Creating a safe space where the wild part of us can make an appearance

We each have a wild part of us. Raw, instinctual, unrefined. Able to live off the land, to survive against odds. It has a home territory. It shy’s away from anything that is not known, from crowds, and noise…it looks out at the world as an observer. It will not come out until the course is clear. Our wild animal knows its purpose. It lives without confusion. It uses senses we cannot name.

It is an essential part of our being. And it is the part we most often diminish through acculturation, education and parenting. For who can handle the wild? Who is equipped for the random, the raw, the off center, left of field, crazy…?

Yet the wild is our creativity. It is our passion. It is our uniqueness. It is the wrinkle in the idiot pursuit of perfection. It is the stand that this is me, and it has edges and corners and dangers…it fiercely protects its young, or its tribe…

And at the same time, it is our vulnerability. For we have no space in our society for the wild things to play. And if they do, they are attacked. Without mercy. Ridiculed and shamed. Hunted to extinction.

A safe space is where we allow the wild to come out…where we can bring the whole of us…the beauty, the injured, the absent…the passion, rage and poetry…all……this….out…

*inspired by Parker Palmer

Photo credit: Patrick Bouquet via Compfight