Core to the nature of the Wild Woman Archetype is an imperative to create, a hunger to engage in the adventure of the creative process, with all its magic and mess, and challenges, with its bursts of courage and streams of inspiration.
The wild feminine nature inside us all points to the fact that living life is an ongoing creative project, a process in which we have limitations & imagination, resistance & drive, weaknesses & strengths – all gifts in their own ways.
For the Wild Woman, engaging in every moment, every choice, every action (big or small) is like sweeping her paintbrush across the canvas.
Centering in Ceremony
In the Opening Ceremony of every single Wild Woman Fest, since 2014, I pose the question: Of all of the things you could be doing with your time, why are you here? Why now?
I do this to help each and every woman drop down an anchor in the midst of the big collective energy and experience. Why here? Why now? They are such personal questions, and for those who attended regularly, the answers change year to year.
One year, we wrote our whys down on pieces of colorful paper and put them in a big bowl which lived on our altar for the whole festival to help us remember we chose this experience for a reason. Naming the why is like planting a seed, which we can then tend, and check in on throughout the process.
Centering in Creative Leadership
In Circle Leader Training, we ask why? Why do I want to build my Circle Community? Why now? Each of our trainees have different answers to these questions, specific to who they are, their communities, and in what directions they are hoping to grow. After a year or five facilitating, the answers tend to evolve, to shift as we shift, to change as the world changes.
Centering on our Life Path
In the broadest sense, we can ask: Why am I here? Why now?
Befriending these questions by seeking our deeply personal answers can help us to make creative choices aligned with who we really are and what we really want.
Centering as Wild Women in the Modern World
In a noisy world, where we have unprecedented access to seeing how millions of other people are living – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – we are highly susceptible to the seduction of shoulds, the heart pangs of disrespectful discourse, and the creativity killer: comparison. In a noisy world, where attention spans are being gobbled up by new tech & inflammatory media curated and created by soul-less multinational corporations – more and more people are unconsciously trading in their precious attention, time, and therefore creativity, to become audience members.
To each, their own – truly. As modern women we have personal agency our grandmothers could only dream of. What will we do with it?
It is my personal aim to use that newfound freedom in a way which pays it forward to future generations, which honors creative intelligence that made us, and which makes this dear world of ours more loving and more beautiful.
Contemplative Centering
How about you? Why are you here? Why now?
If you hike, hike with these. If you journal, journal about it. If you dance, dance it. If you pray, pray on it. If you gather in Circle, ask it – together. In whatever ways you like, reflect on these. Knowing your answers will help your actions flow in alignment with your unique heart call.
Before any creative endeavor you may ask: why this? why now? Before having an important conversation or meeting: why this? why now? Before making a choice: why this? why now?
Asking ourselves helps to remind us of the paintbrush in our hands.
Knowing the whys help us to decide on the whats – the stroke, the color, the detail.
The whats, over time, become the whole of our painting.
To make it truly ours, we ask: Why this? Why now?
On the Horizon
Join an international, intergeneration group of weird and wonderful wild-hearted Women in our online Cave (which lives on an app)!
We meet weekly in Circles, Workshops, Practices to keep our wild spirits lit!
Upcoming Weekly Gatherings:
Join us for an hour-long New Moon Meditation Adventure on May 7th!
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.
We have Wild Woman Project-trained Circle facilitators is 26 countries, and 44 out of the 50 United States.
Chris Maddox is the founder of The Wild Woman Project where she teaches women how to utilize the gifts of the Wild Woman Archetype in their everyday lives & how to lead women’s circles in their local communities. She is the organizer & facilitator of the beloved annual WILD WOMAN FEST, a women’s retreat-festival hybrid which fosters a deep connection to nature, a direct experience of the divine feminine & profound spiritual sisterhood among the women in attendance.
An ever student of the great mysteries of existence and nature itself, Chris believes women are holding innate gifts & tools that society at large needs – now more than ever. She is committed to helping women remember their special magic and to bring it forward into every corner of their lives, for the greater good of the planet.
