Walking the Path of the Wild Mother

How has January been unfolding in your world? Are you finding your feet in its novel wildness and stepping into the new you that 2015 is calling forth?

I hope so.

I’ve been a hermit in my own space, cocooning and incubating ideas and intentions. I’ve been breathing in the warm azure skies, drinking in the summer rain and enjoying the slow pace at which my wild essence is emerging in this fine January. It seems life lies before me, a blank canvas waiting for me to create something beautiful with the colours and contents of my wild heart. So, I’ve been taking my time in deciding what it is that I want to create.

My wise inner voice keeps whispering in gentle hushed tones – “Be still. Dream. There is no need to rush.” And I am heeding these wild whispers. This has been a recurrent theme for me for several months now, and I think I’m getting better at listening to what my soul needs.

By now, I’m sure that many of you have found your word for the year, identified your cored desired feelings and mapped out your goals. What word/s did you choose? What have you decided to work towards, manifest or focus your time on?

It took me a while to find a word focus for 2015. In the end I decided on a two-word mantra – ‘Wild Mother’.

Last year, my word was Birth. I’d hoped that focusing on the vibration of that word would invite two things into my life – birthing my book, and birthing my baby. While I am grateful that one of those came to pass, publishing my book, Wild Essence, my pregnancy didn’t go as I’d hope. So this year, my attention is geared towards my deep soul desire to become a mother.

A Kundalini healer once told me that the process of conception, pregnancy and childbirth is about wild abandon. She said that this involves releasing fear and surrendering the need for control. It’s about releasing a restrictive mindset and attuning to the flow of the Universe, as well as drawing out the inner wild woman. That makes a lot of sense to me, hence the choice of words for my mantra.

I feel that in the last couple of years, life has been bringing these lessons into my experience in many ways, especially when it comes to the lessons and wisdom I’ve stumbled upon through my connection with the wild Earth. As you know, I’ve been exploring ideas of wildness for a while. I’m now devoting myself to consciously delving deeper into what wildness and motherhood mean for me. I am inviting the archetypal energy of the Wild Mother into my consciousness.

As I set out to walk the path of the Wild Mother, I invite a few allies to journey with me – Goddess, Great Mother Earth, Archangel Gabrielle, the ancient Grandmothers and the guiding light of all those who embody divine femininity. Those who can light the path for me, walk with me and catalyse the healing and inspiration that I need along the way.

I have no idea how walking this path will unfold. I know that it won’t always be easy. But I am optimistic and remain hopeful that it will unearth a chest of positive and inspired blessings.

And so the journey begins….

How Are You Ushering in the New Year?

Last night, my husband and I took a swim under the evening sky, with the waxing moon glowing gloriously and tiny stars slowly appearing. It was a beautiful warm summer evening, the kind that rekindles one’s childhood sense of wonder. The kind that draws one’s playful wild essence out to the fore and makes you laugh at silly things while grazing up at the summer stars. What a beautiful way to pass time!

It’s the first time in a few years that I won’t be ending and starting the year out in the bushveld. Usually by now we are driving through long dry grasses, spotting herds of eland, zebra and wildebeest galloping across the land. Unfortunately, my hubby’s work schedule doesn’t allow for it this year since we already took a family trip to the Karoo and the Cape 2 weeks ago. So we will probably only return to the bush in February or March.

Instead, we’ll be spending our NYE with our dear friends at an intimate dinner party. These are some our longest friends and we haven’t spent time in their soul soothing company in several weeks. So I am looking forward to a relaxed and fun evening of catching up, silly stories and dreaming of what we want to attract 2015.

Although I chose words and core desired feelings for the year, I don’t really make resolutions. This year, I decided to try something different. I got a special box for myself, and one for the friends we’ll be spending time with this evening too. It will be called the “Wild Blessings Box”. The idea is that from January 1st, each time something nice happens – a moment of happiness, something that makes me smile, things that make me grateful, blessings or miracles that come my way, moments of simplicity, peace and stillness – I’ll write it down on a piece of paper and put it in the box. Then at the end of 2015, on New years eve, my hubby and I will revisit our box and gather all our wild blessings into our hearts. I read about this idea in Wild Comfort by Kathleen Dean Moore a few months ago and fell in love with the concept of her “Happy Box” immediately. I’ve awaiting patiently for the right time to start my own.

Nevertheless, to give a little idea of how I usually spend New Years, I thought I’d share an excerpt from the first chapter of the Wild Essence book. Hope that you enjoy it:

I look up at the star studded sky over the African bushveld as diamonds twinkle against the black blanket of night. There is no moon tonight, only the primal call of lions and jackal that echoes from unseen places in the dark. The palpable sense of mystery suspended in the warm evening air leaves me with the impression that this is the land that Spirit made at the beginning of time. Some pieces of wild Earth feel as timeless as our souls when they are unaltered by the hand of man. In my mind’s eye, I conjure up images of the ancients roaming these grassy plains in a period long past and forgotten. I see their phantom silhouettes sitting and dancing around the crackling fire, telling the stories that time has passed down through their bloodlines. Perhaps thousands of years ago they stood looking up at the same sky on a moonless night, writing the stories of the land in the stars – Orion’s Belt cast in the role of three zebras and Pleiades playing the daughters of the sky gods – as Bushmen mythology tells.

“There is nothing more beautiful than this,” my thoughts whisper as I listen to the sound of noctivagant creatures.

It’s been a wonderful evening. Just hours ago I watched the last sunset of the year melt across the tranquil grasslands and the sun dissolve into its slumber before we headed down to the communal boma of the game lodge for an intimate gathering to honor the festivities of the occasion. For a couple years now, I’ve had the privilege of seeing in the New Year with my husband and a close circle of cherished friends in the ‘cathedral of the wild’ as conservationist Boyd Varty calls it. The ambience is so relaxed and we’ve enjoyed great food, conversations and lots of full bellied laughs. Since we’ve been coming here, I can’t imagine being anywhere else. Usually I am so focused on ushering in another year and wondering what it will bring my way. This time, as the sun set on 2013, I took a moment of solitude to honor what has been, both the blessings for which I am grateful and the struggles that I’ve failed to accept. I exhaled and released it all. What has been has been. “May what is lost be forgotten or returned to me in a new form if it is meant to,” I said quietly in my heart. I felt a sense of relief as I did.

Wild Essence Book is here!

There are so many feelings stirring within me right now. Excitement, joy, anxiety, gratitude…but mostly gratitude.

Why? Because the day has arrived!

After months of sweat and toil, months of writing, editing and getting to the nitty-gritty of the publishing process, my book, Wild Essence, is now published and available for purchase.

I am so grateful to be able to share the contents of my heart with you through these pages. Wild Essence is a book about connecting with your true self, the wild and beautiful essence alive within you and releasing what keeps your wild heart domesticated. It’s a spiritual journey about liberating and re-wilding your soul to return to that natural sense of personal peace and freedom.

Since I find so much inspiration and healing from Mother Earth, the book also includes intricately woven threads of wild whispers, insights and analogies from Nature.

As I shared in a blog post a last week, Wild Essence my love letter to the women of the world – women like me – whose souls have been broken in to submission to remind them that they are essentially wild creatures of profound beauty who are meant to be and express all of who they are, not lurk in the shadows.

Wild Essence is available for purchase at Balboa Press, Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble.