Roman God Janus
As we begin our journey into the New Year of 2022, I am reminded of the two faces of the Roman God Janus, with one older face looking backwards to the past and one younger face looking forward to the future.
When I look back, both 2020 and 2021 are a bit hazy and memories are fuzzy around the edges like pastel chalks rubbed and blended together. I admit that I really don’t understand how it’s even possible that we’re now in the year 2022!
Because I did very little socializing in 2020, during the time when the pandemic demanded we stay at home to avoid contracting or spreading the virus, I had time to assemble notes & materials and put them altogether in a pretty cool book with stories & writing exercises to guide the reader through the various phases of their lives. As with my first book Wild Women Write: Re-Connecting with the Wild Feminine, I worked with amazing artist & designer Denise Weaver Ross in creating a stunning book & book cover & getting it listed on Amazon. Writes of Passage: Writing Through the Seasons of Your Life
Toasting to Another Book in 2022
But what about 2021? I seem to be completely missing 2021 and don’t know what happened last year unless I look at my day-planner or ask somebody I think might know! Most of my friends don’t know either though, so there’s that!
This image Betwixt & Between Worlds best describes how I feel a lot of the time! It’s exciting and magical to consider entering into a new world but is anyone really ready for that journey? What did we learn these last few years from our experiences during a worldwide pandemic that can help us?
Like the wizened, elder face of the god Janus that looks to past experiences & lessons learned, it makes sense that we can identify and build on our individual & collective experiences & knowledge gained during COVID to create a more balanced & soul-filled journey in 2022 and beyond; one that assumes we are part of all life. Currently, the prevailing myth is that humans are exceptional & superior to all other life forms which has brought death & devastation to life on this planet, causing me to wonder when we’re going to be aware & humble enough to acknowledge that we’re not the center of all creation and we’re not in charge. Might we at least consider that there’s a greater cosmic story unfolding on Planet Earth and that our greatest challenge & destined path might be to simply listen…to the animals, the trees, the ocean, the mountains & the children and follow their lead?
Betwixt & Between Worlds
Best Friends Take a Walk Together
Can our younger Janus face staring into the future find inspiration where the wild things still exist…those uncharted places where “there be dragons here” as the olde maps once read? Can we find inspiration and hope from those wild & uncharted places within ourselves….where we meet and commune with the uncensored, untameable forces belonging to our spiritual natures? Do we dare to step out on the path of the Wild Woman/Wild Man that demands an un-recanting surrender into uncertainty and the unknown? And how do we sustain ourselves and all life on our precious Planet Earth as we journey into the possibilities & challenges of 2022 and beyond?
Is it a crazy idea to think our stories & our art can guide and nourish us on this journey into the future? Hasn’t great art & literature always shown other ways of seeing the world?
Stories: Nectar of the Gods?
Stories are like magical food, a sort of Nectar of the Gods that feeds our minds & hearts with the mystery, longing and wild beauty of life. Stories uplift our spirits; inspire us when we feel despondent; encourage us through our grief; offer guidance and make us laugh! Stories are powerful and transformative! Author Jonathan Gottschall in his book The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human says that “story, sacred and profane, is perhaps the main cohering force in human life….It is the counterforce to social disorder, the tendency of things to fall apart. Story is the center without which the rest cannot hold.”
Portrait of Duchess of Chartres Receiving Food & Drink from God Zeus (Swan)
Original Writing from Class Participants
Nowhere was the power of transformation & the cohesive force of story more visible than in the writing done by participants during Wild Women Write & Writes of Passage Zoom classes in 2021. Participant’s fearless diving into the deep waters of their experience and imagination allowed them to capture stories and symbolic artifacts left by the Muses and bring them to the surface to share with one another, which in turn brought self-awareness of the numinous in each of us and demonstrated the power and transformation available through writing and for living a mythic life of one’s own creation.
Here for you to enjoy are a few examples of writing that touched us with their profundity and soul-infused words.
