There is a holy wildness growing louder within each of us. I hear it in my clients. I hear it pushing against my own ribs. The beginning of September can still be hot here in the D.C. area and, at this point, many of us are tired of it and ready for the cooler weather. We can find ourselves feeling cranky and agitated. It’s not only the weather outside that is hot but there is a “heat within us”. This “inner heat” can become like a volcano ready to explode when we have spent a lot of energy trying to keep at bay the heat of strong feelings. Feelings like anger and resentment that come from:
– Not tending to ourselves
– Stuffing down our voice
– Waiting for someone else (partner) to rescue us
– Tending to everyone else and neglecting our needs
– Taking on way too much
– The pressure of perfection and “doing it all”
– Living on a daily basis in a way that doesn’t really jive with our souls
It’s off balance. And of course when unaddressed such frustration turns to anger. Anger begins to turn outward in blame or inward as depression. And a rage builds within us.
We are a culture that tries to refine and tame our body’s holy impulse to move and make the sounds that it wants to make – that it must make – to pant, growl, cry, shake and moan – that shake off the stress and trauma that accumulates within us.
Eventually, though, the Holy Wildness calls to you.
This is my poem for my clients, readers, friends, and my own self who sense it’s time to let the Holy Wildness move and make the sounds it has longed to make.
Give into the Wildness
By Lisa McCrohan
Will today be another day
that you go through the motions,
that you tend to the “have to’s”
and slowly feel yourself breaking
under the “shoulds”?
Will it be another day
that you spend all this energy
trying to keep at bay
the feelings finally erupting within you —
trying to tame your body’s
holy impulse
to move, run, claw, pant,
moan, or leap?
There is a wildness growing in you.
The caged animal within you is no longer asking
for your permission.
It will not be silenced.
It will not go away.
It won’t “roll over and play dead”
any longer.
Eventually –
when you hit rock bottom,
or you just can’t take it anymore –
you will find yourself turning toward
your inner wildness, saying,
“I am here.
Take me.
I surrender.”
Yes, give into this holy wildness,
the wildness within you that might scare you,
the sounds you have longed to make
but get stuck in your throat
because they aren’t pretty or refined.
Today, you are done –
so very done –
with using that polite, sweet,
high-pitched voice.
No.
The sounds your body wants to make
are more guttural and wild.
They come from deep inside the belly.
They aren’t logical or rational.
These wordless sounds are your medicine.
They carry the hopes of your ancestors
now realized through your raw,
embodied expression of truth.
Truth that has been
pushing against your ribs
to be spoken out loud
for too long now.
So let it begin with one sound –
one awkward, embarrassed-at-first,
growl, sigh, or pant –
a sound that makes no sense
but speaks your untamed truth.
Alone in your car,
on a hike in the woods with a friend,
or in your kitchen with dirty dishes in
the sink and your children looking at you –
let the sound come!
Feel it rising up from your belly,
vibrating your lungs, heart, and throat/
Then listen for the next sound
and then the next, and the next
allowing the holy waters of wildness
to burst open the doors of your caged longings
ready to be set free.
Yes.
Give into the wildness
that will surely undo you, shake you, moan you
and dance you as embodied prayer,
pulsing, naked, and
finally
so
very
alive.
Lisa McCrohan, © 2016
*You can find this poem in my book, Gems of Delight.
*If you are feeling this sense of wildness within calling to you and want someone to hold sacred space for you to listen to and allow the untamed truths within you to be heard, I would love to accompany you in my Integrative Coaching. Body-centered, compassionate, sacred space for the Aliveness of your soul to be felt and embodied. You can find out more here.
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Blessings,