A Tribute to the Wild Child

Everywhere I go I hear adults telling children, `Behave yourself!` `Settle down!` 

Every time I observe this I feel a slight twinge. Ouch. It feels so energetically harsh. 

Questions begin to float into my mind… 

What if we allowed the wild child to be fully wild? What would that be like if we gave ourselves and our children that permission? 

It is my sense that we are secretly afraid of this wild nature. It is unpredictable. It is powerful. And it DEFINITELY disrupts the status quo. Sometimes not so quietly. It gives rise to new ways of seeing things, new ways of using things like when a child turns an average item into a toy that has a fantastical meaning. Or when a child begins to wildly bite the couch. It is pure imagination and potential. You cannot control it, really. Even when it is pushed into the shadows and suppressed, it remains in the darkness, lurking, waiting. Longing to be activated. 

What happens when we give into this wildness? Does it destroy us? set us free? Can the destruction be a kind of freedom? Phew. My head is buzzing with questions these days.

What is the origin of this shut up, sit down mentality I see around me so often? When did we begin closing down to the expression of pure joy and aliveness that rises up and bubbles out of our being, causing us to shriek or giggle or flail our arms around? 

I have also heard so many adults say how they admire and even envy the energy that children seem to have. Well then why are we squashing this energy as soon as it shows itself? 

And what really happens when this tactic of control is applied in the form of an admonishing `dont do that!` Does it really accomplish anything? In my experience of being around children, this type of discipline tends to have a reverse effect. It only seems to make the rebellious energy grow in the child. What if we met the need to express wildly instead of tried to hide it? 

And because we fear it, I feel we do not respect it. We don't know where to put it inside of ourselves, so we do not make conscious room for it. What will it take for us to respect this wildness? To make space for it? To see it as our teacher?

I begin to see the threads connecting this silencing of the wild child with the patriarchy and the repression of the feminine energy. Connecting this repression of the feminine energy to our disconnected relationship with the Earth. Apparently everything leads me back to the patriarchy lately. In my understanding of the traditions of Hindu Tantra,  `Shakti` is the representation of divine feminine creative power. She is said to be present in all things. She is wild, unstoppable, an agent of change, and her power is uncontrollable. I feel we are afraid of HER, her potential that lies within ourselves and our children. 

What would it be like to create structures to hold and support this Shakti wildness? How would that contribute to the global movement for social change? 

As we are evolving as a human society, it is my hunch that we will be asked to embrace this part of our nature. Our wildness. Our inner feminine. We will be asked to remember the wild child and honor her. Calling on her and embodying her because she holds the secret keys. 

Me in my Wild Water element! 

I believe that we can create a new culture of relating with our children and ourselves. We can come to agreements together in a sensitive, effective, and vulnerable way. We can allow our children to explore and revel in the wildness of the Earth, and we can let them know that it is OKAY to feel that wild animal inside. In fact it is an intrinsic part of being human, and it can be celebrated instead of feared. Let us agree to sit down and talk to children from a place of respect and equality if we are feeling uneasy about their behavior. Let us look more deeply into what our children are really needing and do our best to provide them with the space to get their needs met. I want to extend big, loving arms of gratitude to all the amazing parents I personally know who are pioneering this new practice of relating with their children. It brings tears to my eyes to see how much care and awareness I see being brought to how we raise and nurture our young ones. 

One of my mentors, Marshall Rosenberg, was a pioneer in creating a new language in order to relate with each other from a truly compassionate, human place. He raises the question that if we are treating our own children, mothers, sisters, fathers, brothers in a harsh way… then imagine how we are going to treat people who are a different color and culture than us? I believe that peace is possible, and it begins with how we speak to each other and to the littles ones who will inherit this world. 

My growing edge these days has been giving myself permission to freely express, and I have found in myself many places where I block myself from doing this. I am scared of what others will think of me. I am scared of being rejected by my family and community. I am scared of showing myself, and it is so much easier to simply hide. I harbor an ancient fear of speaking up and out about my truth. I see this silencing running so deeply in our collective consciousness. Personally, every time I have traveled to the Northeast of the USA recently, I have felt upon getting off the plane a sudden weight in my throat region. Almost like there are hands wrapped around my throat, crushing it. This has led me to act rather bizarrely in Boston and Philadelphia airports as I moved with my body and voice to work with the energy that was arising, to reclaim my power to express. Shaking, dancing, singing, squealing wildly. People stared at me, and I probably looked rather hilarious. No Shame!

I deeply believe that if we want to create wide scale change in the world, we must reclaim and reconnect to our wildness. Our weirdness and our ability to express it. Our inner child freak. This is where the heart of freedom lies. In this pure, unfiltered expression. This is how we will learn to speak up about our needs and feelings and reclaim our inherent power. 

Finding ways to feed our inner wildness seeds an unpredictable force of powerful, Life-serving change. It is a pathway to freeing ourselves, so we can fully BE ourselves, whatever that looks like in each wild, unpredictable moment. It is key to our personal and collective evolution, and it is key to our survival as a species.