Your Wild Self - Clare Russell

Wildness... to grow your way, to plant and root yourself in foundations that nurture your mind body and spirit, to turn towards what brings you light and warmth and to honour how your emotional waters move, tumble and flow through you.

In my case, on its simplest, most fundamental level, that means every day getting away from the computer, desk, powerpoint presentations and going to forage for my soul self in the woods and untamed landscape around my home.

Instantly I feel my spirit 'wake up'. I'm invited to be present with the full 360, non virtual actually real, experience of life growing, dying, living, changing all around me.

I touch into the season’s unique feel, taste, texture and smell. How the earth feels underfoot right now, which trees, plants and wildlife catch my attention. When I do give myself time in nature I feel refreshed by the constant changing landscape of every moment in the day, from sunrise to sunset. The ‘sameness’ of a life lived not in touch with the seasons shows its strangeness and I re-remember the limitless possibility of my creativity.

In fact, I can map the points of significant change in my life directly to the nature that was around me at the time, because I seek out wildness at times of personal growth. For example this lovely barn with no central heating, an annexed bathroom and wood burner for warmth was my wild retreat for 2 years. After leaving my job (where I had been based in the big metropolis of London and Shanghai), I left knowing only that I needed to follow my intuition, and my intuition took me straight to nature and wild places with travels to the Tibetan plateau, Californian redwoods, Egyptian deserts and finally landing in the land that felt like home, Celtic rooted Cornish countryside.

My intuition grew as I attuned to the seasons, watched sunrises and sunsets and learnt about the delights of foraging and going for wild intuitive walks without a map or compass. Because the truth is, that a huge part of our intelligence, creativity and sense of self is found when we re-wild.

Can you be urban AND wild?

Nearly everyone I know feels themselves 'reconnect' in nature, and is in awe of the beauty and aliveness of wild places.

Yet most of us live in cities, or at least spend a lot of time in them. So how can we find our own individual wildness underneath? How can we root deeply in our own natural way of being in the world?

These were the questions we asked at our recent Circle of Women. Now is the time to re-remember our direct connection to nature for not only our own health and wellbeing but also for future generations. It’s a painful reminder that whilst leopard and big cat prints are enduring fashion trends, the cats themselves are under threat through poaching and environmental degradation. Indeed, because we are ultimately connected to our wider ecosystem of plant, animal, elemental life, we instinctively know that playing at wildness, wearing wildness (as our urban warrior-ess protection alone), is unbearably inadequate verses the guardianship of self, land and species of which we are capable.

Yet if we don’t intimately know our wild self, that guardianship does not flow naturally, rather without our mycelia like interconnectivity with all life, we feel alone and fragile in the face of such vast responsibility. Yet the secret is (as Sharon Blackie writes in, ‘If Women Rose Rooted’ ) that our individual empowerment arises when we remember our natural sovereignty and queenship that’s deeply embedded in the landscape in which we belong.

How to recognize and embrace your wild self

If you want to go deeper into your connection with wildness, here is some of the collective intelligence of our Circle of Women:

Wildness and nature is about the collective, where as our modern culture focuses on the ‘little me’ individual. Personal growth is assumed to be just that, personal, something that we do independent of anything else and is in some ways selfish. Whereas the wild self says meaning and power comes from ecosystems, thriving is a collective interconnected activity. Learning to be you authentically and uniquely will take you to your purpose and the ‘gifts’ you have to give to the wider circle of life.

Your wild self is emotional, poetic, fierce, instinctive and deals with living and dying. Your tame self rejects and withdraws from the cycles of life and death and the strength of impulse and feeling. The tame self has made a bargain to stay within certain limits for the benefit of control, whereas the wild self chooses surrender and risk in return for freedom.

Your wild self is sensual, erotic and talks to you in symbols, tastes, rays of light on autumn leaves, crashing waves, tangled tree roots and bird song. These sensory impressions have an intelligence in and of themselves that changes you, bypasses the rational mind and awakens deeper intuitive, felt insights.

Your wild self is cyclical, the tame self is mechanical. Just like the Heroine’s Journey, you have your seasons of abundance, fruiting and growth in the summer that are only possible because of the harvest and letting go of autumn, the rest and stillness of winter, and the brave risking it all to grow the new in the spring. The tame self just wants 24/7 summer and judges herself as a failure with anything less. The wild self delights in and respects her full creative cycle.

Your wildness is closer than you think...

Those who come to Circle of Women events (which meet in the cities of London and Bristol), nearly all live in urban streets and work largely in urban offices. Yet, given a little space to share their stories of nature, they discovered that their local natural environment was constantly in a conversation with them, it was just about tuning in.

And when they did, there waiting for them was a vibrant wild self, one who knew that the fiery autumn leaves were reflecting their own strength of heart and passion, who saw that the beauty of the gentle morning mist was their beauty, who felt how the virulent bay tree was her inner vitality and strength, whose heart rested knowing the fragrant scent of dead dried herbs was the reminder that in all stages of our creative cycle, we have purpose and value. Each woman knew all along that nature and wildness was part of her, it was just about listening in a new way.

In the 2 short hours of a Circle of Women coming together, we could feel and see our wild selves returning to us. Each of us chooses how we grow our wild connection and continuing to listen to nature/our true nature. However never doubt that your wild self is within you. She may be in the subconscious speaking to you in your dreams, or playfully waiting for you in the sounds of the wind in the trees. Take some time to drink her in, attune to her language, and then find some wild travelers to share your stories and dreams with.

Together we can re-wild our hearts and homes and become beacons of remembering that wildness is both our birth right, and a gift to tend to and grow strong for ourselves and each other.

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