The call of the Wild

I am a Priestess, a carrier of wisdom traditions. I’ve not always felt comfortable claiming that title but today I am. My whole life has been a series of experiences that has led me to this path, it has all been an initiation. The dark night of the soul, death, life, rebirth. The goddess that has overseen my path has created every avenue for me to step into this path. Her name is Goddess Isis. I’ve carried the wisdom of death when I’ve help souls to transition from this life to the other. I’ve help bring life into this world, my own and others, and I’ve had the privilege of marrying couples. Life, death, and rebirth, that is the wisdom I carry within. It is this wisdom that I share with women and men, those who are ready to go deeper.

This jungle, the ocean, the sun, the animals are all reminding me of my truth, that I am a powerful medicine woman and there is no explaining me. My medicine is not for everyone and that is just fine. I am as mysterious as the night, and untamable as nature. Yet many have tried to tame me. Whether that’s society, institutions, family, pop-culture, even that part of myself that once believed in the rules set by patriarchy.  The rhythm of this jungle life has inserted itself into my pores, in ways I do not know yet, but I am coming alive.

My daily rendezvous with the ocean and the changing of the guard in the dawn hours is cracking something open in me. Maybe it’s also the deep conversations with the women here who has had the courage to speak truth to their stories of the world and their families trying to tame them. I witness the pain these conditionings have had on us as women, the scars they’ve left.  And I also see the awakening within their eyes, the simmering heat, the tears that  validates what being placed in the box has cost them, and the hope they carry.

This morning as I sat with the ocean and the brightening sky, I heard her call, “come and cleanse.” I knew what she meant. I began my walk down the beach, tears already rolling down my cheeks, sorrows, sadness, pain all bubbling like heavy rocks in my belly. These are the energetic remnants of the stories heard last night and I was being called to cleanse. As a Priestess one of my gifts is to transmute energy and this morning I felt the call to come, come and cleanse and wail.

I walked down far enough as not to disturb the silent time ritual the retreat center has in the morning. I knew what would come, what needed to be released. The wailing. In western cultures women have forgotten to wail, to open their throat and bring the medicine forward. Wailing is necessary. It tells the story of the inner ache, the grief, and the need to speak that through sound from the mouth. Children do this well. They wail when they are not happy, they naturally know how to do this and we spank them for doing this, we clip their voices. Animals also do this.

The deep conditioning we’ve undergone has clipped our voices, we feel vulnerable, scared, and shy to wail. To be seen as untethered and yet it is that same allowing of being untethered to express our inner sorrows healthily that can also bring healing. We must give what is inside a voice, an expression. Today, I not only wailed and transmuted for them I did it also for myself, my mother and her mother, all the women that came before me.

As the water lapped at my feet, Mama Cona kissing and urging me to come closer I let it rip. The first sound was the sound of a siren wail. I do not know where that sound came from, hidden from some tucked away recess within me, it is a sound I have never heard before, loud, piercing, edgy. I could feel the energy I held in my upper belly rising, the urge to release saliva from throat, all the energy of discontent, grief, unhappiness. The second wail was guttural, raw, deep. It came from the depths of my lower belly, the womb. It went on and on for what felt like minutes nonstop. A roaring. This was the ancestors wail I knew. All the feminine that has been abused, came rolling out my mouth, Mama Cona held me. I could feel my belly heaving, the energy rolling forth from my mouth, I gave what came out to the ocean, for cleansing. I continued this way until I was done, until there was nothing left to give. I washed my arms, my face with the ocean, letting her salt clean me.

Transmuting has always been my gift, today for the first time I honored this gift intentionally. I honored with deep reverence and awareness that my body would not hold these stories and the need to release was upon me. This energy exchange between me, the ocean, and the goddess this morning served as a reminder that we must return to the old ways of healing as women. We must remember to wail and honor the pain we carry inside. Our pain will not serve us if it is locked up and hidden, the medicine or wisdom will not come, it cannot be birthed. It will only serve to create a festering from within that will cause us to be sour, void of any sweetness. This is death to a woman.

Culture has stripped us of this right, so has patriarchy. We must be quiet women, to be seen but not heard. This dries us up as women, withers any vitality we have left. Being here in the jungle is an opportunity to remember our true selves. The animal that still lives within, the animal that wants to wail. Here we cannot come with our knowledge, ideas, and theories to explain things away. Here we come with our bodies to feel and to be heard. We add our voices to the already loud cacophony of animal noises that live here. They are also showing us the way.

My greatest hope and wish for any woman, for these women who have gathered here is to remember your voice and remember to wail when it’s needed. You can do it in the comfort of your home, among friends who can hold space for you, with your therapist if they’re bold enough to allow that or you can come to the wild, and remember your own wildness. For every woman, that wildness is calling you to remember the true essence of yourself.