About the Campfire Series:
Here at The Wild Woman Project, we deeply believe in the power of learning from and celebrating each other’s diverse experiences, stories, and perspectives. We also believe there is great power in allowing yourself to be witnessed. The Campfire Series gives us the feeling of gathering with our closest sisters around a fire (or a candle, or a bottle of wine) and sharing intimate stories. Naturally, when women gather, no two experiences are the same. These stories can range from sharing deep epiphanies, “hell yaasss” moments, heartaches, and downright silliness.
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Dear Beloved Wild Women,
As I focus on my skin as the boundary between myself and the world around me, I have been giving a lot of thought to being externally defined by skin color and trying to be conscious of whose eyes I am looking through as I seek to define my complex, wild, messy, and sometimes brave self.
For much of my life I internalized the outer cultural, social, parental, religious, racial, and economic structures into which I was born. I became infected with the same sickness that infects everyone born and reared in these deeply embedded power structures. This “ism” sickness feels sticky, tightly interwoven, self-perpetuating, numbing and limiting, dividing me from myself and others. Seeking to heal, I peel away layers of “isms.” My skin has always known what it needs to let go of, as it sheds and renews itself day after day.
As I allow myself to be fully in my skin, to define myself, to be free of external influences, a whole new world is revealed. I see my skin as pale bronze, with pinkish under tones, sprinkled with polka dots of freckles, bumps of blue veins, puckered scars of many shades, and age spots. My skin is beautiful. It is multi-colored, multi-dimensional, multi-textured, and multi-layered. It is a visible connection to the cycles of life in world around me and everyone and everything within it.
Dreams, skin, scars
Wake up, wake up
I’m dreaming.
It’s the anniversary of my beloved son’s death.
I hear a question.
Do you want to know?
Yes, yes, I barely whisper
You have a lump in your breast!
My fingertips press into my flesh.
There it is.
It feels like a small oval space ship.
Golden light wraps itself around me, singing “it will be OK.”
A merry-go-round of doctors
Daddy doctor wants to lop off my breast
And poison my body with dark chemicals
My sister begs, “Please get a second opinion.”
Doctors differ. Opinions differ.
How do I decide?
I feel like throwing myself under a bus.
Guided by an inner knowing
I choose the young, beautiful, woman surgeon
“I am going to take good care of you” she says
As she hugs me into the operating room.
Now, many, many moons later my skin shows
The ghost scars of her mastery.
So much time has passed.
So many lessons.
So much grace.
My life transformed.
Taking me places I didn’t even know
Were buried deep inside me
On the Horizon
Join us for an hour-long New Moon Meditation Adventure on December 2nd!
Online, from anywhere.
Using a dynamic meditation journey, we will tune into the New Moon, to your own Inner Guidance, synced up with wild-hearted women from around the world. This offering will include music, storytelling, meditation, journaling prompts & intention-setting.
Can’t make it live? No worries. All participants will receive a copy of the recording with 24 hours of the session.
Join the WILD WOMAN UNDERGROUND.
"The Circle Leader Training Program at The Wild Woman Project was one of the most transformative and healing experiences of my life. I have received many tools, resources, support, and connections that I will carry on with me forever." ~ Hannah Devin, Graduate
We have Wild Woman Project-trained Circle facilitators is 26 countries, and 44 out of the 50 United States.
I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t in love with the beauty, grace, songs and deep sighs of trees. They have been constant companions throughout my life and the open arms into which I fell when needing comfort. The arms of The Black Madonna now embraces me as well as I continue on my journey. The call “Stay Awake with Me” continues to resonate deeply within me as I swim in the ocean of the universality of spiritual teachings. I completed a two-year formal study of Universal Sufism with Pir Zia Inayat Khan and studied with Shaman Anne Drake. These experiences have given me insight into myself and into the seen and unseen worlds in which we life. Most recently I completed a course on Shamanic Astrology with Donna Woodward and continue to study the beauty, gifts and wisdom of the stars. Seeking to discover what is “True For Me” deep down in my bones, and to share with sisters drawn to discover their Truth is my on-going quest. I was blessed to graduate from Mount Holyoke College with an AB in Politics and Religion.
Email EleutherasGarden@gmail.com to join my circle in Lynn, MA.
Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful words, story and self. And your poem… Your poem was medicine. Thank you.
You write beautifully. Thank you. Sustenance for the Soul~
Oh Dear Qudsiya…I hear you deep in my heart sister! Thanks for your rich, heart gripping sharing. Much love and light on your journey of living with the death of your beloved son. hugs!
Thank you for sharing your experience, wisdom, and encouragement. Yes, your skin does sound beautiful!
this is immense beauty! – many thanks dear sister and teacher,
cinnamon blessings