The Wild Woman, the Mystic, the Witch, the Priestess, the Medicine Woman is an awakened, untamed and fierce soul. She belongs to herself and unequivocally defies the status quo while she moves to the beat of her own drum.
She is the protector of the hearth, our inner fire – our guiding light and authentic spirit.
The Wild Woman is deeply connected to her intuition, she is sure of herself, her needs and her desires. She seeks to spend time with Mother Nature. She is extremely confident and demands abundance for herself.
Whereas the Huntress is focused on external goals, the Wild Woman focuses her energy on her ‘inner hearth’– her inner fulfilment. She is the Archetype we ignite when we need to break rules or set ourselves free from the cultural programming that tries to force us to abandon ourselves.
Wild woman is the health of all women. Without her, women’s psychology makes no sense… She canalizes through women. If they are suppressed, she struggles upward. If women are free, she is free. Fortunately, no matter how many times she is pushed down, she bounds up again. No matter how many times she is forbidden, quelled, cut back, diluted, tortured, touted as unsafe, dangerous, mad and other derogations, she emanates upward in women, so that even the quietest, even the most restrained woman keeps a secret place for her.”
Clarissa Pinkola Estés – Women Who Run With The Wolves
Do you want to be to find out more about the Wild Woman Archetype? Buy my book.
She is the healer and we activate her when we need to conduct healing work on our shadow selves. Regardless of how emotionally charged a situation is, a woman who exhibits strong Wild Woman energy can detach and focus her emotions inward. She can objectively observe her thoughts, emotions, and behaviour patterns for personal growth.
The Wild Woman has no issue with spending time alone for extended periods. She enjoys solitude and pursuits such as meditating, volunteering, and exploring her psychic energy and spirituality.
The Wild Woman’s greatest strengths are her ability to reflect inward, serene calmness, deep concentration, focus, and creativity.
Our Wild Woman has never bought into the collective dream. She has always known that we are magic. She is the last woman standing in a world where life pulls us in many different directions, distracting us, and leading us further and further from ourselves. She softly calls to us, “just be here”.
Tanya Valentin – When She Wakes She Will Move Mountains
The Wild Woman Archetype In Our Popular Culture
The Wild Women Archetype is represented in popular culture through characters such as Pocohantas, the witches in Practical Magic, Thelma and Louise, Erin Brokovich, and the Scarlett Witch (Marvel).
The Wild Woman is comfortable with who she is and rejects the roles that others have tried to force on her. A common misconception in our society is that a Wild Woman is an out-of-control, crazy woman. However, this is not the case.
A Wild Woman is a woman who has returned to herself and her true nature. When a woman goes through menopause, her Wild Woman will call to her. She will call and call and not be silenced until she is heard. Many women go crazy trying to silence her or turn off the light that has been ignited in them by their Wild Woman trying to awaken them. But the real secret is that we are not meant to silence her. Nor are we meant to put out the light as if it fault on the dashboard of our car. We are meant to hear HER, become HER and feed the light until it is a blazing fire, because this is where our true purpose, joy and abundance live.
The Japanese word for menopause is konenki, which translates as ‘renewal years’ or ‘energy’. And if there is an energy upgrade at menopause, it surely stems from the resurgence of the girl within, a phenomenon that appwers to span the boundaries of culture. For example, in a study of women from the traditional Chichimila culture of the Yucatan in Mexico, anthropologist Yewoubdar Beyene observed that many women reported feeling ‘young and free’ with menopause because it meant that they could return to the stage of life before the burdens and restrictions of their reproductive years.
Lara Briden – The Homone Repair Manual
Do you want to be to find out more about the Wild Woman Archetype? Buy my book.
Have you had a ‘resurgence of the girl within’? Do you feel the call of your Wild Woman?
Read my book When She Wakes She Will Move Mountains and learn how to awaken the Wild Woman within.
Goddesses That Represent The Wild Woman Archetype.
There are several Goddesses who could be associated with the Wild Woman Archetype. A few of them are Hecate (Goddess of magic, witchcraft, the night, moon, ghosts and necromancy), Hestia (Goddess of the hearth), Lilith (the first wife of Adam who was thrown out of Eden because she would not submit to Adam) and the Hindu Goddess Kali who is the embodiment of Shakti – female power.
The Feral Wild Woman Archetype
The Feral Wild Woman is a Wild Woman who was once wild but then was trapped and is now free. She has endured many years of domestication and been forced to live her life trapped in the roles, responsibilities and other people’s expectations of who they think she should be which have deadened her sense of who she really is.
