About the Wild Woman Initiation Series
The Wild Woman Project came to me in a flash, a vision & it wouldn’t let me go. So, I listened. The Wild Woman archetype has been initiating me ever since. Through various experiences, which have mostly been about untangling what is true & what is not true in my own being, I have come ever closer to the wild woman within. I am a student, servant, guardian to this project who’s mission is to to awaken women to their most authentic, undomesticated nature, so they may feel like themselves, all the time, no apologies. I am sharing the 13 most important lessons I’ve learned about the path of the Wild Woman over the next few months. May it be useful.
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4
Many years ago, I prayed to the creator:
I want to be of service in this world.
I know we are in a time of great change & impending crisis.
I feel lost & don’t know how to help.
My heart breaks for all the suffering in the world.
Will please teach me how to best be of service now?
Will you please tell me what you want me do to?
And will you please, please use me?
Then, I listened to life. I allowed the creative intelligence of the universe to speak to me through my experiences, through suggestions made by trusted others & eventually through direct guidance.
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Early on in my seeking, I heard many times in spiritual circles: You want to change the world? Start with yourself.
So I made it my business to look in the mirror first and ask myself:
Where in your life do you feel impoverished?
Where in your life do you feel at war?
Where in your life to you feel sick?
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At 22, those questions led me to a Vedic Astrologer who handed me a key that unlocked many doors for me on my own journey of healing & service.
“Hmmm…,” he said looking at my natal chart, thoughtfully.
“I see in many places in your chart, a wound with the mother that goes back many lifetimes. Here is what you must do: for the rest of your life, pour love and compassion into your relationship with your own mother & all of womankind. I’m not sure you will be able to heal the wound in this lifetime, but you should spend your life trying to do just that.”
See, I grew up as part of that whole, I don’t trust women-I prefer to be friends with guys club-A club where that Alanis Morissette line, “[I’ll teach you] how to hate women when you’re supposed to be feminist” hit a little too close to home. And my relationship with my mother was strained, to say the least.
With therapy, trial and error experiments & many sacred tools, I have and continue to nurture my relationship my mother. We now enjoy a deep intimacy and trust in our bond. And in my studies and work I have aimed to pour love into my relationships with all of the women in my life-to great reward.
In fact, walking straight into this “wound” has unlocked my path of service & has literally become the answer to that early prayer, “use me, please, use me.”
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I do not think I am the only one who was born with this wound and this path of healing the feminine. In fact, I believe many of us alive on the planet at this moment where born with a similar purpose and it is a key for all of us.
The Dalai Lama has said, “The world will be saved by the western woman.”
That feels true to me. What about you?
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The Wild Woman says:
Look into the eyes of women
See their courage & their pain
See their desires & dreams
Feel their hearts
Delight in your differences
And revel in your unity.
Repair what is broken in your heart
With the medicine
of sisterhood.
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Of all the tools I’ve tried for healing & wholeness,
none have been so powerful as sitting in a circle of women.
All hearts facing center,
masks off,
listening & sharing,
growing
grieving
dreaming
trusting
Together.
Lesson 4: To heal the planet, heal your relationship with all of womankind.
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EXPLORE THE OTHER LESSONS OF THE WILD WOMAN INITIATION SERIES
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.
Thank you Chris, for this beautiful lesson.
I respond with this comment having just subscribed to receive your emails, and from what I have read so far am really glad I have. This library archive was posted over 2 years ago which has made me brave enough to submit a comment rather than shy away from interacting on line like usual. Just writing and uploading these words feels very cathartic in the hope that no-one actually reads them!
The lines “I want to be of service to this world” and “please, please use me” resounds loudly within me these days. I have days when I feel a sadness for the whole of humanity and the planet itself, and feel totally helpless – an observer just watching from the sidelines as planetary sickness takes hold. I also have many more days where I am deeply grateful for the life I have and am joyfully aware of this beautiful world and the wonderful people in it, many doing so much to heal the harm so far inflicted. I am going to look deeply into the mirror – how can I help too?
The other point that resonated with me was “I don’t trust women-I prefer to be friends with guys club” – WOW that was totally me! I left school in the early 80’s – the masculine “loadsa money” decade. The only aim was to find a job, become independent and not have kids until you’d “had a life” first.
I always loved rock/blues music and rode a motorbike (still do), so I hung out with the guys as I felt at ease in this environment. At work, women colleagues would flock around anyone who came in with a baby while I looked on wondering what all the fuss was about. “Earth Mothers” were alien beings to me. Have kids – me? I watched with a sense of wonder mixed with quiet horror as friends settled down and became mothers. I kept wondering when this would appeal to me. Meanwhile I worked various jobs in order to save up to go travelling or move town, never committing many years to a career or relationship. Then at the grand age of 35 I met the man who became my husband (am proud and blessed to say still together 18 years later!) but raising children has never been a need.
Now in my 50’s I feel “Earth Mother” was and still is inside me somewhere but totally buried/denied, and until now I haven’t needed to go looking … thankfully I have no regrets about choosing not to have my own children, but I do feel a need to be more giving and caring towards others and focus less on myself – maybe that would have come naturally with motherhood but I will never know. So maybe now is the time for me to awaken my wild WOMAN, and say goodbye to wild MAN!
Warmest love