Your Wild Woman Archetype Holds Secrets Just for You

Let’s start here: Your Wild Woman Archetype is unique to you.

The secrets she has for you might surprise you. Even though there are recognizable themes in mythology and psychology about the Wild Woman archetype, your embodiment of her is influenced by your inner wisdom and spark, and shaped by your life’s experiences and events.

You’re probably already familiar with some of the common Wild Woman themes:

• embracing what is unique about you, with no need to be more or better
• turning toward your inherently wise creative nature (because women are born artists and creators of life, and always will be)
• exploring your true nature through a reverence for nature’s rhythms
• developing trust in your own instincts, intuition, and deep wisdom
• challenging societal norms around women’s behaviors and choices.

Of course, your inner Wild Woman archetype does not expect you to be perfect at any of these things! In fact, the evolution of this part of you reflects a lifelong journey, not a destination.

According to Clarissa Pinkola Estes, who wrote the book on the Wild Woman Archetype (Women Who Run With the Wolves)…

Within every woman there lives a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing. She is the Wild Woman, who represents the instinctual nature of women.

You are that powerful force. Yes you.

But perhaps you’re wondering: how do I open the door to my own personal version of this wild force within me?

In this post I’ll explore three routes to connect with your Wild Woman archetype.

• Giving yourself over to wild savoring
• Recognizing the deep, wild desire all around you
• Becoming curious about wild discernment

I’ll also share a story about my own (unexpected) encounter with the wild woman within me.

Did you know the practice of savoring often opens a channel to the Wild Woman?

You probably know a lot about savoring already: being present, slowing down, limiting distractions, dipping into your senses, and finding the good (in a world that doesn’t always feel good).

Too often, savoring feels rushed and gets cut off too soon. Or it doesn’t seem possible to take the time to do it. You might get moments of it here and there, but the constructs of 21st century life often seem to block opportunities for deep, wild savoring.

Giving yourself over to wild savoring can shift not only your mood but your sense of self as well.

The key here is to give yourself over to the felt experience itself: fully immersing yourself in it while lingering and staying present to your appreciation of it. Devoting time and energy to it and letting it carry you forward. Staying present in the sweet moments of life as often as you can.

Certain activities definitely cultivate a quality of presence that’s often linked to savoring: focusing on the breath, mindful movement, less screen time, journaling, meditation, grounding in your senses, experimenting with creative processes and practices.

But what sometimes helps the most is regularly inquiring of the wild woman within:

How can I yield to savoring the deep, wild richness of life more often?

In many ways savoring is a heart experience, a gateway to deep, wild desire.

This kind of desire is different from wanting, which so often feels more like pushing, striving, being attached to the outcome.

Deep, wild desire, on the other hand, is more like being swept away, letting go of the need to know exactly where it will take you.

By the way, I don’t mean only physical or sexual desire. All humans have within them unique and very personal desires. In fact, you can experience desire and love for people, animals, places, landscapes, ideas, work, feelings, behaviors, values. Anything, really.

In the throes of deep, wild desire you may feel captured by what you love.

You take a few steps toward it…it reels you in.

Sometimes you’re not even sure what’s propelling the forward movement, you or it. Sometimes, as you connect with it, you even lose track of where you leave off and it begins.

Deep, wild desire, in its most elemental form, is the swirling life force: love, fascination, passion, curiosity, pleasure, connecting.

Connecting with the wild woman archetype can be a very passionate experience.

You feel the enormity of her all around you, in everything, in you. You remember the love you carry within you, as well as your capacity to love.

Perhaps you even begin to trust that whether or not you feel love in any particular moment, you are love.

And in that heart space, you might ask your Wild Woman:

What are my most heartfelt desires? What captures me and pulls me toward it? What’s the desire beneath the desire?

Wild savoring and desire certainly opened me up to my own inner Wild Woman.

One day, out of the blue, I had an unexpected visit from her.

Prior to that I’d spent a few years planting (and deeply savoring) a somewhat wild garden. I was particularly in love with the passion vines, growing toward the sun with wild abandon.

That garden helped me understand my doubts and my dreams more clearly. Things began to click into place. And on a mid-summer afternoon, as I was preparing notes for my first-ever women’s circle, my Wild Woman’s words came tumbling out onto the page.

Sometimes she wants to wail at the top of her lungs. She wants to stand on the heath, barely dressed, and embrace the storm like mad King Lear.

(Later, I made this graphic to capture them)…

Little did I know she would show up in the guise of King Lear on that stormy heath.

It both confused and fascinated me, and took a few years to discern the deeper message.

But that storm has always mesmerized me, all the way back to Shakespeare classes in my early college days. I still vividly remember a performance I saw: the howling wind, stripping away not only clothes but power too. Human vulnerability, fragility, and mortality on full display. The seeds of empathy, self discovery, and humility taking root.

And in the end, an old king who finally comes to understand that love is not measured by manipulation, false praise and ego flattery, but rather by a deep and abiding bond of the heart.

Sitting in that theatre, I felt I was part of an ancient ritual, immersed in a story within a story that was telling me secrets in the dark. Later, I could see that it made perfect sense that the storm got anchored deep inside of me and eventually became a kind of conduit to the wisdom of my Wild Woman archetype.

Secrets in the dark. Deep stories. Rituals. Wild Discernment.

Recently, I have come to more fully appreciate the Wild Woman’s innate wisdom to discern what’s happening when we half-consciously fall down rabbit holes or get caught in spirals.

She often remembers who we are and what we care about before we do. And if we can step back long enough to listen for her, we’ll probably find her sitting close by, asking:

Is this really you? Does it truly matter to you, deep in your bones?

She’s also able to discern when your anxious, depressed, or doubting parts question your wisdom and say things like…

• I shouldn’t feel this way
• When will I ever be enough?
• If I stop to rest I’ll never get things done…

And then, she can open up her trove of secrets and respond with deep knowing and help you see the truth…

• What do you truly need in this moment?
• You’re doing the best you can to create the life that’s for you.
• Life is unpredictable and your well-being matters.

Your inner wild woman will be unique to you.

If you haven’t yet sought her out it’s definitely worth it, not only because she already exists within you, but also because she does indeed have secrets to tell and wisdom to share.

About you, your longings, your pain, your joys, your fears.

About what is waiting to be healed and discovered on the path ahead.

And to quote Clarissa Pinkola Estes…

The inner wild woman is fluent in the language of dreams, images, passion and poetry.

How will you seek her out and open up to her presence?

Your route to the inner wild woman could include any of these:

• engaging with nature
• digging and planting
• ancestor stories
• movement and play
• literature and fiction
• music and movies
• journaling and writing
• fantasy and fairy tales
• poetry and myth
• hand work and crafts

You might also begin (or continue) the relationship by asking her…

• What is it that feels like pure magic to me?
• What is it that tells me secrets in the dark?
• What is unlived in me?

Finally, one of the best ways I know to find her is to join a women’s circle.

Although I’m a bit biased because I facilitate women’s circles, there is also this truth: women have been circling up for thousands of years.

We come together to listen and be heard. We share space, we offer an ear. Not only do we find our way to wisdom together, we also find our way to our Wild Women archetypes.

If you’re a woman who’s approaching (or in) your midlife and beyond years and the time feels right to root down into your own wisdom and wildness…you’re who I created the Wisdom Tending Circle for.

JOIN THE INTEREST LIST and find out more about this creative and supportive women’s group that journeys through the archetypal energies and archetypal landscapes of midlife and beyond.