love,
An Elder Priestess
REBELLION AS RECLAMATION: THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT OF THE WILD FEMININE
The Priestess of the Wild Earth emerges within the wild woman not when she chooses to eat the forbidden fruit but before, when she weeps for a home she has yet to find. She might experience an in-the-gut betrayal that nearly breaks her. She might feel that she has sinned against herself for staying in the small place so long, but her primary concern at this point is her liberation. The pain from the wound is strong, but her thirst for freedom is stronger.
The garden becomes unbearable in its constriction, and the waking woman will begin to show her true face to those who have not yet seen it. In the revisioning of Lilith’s story, the wild woman wishes to be seen when she breaks the rules: She hoped some vengeful deity was looking down as she sunk her teeth deep into pure, sweet passion. She who is waking to her wild self will cease to make apologies for her authenticity. There is a necessary rebellion to a woman’s liberation. She will risk social isolation, loneliness, and uncertainty, all in the name of finding her true home. She will not move without fear, but she will no longer let fear of being too big, too loud, or too unlike the outmoded versions of herself direct her path.
In becoming more genuinely herself, the Priestess of the Wild Earth no longer tolerates the worlds someone else built for her. On a collective level, the feminine in all human beings is forced to constantly reenact the original sin of inauthenticity, for the feminine is not living in a world built from her own values and with her own hands. A woman who begins to take charge of her own life drawing not from patriarchal notions of individualistic success but from a desire to escape these norms is committing an act of social deviance and rebellion. She is the outlaw, named so only for her enacted desire for something better.
When the feminine in one being, regardless of gender, honestly sees and validates the holistic feminine in another being, there is no need to mask the wounds, passions, or purpose of the deep soul. There is no need to find overtly masculine language for what is inherently feminine. We begin the task of finding our own names, our own truths, if only by calling out what we know to be false. In Womanspirit Rising, Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow assert that “feminists have called their task a ‘new naming’ of self and world.... If the world has been named by Adam without Eve’s consultation, then the world has been named from the male point of view. As women begin to name the world for themselves, they will upset the order that has been taken for granted throughout history.” Regardless of the force that drives a woman from the garden, the common thread running through this initial catalyst for her awakening is this: The healing salve she needs is of the wild feminine, and it does not grow in a garden where all that flourishes was planted and named by someone else.
Rebellion against what is not ours precedes the reclaiming of what is truly for us. The subjugation of the feminine correlates directly with the suppression of soul, as the shape-shifting nature of the feminine wild has been dismissed for its volatility. We have been robbed of social permissions to descend into our depths, leave outmoded relationships, pursue passions that are not financially lucrative, or do anything remotely unpredictable; thus, even when the soul is screaming at us from below to honor our unique nature, we will pretend not to hear our truest voice for fear of being abandoned by those we love, losing our jobs, or disrupting the even-keeled rhythm of our world. When we deny our cyclical nature, we deny our connection to the Earth, and we deny our connection to the Holy Wild.
There are religions and other spiritual systems that sourced much of their power from humanity’s fundamental disconnection from nature and the feminine. Our right to spread our spiritual roots down and deep was denied in an effort to fix our eyes on a promised heaven, and we forgot that we are essentially fluid and mutable creatures who do not wake the same beings as those who closed their eyes the night before. On an individual level, we commit the sin of inauthenticity in order to maintain our relationship with ourselves and with others without facing the exhaustion of constant conflict, of constant defending and rationalization of our extraordinary actions and beliefs. On a collective level, the sin of inauthenticity becomes socially validated, as it is difficult to economically, politically, and socially profit from what is wild and, by nature, inherently dynamic. Ultimately, the traits of the unburnt feminine that the Witch is tasked with embodying and enacting are those that do not suit capitalism or patriarchal control; these are the same traits that she suppresses during childhood, rendering her light-of-day personality a small reflection of the wealth of her soulful treasures, the truest parts of herself that lie buried in the fertile dark.
When we deny our cyclical nature, we deny our connection to the Earth, and we deny our connection to the Holy Wild.
No one can write your story for you, my love, and it is not the task of any one of us to judge the gardens in which we do not live. We cannot discount the number of human beings who remain trapped despite their desire to escape, nor can we dismiss the sheer bravery of those staying in their gardens in order to protect loved ones or their own precious bodies from harm. These are the caged angels, and those who have been free to enact their own liberation are tasked with using every resource they have to reach those who need more hands to unbind their tethers. I say this not to dilute or universalize the experiences of those who are affected by compounded oppressions, and it is certainly not our task to decide who needs saving and how. I only urge those who have made it out of their gardens to keep their ears open, for they speak the forbidden serpentine language now and can hear it spoken by others from below who, like Lilith, are ready to find a way out and are asking, of their own volition, for a scale-skinned wilderness guide.
Handwritten Verses: Your Lilith Story
The garden is a deeply personal experience, and no one lives it the same way. Stay awake, Priestess, and remember that your wounds, your garden, are yours for a reason. Come to know your story as you would tell it today. In exploring the ways you have embodied the Priestess of the Wild Earth archetype, you can identify your personal Eden by reviewing your cycles of descending and ascending, drawing meaning from these patterns of hurts and healings.
Begin with the following prompts, and freewrite for as long as you wish. Your Lilith story is your wild woman’s myth of risking it all in the name of personal liberation. It is a living testament to your feminine power, soulful worth, and so-holy infallibility. Use whatever pronouns feel most authentic. Return to your story as often as you are called. Write as if it were a rite. Let it be part fantasy, part spell, part personal fairy tale.
As a young Priestess in the garden, I was dazzled by the beauty of...
The perfection of the garden was so beauteous that I...
In the garden, I knew myself to be...
The garden began to smell of...
I sprouted black wings and became Lilith then, and I decided...
I risked it all, and I had to embody...
True liberation tasted like...
End your Lilith story, for now, with the yet-to-come. Let the final scene in your liberation tale be one that has not occurred in your till-now, lived experience but nonetheless feels real and true. Gift this tale to the Holy Wild when it feels finished, reading your words aloud while sitting among the elements in sacred solitude. Let your story be a poetic blessing to the earth element, with the grasses, the trees, and the soil your most honored and beloved audience.
INITIATION IN SACRED SOLITUDE: WALKING THE RED ROAD
The integration of your knowledge of the garden into your more soulful identity depends on claiming your right to cyclical rootlessness. Lilith severs ties with her old life when she consumes the forbidden fruit. She rejects the rules of the garden and, by extension, refuses to remain in that too-small place. She is defiant in her selfhood, and she risks it all, running blindly into the dark without direction. All wild women have torn up their roots from time to time, leaving relationships, roles, and