We all have pictures in our heads we can't erase. Childhood provided us not only with the boogie man under the bed, but also with the woodland witches and ogres who eat little girls and boys. These images were meant to dissuade us from getting out of bed at night or wandering away from home by day. They taught us limits. But they also planted in our imaginations the possibility that the world was far more mysterious than it appeared on the surface. As scary as those warnings were, they were also beguiling, for they suggested that something existed on the other side of limits.
Related to the wild ones of fairy tales, many of us also heard a similarly conflicted message about the wilds of the natural world. The world was full of danger, we were told. But that danger called out to us anyway, thrilling us. I grew up on suburban streets that had beaten back the bush to create parkland and playgrounds, safely curating our experience of the wilds. But, fortunately, in my earliest years, living in North Vancouver, the forests and the mountains were literally at the end of my street. My brother and I would play amidst croaking ponds and creaking firs, taunting whatever dangers supposedly lurked thereabouts.
There is something about wild people and wild places that both repels and attracts us. The responsible inner adult reminds us to be safe; the adventurous child coaxes us to explore. We might think of mature restraint as a form of control, our minds exercising dominion over our bodies, and this seems reasonable to us. But the need to be wild never leaves us. Our bodies, regardless of their diminishing capacity, still want to climb the cliff or swim the stream or, given half the chance, run with the wolves.
I rediscovered my own Wild Child while living as a fullgrown adult with children of my own on the rugged West Coast of Vancouver Island. I'd head off into the bush with Rufus, our trusty Dog of the North, to follow deer runs and explore rocky shorelines and to scare myself into wakefulness by standing too close to the surging ocean below. I did dumb things, ill-advised things, like climbing a rock face above a deep channel and pushing ahead through a trail on the other side of fresh bear scat. But I would return home breathing hard, my face flushed, my body electrified, feeling alive.
Michelle Rigling knows the transformative effects of wild people and wild places. A transpersonal counselor trained in supporting and integrating experiences of the soulful and the mystical, Michelle takes women into the wilds for immersive programs that reconnect them with the Wild Woman within. The process is enriched by recalling the stories of mythic Wild Women, like La Loba, Baba Yaga, and the witches and hags of Celtic folklore. The participants reconnect with that soulful part of themselves that has often been locked away, for safety's sake. Thus stimulated, they come alive.
There are men's organizations that attempt to do something similar. The ManKind Project, formed over thirty years ago, emerged from the cultural observations of mythologist Joseph Campbell and the depth psychology of Jungians like James Hillman. Their New Warrior training and rites of adult initiation were created to foster "emotionally mature, powerful, compassionate, and purpose-driven men." Men too have known the need to reengage with the Wild One within.
Michelle calls her programs, as well as her one-on-one counselling and mentorship, The Cavewoman Way. By invoking the Wild Women of myth while immersed in wild places, she hopes to reenergize those soulful parts of ourselves that responsible adulthood has left behind. It turns out it’s not too late to face our fears, climb down out of the bed, and wander out into the dark woods.
To hear my conversation with Michelle Rigling, click on the Play button below. To find out more about her work, follow the More Info button to the show notes.
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