Writers Rebecca Leeman & Dairne McLoughlin
(“Lost Wild Womanly Instincts” from Wild Women Write)
Blood Mysteries
By Rebecca Leeman: Midwife, Mother, Singer, Courageous Wild Woman
The scent of other women bleeding
takes me back
to a time before
the hush in taking the box of tampax
to the grocery store counter early on,
to a time before
calling the bloody period the curse,
to a time before
feminine sprays to cleanse the pungency
of the bleeding womb,
to a time before the endless jokes
about PMS and crazy women who can’t be trusted.
I smell something wild and rare,
breaking through the efforts of privacy and hygiene
meant to protect us all from its presence on the public stage.
Oh, how marvelous the natural world
within the body of a woman,
monthly moon tides revolving.
Oh, there are traces
of the sky moon inside the body.
A soft, rich layer of endometrium building up
and breaking down and falling away in a cycle
married to all the other natural cycles on Earth.
The scent of other women bleeding
brings a low guttural sound in my throat
which I can’t explain and have no shame for.
It might be the blood sisterhood bond,
And it smells of when we were more like foxes.
(“Learning from a Petty Tyrant” from Writes of Passage)
Petty Tyrant
By Dairne McLoughlin: Acupuncturist, Accomplished Athlete, Healer, Chef Extraordinaire
Each and every petty tyrant I have encountered through this life has helped to temper me like a metal sword. Each has honed my edges to be razor sharp to cut through the bull shit and get to what is really important. Like the unrelenting gusts of New Mexico winds in the spring teaching us that to resist and be rigid will cause harm to ourselves. We must know when to bend, how much to bend so we can bounce back up and continue to grow. That’s what I get as I watch the trees and grasses outside my window.
I think my dad was a petty tyrant in my life. He was always on us. He was the wind of my childhood and for a while it was I who didn’t bend but instead resisted and rebelled. I was finding myself and testing out my wings. I took some rough tumbles as my wings bent and broke as I learned to ride the current. I had many tyrants as I look back on my life…nuns, teachers, friends, girl friends, & bosses. I realize the lessons were similar and that I had to be forged in all those fires in order to come out stronger each time. I’m grateful to all those that served this purpose in my life. I would not be the person I am without the tempering. I have accomplished so much and could not have been in my acupuncture practice for almost 30 years. I have been able to be present for my clients; I have been faced with so many things that I didn’t know about and because I know how to learn and explore, I have been able to guide people in their quest for wellness. I am a funning, engaging, compassionate person because of the tyrants. I’m strong and competent. Thank you to the blacksmiths that forged me.
Nellie Correa
(“Wild Woman’s Passion: Source of Our Creativity“ from Wild Women Write)
La Loba-La Que Sabe
By Nellie Correa: OB/GYN MD, Mother, Professor, Mentor
Bundle of Bones – Lost in the Desert
What are the buried bones of my life and where do I begin to look to find them?
My wild woman archetypes are many and they live in me in all of my aspects of self.
I am the wild woman Florence Nightingale who as a nurse took off to Scutari and established a whole new profession in nursing. She is the thoracic cage of my many desires and protects my beating heart.
Then Margaret Sanger, another nurse, is the pelvis of my skeleton, feeding my need to be in women’s health and keep the work that she started going. Her desire to assure women equal rights to contraception lives in me and in my everyday work.
Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman physician in the U.S. holds my cranium and its contents because the need to be a physician has always been greater than my being.
The bones of my arms and the daringness of my life comes from my mother, the strong woman warrior that she was and is still and forever in my soul.
My leg and feet bones are from another woman warrior in my family, my aunt and godmother, my hero who always gave me a model to look up to and who traveled far and wide to meet her life challenges. These bones of my legs know from her how to put one foot in front of the other to move along and succeed.
My neck bones and the courage to stick them out as far as they will go, to wander ever outward, to support my head as it takes flight—to wander off in spirit and in search of truth—those little bones are all mine and they are buried in my soul.
La Loba all bones
Came to life one day as wolf
And free as a bird
In future newsletters, you can look forward to reading more original writing from these women & other writers: Andi Penner, Carey McDonald, Gina Ogorzaly, Io Laura Berg, Regina Griego, Melinda Rand, Rebecca Dakota, Kristina Daniels, Cristy Holden, Lynda Leonard & Elizabeth Prosapio.
May you walk in Beauty!
With Love, Marjorie