back into balance. I am learning to love myself – all of myself – not just my masculine drive and my nurturing mothering heart, but also my wildfire passion, my hurricanes of destruction, my arms that can hold death with reverence and delight, and my powerful visions of rebirth.

I am learning to trust my feminine wisdom.

I am learning to rewrite the stories I have been taught, and to live by new stories that serve me. Stories that are trusting of the wholeness of life. Stories that are honouring of my wildness. Stories that remind me I am needed in all the ways that I am.

And I am praying for our world, that, collectively, we will find the strength to trust deeply enough, and the courage to write a new story expansive and inclusive enough, to get us through these wild, in between times.

I am praying we remember that even in times of destruction and fire we are okay, that we are simply being stripped of our fear-based identities, our illusions of safety and the masks that keep us disconnected from Life.

I am praying we make space for the wild feminine in our hearts, in our lives, and in our world. I am praying we remember that in this in between time, it is our trust in Her Fire that will keep us safe, and warm our hearts in the dark of night.

xo,

Danielle