The Wild Woman Archetype: Exploring the Inner Wilds and Shadows
November Archetype: The Wild Woman
This November, we are exploring the feminine lifecycle archetype of The Wild Woman. The Wild Woman is the life stage when we descend into the dark time and explore our shadow and inner wilds. We support ourselves in this descent by resourcing from the Medicine Bag given to us by The Healer, and carefully and expertly navigate the wild terrain of our body and psyche to rewild ourselves (our body, emotions, and spirit) and discover any lost/hidden parts/selves that need to be retrieved. In doing so, we prepare ourselves for our upcoming death and rebirth at the end of the Lunar/menstrual cycle.
Associated Lifecycle Stage: Mid-40s-50s.
Associated Moon Cycle Phase: Waning Gibbous Moon.
Associated Season: Fall—Mid-Season, the Fall, Cooling, Dying Land, Wilding
Associated Womb Cycle Phase: Luteal Part 2. The Descent—fall of hormones
Associated Phase in Cosmological Cycle: The involution of life begins. Star systems die out. Planets die. Life ceases to be.
Associated Gifts: Shamanic prowess, becoming the Medicine Woman, Shadow Worker, Rewilding, Communing with Nature—animals, plants, living entities
The Wild Woman is the wildest self that is uncaged, raw, sensual, and seeks self-fulfillment and freedom. She is staunchly independent and roams the deep, dark forests of the psyche and the underworld belly, seeking self-knowing, personhood, sovereignty, lost soul pieces, shadow aspects, and wisdom. She is contemplative, critical, truth-telling, confrontational, and always deepening her full range of emotion and feeling. This woman "says it how it is" and "takes no prisoners."
The Wild Woman is the aspect of ourselves that is highly transformative, working courageously and fearlessly with the predators in the deep darkness to come into wholeness. When allowed to exist in wholeness, she is the evolution of The Healer and becomes The Medicine Woman. She is knowledgeable about her body and nervous system and knows every part of herself. She is a powerful ally and force for positive change. In this phase, a woman may have a very distinct feeling that she is actually "dying," and this is especially true for sensitive women. Her entire self is getting ready to die and be reborn in the new cycle (this cycle can be synonymous with whatever current cycle is being followed, such as the moon cycle, the menstrual cycle, the solar cycle, or a planetary cycle). The Wild Woman helps a woman prepare for bleeding by cleansing her spirit and body of what does not belong to her. The Wild Woman seeks liberation and is the death doula for The Crone.
Invitation: Somatic Practice. Meeting the Wild Woman
The Wild Woman is our most primal self. We can meet the Wild Woman of our psyche by going within ourselves and making contact with this part of ourselves.
I invite you to sit or lay down in a comfortable space. Check your space for cues of safety by looking around the room. Notice if there is anything you can do to make yourself more comfortable or feel safer. Find an object or image in your space that brings you comfort and connect with it.
Now close your eyes wherever you are sitting or laying down and begin to breathe slowly and deeply. Imagine you are walking into a jungle space. All around you, you hear wild animal noises; birds cawing, insects chirping, and other types of animals yowling and chattering. From out of the jungle a woman emerges. She has long dreadlocked hair and is covered from head to toe in plants and soil as if she came straight from the Earth. In your hand, you clutch the Medicine Bag given to you by the Healer. She stands in front of you, smiling with a wild playfulness. She reaches from behind her back and pulls out a lantern with a bright light within it. She hands you the lantern. She tells you that you can use this lantern whenever you go into a dark place in the wild wilds. It will help you see and navigate those spaces and see the shadows for what they are; a trick of the light dancing on an object.
You place the lantern in your medicine bag, knowing at any time, you can reach into this bag and pull out the lantern. The Wild Woman tells you she is always with you and ready to guide you whenever you call upon her. She disappears back into the jungles of your psyche.
Now wiggle your toes, legs, hips, and body, up to your arms and hands. move your head from side to side gently and return fully to your body. What was the felt sense of this experience like? Did you notice any sensations in your body when you met with the Wild Woman? Were you able to experience her essence and being as felt sense in your body?
If you like, you can journal about your experience.