Part Three of the Women Who Dare To Be Wild series.

 

Women Who Dare to Be Wild: a person who is courageous enough to be wild and confident enough to take action in accordance with their wild self despite what the culture says they should be. Wild lies within the chaos of the unknown. It has to do with other ways of knowing besides rationalization like feeling, intuition, and instincts. It is the capricious movement of life at many layers of reality: in our psyches (our souls), in our interpersonal relationships, and in our societies. 

 

 

History can show us the wild has been suppressed in people for many centuries. The barbaric savage is not seen as a civilized member of society. Okay, I’m being extreme – we all know the times when cavemen roamed the Earth are long gone.  But are there aspects of the barbaric savage that we suppress, that may very well be what we are longing for in ourselves and our lives? And there is more to “wild” than the perceived “wild savage”. Our beliefs and ideas about what wild is have been manipulated for a long time. Throughout history events, discoveries, and ideas have formed our collective unconscious beliefs about who we are and what we are not.

This quote from James Baldwin, expressing how we carry history within us, shows just how much we are affected by the past:

 

For history, as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely some- thing to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do. It could scarcely be otherwise, since it is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities, and our aspirations.

And it is with great pain and terror that one begins to realize this. In great pain and terror, one begins to assess the history which has placed one where one is, and formed one’s point of view. In great pain and terror, because, thereafter, one enters into battle with that historical creation, oneself, and attempts to recreate oneself according to a principle more humane and more liberating; one begins the attempt to achieve a level of personal maturity and freedom which robs history of its tyrannical power, and also changes history.  –James Baldwin, Unnameable Objects, Unspeakable Crimes

 

So many of our beliefs have been morphed and altered from societal messages. Believing we have to be a certain way to be lovable, to love ourselves, to just be okay is a large distortion we carry in our psyche. The thoughts that tell us we need to be skinner, healthier, happier make us feel like we are lacking. I believe this distortion stems from the misunderstanding of power. The people in our lives (family, teachers, celebrities, actors, etc.) do not teach us how powerful we are. Our power (strength, ability, worthiness, immanence) is not power-over: domination over other things and people. No, it stems from the understanding that there is inherent magic in everything and that everything and everyone is perfect as they are. A great author, Starhawk, calls this power-from-within. This power is deep within you, connected to the chaotic world, and can be felt and intuited. When we shift our awareness to the power within, all the outside messages lose their strength. We no longer believe we have to own a specific thing or be something we currently are not, to be okay.

 

Liberating the wild, creative, power deep within you will transform your life.

 

So what in history is present in us today that creates a distorted view of ourselves and our reality?

Since birth, we are raised in a culture of estrangement, seeing the world around us as nonliving parts, that can be manipulated, valued only by an outside standard not for what they inherently are. This shapes our consciousness, and it very much has to do with how most religions view God, as being something outside of us to be feared and obeyed. Over the past years, researching this topic, I’ve found this way of viewing the world as the western ideology. The west being European Countries and nations that were created by Europeans like the United States. The ‘west’ use to be conquerors and missionaries now they are the leading nations in the globalized capitalist economy. It is a system of power-over, with philosophies based on production, control, and fear of the unknown.

Disclaimer: Please do not think some of these ideas are all bad. I’m speaking about the foundations of our western reality; they are still current and real, which means they are in you and what is in you is not bad, it just is. Look within to see the truth, but please don’t go judging it. Be gentle with yourself and others. Some of the ideas hold us together and still drive us to do more in our lives. I don’t believe we can or should go back to an uncivilized world, but I do think we can become aware of destructive patterns and choose differently.

Ideas that got us where we are

Dualism

Dualism is separating things to attempt to understand them logically.

The separation of

man and nature,

women and men,

mind and body,

and light and dark.

This focusing on the thinking mind, dividing subjects into opposite ends to compare and contrast so they could be wholly known and controlled, limits the complex magic of the items we are observing.

The issue with dualism is that nothing is clean cut. We know this intuitively; nothing is black or white. Some people don’t like this argument though, because it hurts their ego. Their mind wants to know something because they feel secure in that knowledge. When told it is not that simple, fear creeps in.

 

Fearing what we do not understand

In our western consciousness, we put power in knowledge. When we do not “know” something, we feel weak, dumb, less than. So our thinking mind wants to know everything. We know intuitively that we can’t possibly know everything, but our ego mind will play dirty tricks on us. Have you ever met something who thinks they know everything? They go about their lives belittling everything and everyone into this formed idea that they can understand.

 

Hierarchy of power

In every circumstance, there is a power dynamic. There is a ranking system of control or power. In the office, you have the general boss, supervisors, then entry-level personnel. Within your friends’ group, you may have a few outspoken, dominating peers; wingman to those dominating ones; and followers of the two types. In the classroom, there is the teacher, the teacher assistant, the popular kids, the rebels with a cause, the nerds, band geeks, and all the stragglers who don’t belong to a group. It might seem like I’m extreme here, but I want to lay this hierarchy out in plain sight. Our society does this all the time. We divide power into groups, and this directly correlates with our worth.

The problem here is that in every situation we have some outside standard for the power structuring, it is not taking into account the inherent and unique worth of every person or thing.  Also for it to continue, we must all agree with the rules of the hierarchy and structuring. If we do not accept, we break up the system, and the system loses its power over us.

 

Capitalism

At first glance, Capitalism may not seem relevant when thinking psychologically about the wild within oneself, but once understood that history resides within us and forms the culture we are emerged in, we can narrow in on aspects of Capitalism that have changed our reality. It begins with the creation of markets and trade in Europe centuries ago. At this time, communities sold excess supplies after their needs were met at the market. They would mostly trade items and work within their communities, sustaining themselves. Also, gatherings would occur where they could gossip, pass on information, support each other, and hold rituals. The markets soon grew larger and more significant due to the wealthy importing and exporting items from other countries. This time in history was the era of colonialism: powerful empires and colonies sent their best to discover resources in faraway lands. Often they had to fight for the resources and take them from the local tribes and communities that lived there. The powerful wanted more. So they used slavery as a way of accumulating as much as they could.

 

Valuing discovery for accumulation instead of understanding

We want to travel the world to say we’ve been there. We feel better than others. Status elevated. What did we learn from their culture? Who cares, we got to get pictures in front of foreign shacks and beautiful scenery. We describe them as the third world poor. We can’t see how they would want to live as they do.  —The dark side of our culture.

Discovering is jaded, to begin with. The very act of discovering is finding or seeing or experiencing something that wasn’t, that now is. Implying that the small rural town in Zimbabwe didn’t exist before you got there, or the Moroccan sweater you found wasn’t valuable before you brought it home to sell vintage. Discovering is cringeworthy, right up there with cultural appropriation.

Back to the main point here, when “discovering” something you once did not know, don’t think you will know it right away. Please understand, that you are seeing and understanding the thing observed from your perspective (your culture, your history, your education, your bias). Know that this thing or place has it’s own perspective (culture, history, education, bias) that can be completely different than your own. Valuing understanding can shift us away from trying to elevate our status by accumulating experiences, things, and resources.

 

Value of a person associated with production

What have you produced in your lifetime? Have you created anything of value? How much work can you get done in a day that will convert to the dollar? This idea is ingrained in us. Often I beat myself up for not being more “productive.” We look down upon those who are not a “productive member of society,” who are not contributing in some way. This has shifted from participating in the community for subsistence to contributing to the market economy.

 

Discipline

Working for the man, we have internalized the value of being disciplined. The slave owner no longer needs to tell us to keep working, we value being disciplined and working hard, so we tell ourselves to keep working. I think discipline is important, but with a goal that we want not a goal for someone else. Many of us work just for the paycheck to be able to provide for ourselves and our families. Valuing a good work ethic gets us through tough times. But there is so much more to life than work.

 

God being outside of ourselves

Believing God is separate than us creates many delusions. Most importantly the belief that we are less powerful than he, giving away the power of creation to an outside source.

 

Rationalism

Rationalism is the belief that acting in the world should be based on rational thinking (reason and certainty) rather than experiencing (feeling or intuition). The problem with rationalism is when it is taken as an absolute and valued above all other foundations of knowledge. When societies, organizations, or relationships value rationality over other forms of knowing, we can feel estranged and disconnected from our deeper selves.

 

Viewing the world as nonliving to be controlled

This idea can be seen as humans thinking only humans have value, and that nature is for us to control and manipulate for our purposes. Western civilizations have for centuries, even millenniums, valued progressive cities. They have valued industrializing and creating systems that progress the human existence forward, with no regard to consequences on our planet Earth. This is a selfish, destructive mindset.

 

Individualism

A cosmological shift occurred where humans stopped believing in the interconnectivity of self and began to think of the self as separate from other people and things and an entity all of its own.

 

Alienation

We have been separated from our food; from the making of our furniture, appliances and other household items; and even from our health. We buy everything we have. Over many centuries, processes have been created to optimize production and gain money, resulting in the removal of knowing how to sustain oneself. We are denied the satisfaction of creating and witnessing the final product. Even our advancements in technology, have alienated us from other people. Often slowly, sometimes abruptly we have been separated from all these things.

 

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It’s easier to think of our current ideology as a house. The foundation has been there for a long time, allowing the rest of the house to build upwards. The first floor then is built upon the foundation with walls (ideas). If walls were not there, there would be no functioning rooms. The top level is our more modern ideas and beliefs, built upon the bottom floor’s walls.

Most of us live in this house. The work I’m here to do is to awaken you from the dream that the house is all there is. Although it may be scary, there is so much outside of this house. You may be raised in it and it may be all you know, but you can reclaim other ways of living. The safety of this house is a delusion. Deep down you feel there is more to life; there is a depth to your experience you feel is missing.

 

Check out the other posts in this series.

-Kristina