Being a newly liberated Feral Wild Woman is an extremely vulnerable and sensitive period in a woman’s life. After her many years of domestication, she is finally free and is filled with the awesome rage and power of her newly acquired wildness. However, because she has been conditioned to place her trust in others, and because of her time in captivity, she has lost the connection with her instincts and intuition.
Many newly Feral Wild Women are easily caught by new cages and poisons such as drugs, alcohol or damaging relationships that seek to tame them again. Feral Wild Women can be chaotic and destructive and or isolate themselves in their own “special” world.
without firm participation with the wild nature, a woman starves and falls into an obsession of ‘feel betters,’ ‘leave me alones’ and ‘love me—please’.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Do you want to be to find out more about the Wild Woman Archetype? Buy my book.
The Witch Archetype – Witch Wounds
The Shadow Wild Woman, the Witch is a reflection of how society views the Wild Woman Archetype. The last woman was executed for witchcraft a mere 295 years ago and ‘witchhunt’ culture is still burned in our collective psyche, especially in our western, masculine-dominated, predominately Christian culture. The latest example of this is the ‘cancel culture’ that has become prevalent in our social media.
We are all daughters of Salem, descendants of the ‘wickedness’ of Eve when she tricked Adam into disobeying God. The ‘witch mark’ is something that most women today still unconsciously carry.
The Choice That All Women Make
All women are given one of two choices; submit and obey or get burned at the stake. We are either labelled as ‘nice’ or ‘good girls’ – women who ‘colour in the lines’, do as they are told, and conform to societal norms.
Read more about The Wild Woman and the other Feminine Archetypes in my book When She Wakes, She Will Move Mountains HERE.
Women educated by their mothers and the matriarchal line before them construct a pretty avatar, serve, please, stay small, fit in, and deny their own feelings and needs. Or we are branded as ‘witches’ or ‘bitches’ who do as they want – bossy, ballbreakers, selfish whores.
Women have been warned away from trusting themselves and embracing their inner magic throughout the millennia. The message is always “don’t be too full of yourself!” We become fearful of being branded as ‘too much’ and being burned at the stake for it.
This Shadow Archetype is not to be confused with the definition of a witch who is a woman who follows the spirit and nature-focused religion of Wicca this is a subsect of the larger category of Paganism. Witches follow nature-orientated practices or rituals which predate the Christian religion. Wicca is based on three pillars: magic, reverence for nature and the worship of Goddesses and other deities.
Claiming The Wild Woman Archetype For Yourself
Many women are fearful of their inner Wild Woman and her awesome transformational power. They are frightened of who they will be or how their lives will change if they acknowledge her and embrace her. Many women are afraid of what others will say or how they will act once they reject old roles and reveal who they truly are.
But here is the rub. If you know there is so much more to you. That there is something freer, more real, and more meaningful that you should be doing which is quickly followed by a sadness that you cannot quite articulate. If it is as if there is a distant self, calling out to you from beyond the horizon that you are trying to reach but as much as you try, you just can’t get to her… This is your Wild Woman stirring inside of you, calling to you to awaken from the dream of domestication.
The price of this fiercer, freer truer more beautiful self is the old version of you. The Wild Woman’s true nature is to make you feel more yourself, to heal and not harm. You can ignore her, but she will keep calling you.
When the Wild Woman is honoured, she becomes a co-creator in your life. She nourishes you within your relationship with her. She gives you strength, courage, and insight into yourself, showing you things that you forgot even lived inside of you.
Do you want to be to find out more about the Wild Woman Archetype? Buy my book.
Feeling the Healing Presence Of Your Wild Woman
Light a candle or a fire. Watch a sunset and bask in the euphoria of the golden hour. Sit under a full moon among a galaxy of stars. Walk and breathe under the canopy of the forest walls. Place your hand on the trunk of a mighty tree and feel its heartbeat through the earth. Swim in the waves of the ocean. Walk barefoot and feel the grass or sand between your toes. Sit with your back to the warmth of the sun, or
simply connect with your breath. Feel it as it flows in, through and out of your body.Place one hand on your chest and notice the steady beat of your heart, and place one hand on your stomach and experience how your breath causes your belly to rise and fall. Feel the intensity of your emotions. Allow yourself to be moved by them. Cry, laugh, rage, howl. Move into your strong, wild, and beautiful body. Hear the purr of energy inside of you. Still your mind and its infinite worries of tomorrow and know that she is there.
Tanya Valentin – When She Wakes, She Will Move Mountains
