Wild Woman Is Awake

With a soft breath through my open mouth, I bare sharp teeth as a sound somewhere between a deep growl and a purr says, “I’m awake and I’m hungry! SO hungry!” 

Swallowing the whole earth with everyone on it seems hardly a meal. I breathe the delicious scent of all life. I am ravenous for nothing less than everything. I stir at the smell of terror and shame. Just a light snack. Death is nothing. I am the love that devours the darkness.

We have danced before. How long has is been? Centuries? Did you really think I had been destroyed in the fires of fear? Locked forever in the armor of loveliness? Caged by the need for approval? I’m still laughing—laughing and waiting. My patience is as great as my appetite.

I hear your cries, your weak complaint and horny begging. Always following you in the shadows. Waiting for you to call me with all of your blood. Freeing your own animal voice to rip through your heart where still I wait. I am everywhere you have not looked.

The way can only be found in the fierce map of your own open body. Feral tongue, shimmering thighs, gasping breath, shining eyes. I cannot be fooled. It’s no use to fake or force, dazzle with drama or impress with flawless performance. I’ll simply wait until the smell of raw truth stirs me again.

For it is only when you have tasted me and offer your own insatiable dance, your soft underbelly with racing heart and your begging to be devoured–only then we will feast on life. Together.

And finally, your blazing roar of becoming will satisfy ALL.

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Sometimes called Kali, Shekinah, Pele, Dark Mother, Wild Woman, she presents herself in many forms and in the small doses we can stand as we gain trust and strength to embody her electrifying power.

I first met this fierce goddess in my rage as I processed sexual abuse from childhood and then through occasional explosive visitations during decades of ecstatic dance practice.

But I finally surrendered completely in India the day I pleaded for annihilation. There in the dark, silent meditation hall, I sat on the hard ground, my head tilted so far back it rested between my shoulder blades. I would not have believed my neck could take such an extreme angle if it hadn’t moved there spontaneously during deep meditation.

I couldn’t stand my life as it was for another second and my whole body shook with terror as I felt the inevitable reality of death. I wanted nothing more than to be free. The tension was excruciating. “Take me” I begged. It was the only prayer I managed. I could hardly think or breathe. And then, in an instant, profound silence. Only light where my head had been.

A wave of peace spread through something that no longer felt like a body. A tap on the shoulder and a quiet whisper, “there is no one to die.” She had answered my prayer with absolute love and graciously beheaded me. Cut through who I thought I was so completely, the truth could be known.

I sat in that utter stillness until my belly let me know my body still seemed to exist, then made my way to lunch with a smile, resting more peacefully in the nourishment of the ordinary world.

Even after such a terrifying encounter, I’m voracious for her again. And she for me. There is no such thing as too much. Sometimes I feel her love for everything and everyone in the suffering of this world and in the infinite grace that heals us.

Centuries of over-domestication and suppression are passing and now we rise together, reclaiming our original nature, discovering that the wilderness of body and soul are as pristine and ecstatic as always. We guide and support each other and find that everything we need for this reawakening is within us. The simple, ancient tools of breath, movement, sound and meditation constantly available to serve our enlivening.

As a servant to this love, I watch her tear, dissolve, sing and cut through separation as I witness the sacred circuits switch on, see my sisters and brothers light up. The dance rips, the flesh roars and the breath shines. Thousands of us. Millions of us awakening.

Yes. SHE is awake. Here within your heart. And with her the love so vast it cannot be caged. Again.