...as dreams are essential to the psyche, so wildness is to life.
We are animal in our blood and in our skin. We were not born for pavements and escalators but for thunder and mud. More. We are animal not only in body but in spirit. Our minds are the minds of wild animals. Artists, who remember their wildness better than most, are animal artists, lifting their heads to sniff a quick wild scent in the air, and they know it unmistakably, they know the tug of wildness to be followed through your life is buckled by that strange and absolute obedience. ('You must have chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star,' wrote Nietzsche.) Children know it as magic and timeless play. Shamans of all sorts and inveterate misbehavers know it; those who cannot trammel themselves into a sensible job and life in the suburbs know it.
What is wild cannot be bought or sold, borrowed or copied. It is. Unmistakeable, unforgettable, unshamable, elemental as earth and ice, water, fire and air, a quintessence, pure spirit, resolving into no constituents. Don't waste your wildness: it is precious and necessary.
Jay Griffiths, Wild: An Elemental Journey
4 comments:
I'm one of the captive wild ones, have lived my life in the suburbs mostly, but spent a year living as a nomad in a camper. The wildness hasn't satisfied my survival needs...thanks for reminding me that it's in my roots.
I could never live in a city for more than a month. I need the green and gold and blues.
Ooooo - "Don't waste your wildness" - goosebumps. Something in me deeply resonates with that... Hmmm... Although I have muffled it over the years in many ways... trying to be the "good girl", the "spiritual one," the "people pleaser", the "co-dependent" etc. Now I don't run with the herd, etc. And don't feel a need to find my "tribe" - I'm a feral cat - reclaiming my untamedness :) LOLOLOL
Thank you, Cate. Yes. Yes. Yes.
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