wild woman x

Originally published 4th November 2023

Throughout the past two-three years, I’ve found companionship with grief.

At first, she arrived at my door unexpected. Uninvited. Unwelcomed.

For over three decades of my life, I had labeled grief as an emotion. Something felt through times of deep sorrow and sadness. Yet on reflection, I had used the word quite easily… to describe my rational thinking state when an animal had past away, or a horrific event headlined our media streams.

But then something happened, and it was as if I suddenly knew, for the first time, what grief truly was. I had realized all the time before it was merely just a word to me and not an emotion, and I felt embarrassed for mislabelling so many situations as such.

Though a certain situation had acted as a catalyst for her, for Grief, I realized she was waiting patiently for me all along.

At first, she brought me a basket of anger and hollowness. So many questions of why. So many tears. So many cries out into the night like a wolf amongst the shadows. She brought a bouquet of new traits, and thoughts, and characteristics which had not previously been my own, and were not necessarily wanted. The kind of flowers with a pungent scent that makes your nose curl and your eyes squint.

Who was this being? These emotions, within this container I had had all my life? What were these thoughts, these feelings, holding agency over my body and captivity over my freewill and decisiveness? Over my illusions of happiness and certainty?

Grief brought with her confusion, wrapped with a bow. A hollow box. The vast landscape of a dark abyss with nothing to grasp or cling onto. She brought with her awareness. Awareness to the things which I had suppressed… Resentment. Abandonment. Anger and Upheaval. Whys upon Whys.

Awareness to the isolation and the straps on the straight jacket.

Awareness to the padded walls.

The empty cell.

The empty bed.

The empty tank.

The empty heart.

And I wished her away. I did not want Grief to stay, for she brought me so much pain. So much hurt.

Though she would not go.

She would not go. She would not go.

And after so much time of watching her curl her ankles around the legs of the chair, I had no choice but accept her presence. And I sat in her chair. And I looked in her mirror. And suddenly this house was hers and it was not mine. I was her guest. I was her identity. And I carried her with me and we gave each other shelter. And I spoke her words through my lips, and she embodied her being as my very own.

And finally, finally, she broke me.

She’s still breaking me as I write these very words.

A forever cracking tea cup, compressed with pressure and wear.

She did what she came here to do. She succeeded. Because to break me was her mission. It was her purpose. It was why she was created.

Grief had placed me so far out of my alignment, so many worlds away from my homeland, so blinded with fog and confusion and longing desire to feel myself again, that I no longer have a choice but to awaken to what it is she wants me to see.

For I am too small for this container. For I am meant for a bigger one.

For I needed to be cocooned within the darkness before the dawn, and broken so the light could finally shine through.

From seed to sapling, to bud to bloom, and back to seed once more. This is not the cycle of my life. It is the cycle of the wild woman. The wild women whom I will continuously evolve and transform and metamorphize into throughout the rest of my being.

For Grief is here to be my company, but also my friend. She is here to present the obstacles, even the ones that feel like a pointed corner of a wooden table’s edge, as invitations to Shapeshift. To be flexible. To reimagine my being into something more beautifully intricate instead of something hindered by a snag in the tapestry.

She is here to show me that I am not my emotions. That they are simply energy in motion.

I was recently told that an emotion is a chemical reaction which happens in the body for a duration of 90-seconds. It is then up to myself if I decide to continuously feel it and take it on as my identity. Grief has taught me that… is still teaching me that.

She has introduced me to the Wild Woman. A suppressed Soul-strice who had been shamed and burned and banned and transfigured by our capitalistic and patriarchal societies. This formed world of boundaries and limits and rules, which has built its steal figures and crumbling structures on top of our land and stripped our imaginations of the freedom to think for ourselves and imagine and create better ways to use the space.

She has been tamed by buckets of water thrown upon her fire to extinguish her roar. Her passion. Her desire. The hunt and the hunger. The protection. The loyalty she sings as she opens her mouth. It has all been misquoted. Deepfaked. Cleaned up and presently nicely to evoke no feelings at all to the receiver.

For I do not wish to inconvenience you. I do not wish to burden you. I do not wish to make you sad. And I do not wish to ask for anything which you will need to willingly sacrifice for me. No love. No support. No guidance. No wisdom. No comfort. No companionship.

For I will suppress these dreams. These desires. These concerns. These feelings I feel. These thoughts I think. I will bury them deep deep deep down, for I have been made to believe they are not welcome in this world.

I have been made, misguided, mistold, and forced to believe this.

And Grief? She is no grim reaper. She is not the doomsday, the hollow cavity, the guillotine’s blade.

She is the Sovereign. The white horse. The priestess to come and offer a hand while she guides me towards the golden horizon.

She has refused my voluntary sacrifice of the dreamer and lover and wolf within. She will not accept it. And I can stay in this torture chamber however long I like, it is up to me.

Grief crosses her arms and taps her toe.

Have you had enough? she asks. It is not as if I want you here. It is not that I wish to bring you pain. But this is what it has come to. For your heart to stop on the table. For the light to go out and the cold slab beneath to all-encompass you.

All so I can revive you. All so I can be the air for your lungs. And the rise in your chest. And the beat in your heart.

For you are a wild woman. And will be many wild women in your life. And you will die and be reborn many times. And if you’ve learned anything at all from my presence, from this experience, I hope it is that you know that human life does not have to be this painful. In fact, what some consider to be pain can almost be gratifying. A gift from beyond. An invitation to unlearn and relearn. An opportunity for you to teach those around you of what you have learned. To be there for them in their similar moments with Grief. For you have been there, you know me well. For I am no enemy, but your friend. A mirror to show you not a new reflection, but a different angle.

You still will not possess the answers which your human existence craves to navigate this formed world. But your spiritual being, which is both the vehicle and the destination, knows the way now. Not a way to a certain place or a certain mindset, but a way of being.

For you are wild. You are free. You are human and you are flawed. And flaws and cracks and unanswered questions are beautiful and mysterious invitations to use our imaginations and shift into newness. Into being. Into wonders and marvels and stars.

And so.

I sit.

Not alone.

I sit with Grief. With the Wild Woman she has brought to my table. The Wild Woman who is me and who will bring forth more and more Wild Women to be.

Who need to be.

Not only for myself but yourself as well.

For this world.

And how lucky I am, that they choose me.

How lucky I am, to be broken. To finally see.

x Lindsay