Having completed the first phase of the 2019 Wild Woman initiatory programme and being blown away by the power of what was received from the land and each other I felt it time to reflect on why this programme has exceed all possible expectations and left the Wild Women wanting more. This short article is the result of my musings.
Jung posited that there are primary images residing in the psyche that have both an intelligence and a will of their own, he called these Archetypes. Wild Woman is a primary archetype of the Embodied Feminine Self and forms the basis of a 9 month initiatory women’s rite of passage where we work with four key aspects of the Feminine Soul; the Maiden (Virgin), the Lover, the Mother and the Crone (Wise Woman).
When a woman is out of relationship with these archetypes, or in denial of their significance in her psyche, there is the potential for them to be unrecognised and unconscious drivers of her behaviour. Imagine a woman unconsciously identified - or let’s say possessed - with the Maiden archetype. She may refuse to grow old. She may search out surgery to remain young looking in body. She may be dependent on another in her life financially and emotionally, all the while unconscious to her own need to have healthy and conscious relationship to the maiden archetype who is in possession of her.
It could be the same with the Lover. This woman may define herself by her beauty and outward appearance – afraid to leave the house without her “face-on”. She may only feel worth or alive when she is in the throws of a new love affair and then soon go cold or depressed when the honey-moon period is over and she has to face the hard work of a conscious loving relationship. She may be all things to all men/woman (depending upon her sexuality) without truly considering what she needs from relationship.
Another dynamic to being possessed (or too close to an archetype) is,, paradoxically, be too far from them. Let us consider the Mother and Crone archetypes, and when they are denied, split or unconscious to us as women. Our un-met needs for good-enough mothers may be projected onto older women in our lives until we come to learn how to mother ourselves. Our crone may be rejected as a Halloween caricature or our inner wisdom marginalised as foolish nonsense. Or perhaps we treat others as ‘the one who knows’ and externalise our inner teacher onto ‘gurus’ and ‘experts’. We may value logic, reason and ‘facts’ over intuitive knowledge and the paradox of Mystery if we have little relationship to the Crone wisdom within.
To be out of relationship with these archetypes is to live a sterile and dry life with a lack of energy and meaning, for these images bring us libido or psychic energy. Knowing about and working with these archetypal energies brings a maturity, inner leadership and - when healthy relationship is established - the vital constellation of the Wild Woman archetype.
The Wild Woman rite of passage process we offer at Wild Rites is powerful because not only do we build an awareness and appropriate relationship to each of the four key feminine archetypes, we do this in a grounded and embodied way. We focus on building a nature-based, and embodied relationship to the four key archetypes of the Feminine Self.
We do this through creating ritual and physical symbolic acts that bring us into deeper relationship with the archetypal energies in the here and now in the physical world. This enactment in Nature anchors a lived experience of the archetype and draws it down from the level of imagination or for some even their unconscious. To have Nature as a mirror to our Wild Woman is incredible, for she can be with all of us! Whereas another individual, such as a therapist or coach can only mirror as far as they have gone themselves.
Sometimes the danger of purely guided visualisations and reading books means that we don’t really embody our personal relationship to the archetypes. They remain ephemeral, unreal and for some a way to escape life rather than enrich it. Ceremony, ritual and a nature-based approach to relating to these archetypes enables the energy to move through us, both when we come together for the Wild Woman rite of passage weekends and for these archetypal forces to be truly incorporated into our lives.
Another significant factor that allows us to embody our relationship to these archetypes is that we have aligned them with the sacred turning of the year (sometimes known as a medicine wheel or wheel of the year. You can see this in the image below). What this means is that we come into relationship with each archetype at the time when that energy is naturally looking to find expression through us and our planet in the northern hemisphere. What we have found is that this profound alignment significantly turns up the volume of the ceremonies, personal and group impact.
All this is done within the container of an initiation group of 8 women who have demonstrated their readiness for such a journey by writing a letter of intent and going through an enrollment process. The psychological and spiritual maturity that enables a woman to be a part of Wild Woman provides a safe holding group where participants can take responsibility for themselves and their development whilst contributing to the collective intelligence around how feminine consciousness moves in us.
If you are looking for a true immersion into the Wild Woman in your spiritual and psychological life and are ready to begin this rite of passage please contact alex@wildrites.uk asap as enrollment in the 2020 programme is now open. The programme begins in April. http://www.wildrites.uk/wild-woman
About the author: Alex Hatfield (MA) is a Psychosynthesis therapist and coach and co-founder of Wild Rites. She is Programme Director for Wild Woman and a guide on the 2020 Wild Woman Rite of Passage.