ARCHETYPE
of
THE WILDWOMAN
and
HER 3 FACES
of
THE WILDWOMAN
and
HER 3 FACES
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At First Quarter Moon I am the untamable Wild-woman, free and uninhibited, with sometimes bloody tooth and claw. I passionately follow the instincts of Nature to give elemental expression to the primal urges of erotic life. Do you remember when you have let your hair down and dared to shout, scream, or laugh very loudly, without concern for what others might think? I was your source of ecstasy and power
I am Dame Nature, the Madwoman, and the Whore__ all despised by the world, feared for their ruthless, uncivilized, lusty emergy. Dancing to a frenzy, I have led many a daemonic orgy in ancient ages past__ and I would enjoy coming forth in the company of women today. But I am recognized and respected only by the street-wise and by the so-called "crazy ones" who commune and prowl with the animals of the wilds.
My moon-phase is a time to take action__ to break out of constraints and declare your Spirit free. Like the animals, in whom I dwell most easily. I live only in the moment, with no regret for the past, nor hope for the future. My passion is here. Now. I roar. I screech, I howl. I dance in ecstatic celebration of erotic Life.
The Wildwoman is the animal part of us who roars, howls, snarls, screeches, with untamed primitive passion. She is the keeper of an inner bestiary, the choreographer of a psychic circus of barely contained passions, waiting to be un-caged. In her profound madness, the Wildwoman shakes our complacency, awakens our enthusiasm to enter the tragic and comic struggles of life.
Wild-woman Dame Nature won't succumb to the rules of mankind. She answers to the voice of the Elements alone, for none other speaks her tongue. Throughout the earth, the voice of Dame Nature calls, and our deep inner Wild Self hears.
Dame Nature presides ovver all that cannot be tamed. In this painting, she sits, horned and masked, amid her companion Elementals, who dance, prance, frolic, and cavort around her. Winged fairies flit about, gentle as whispers. Mischievous naiads surf the waterfall and lounge upon tree branches. Serious, agless gnomes accompany the Dame's pipe-dream, while guileless pixies scamper through the magic holly-vines at her feet. In the distance, the Firebird soars beyond the fiery volcano of its birth, and a magic dragon sea-serpent sails the diamond-bright waters below.
We spy upon a tranquil moment in an often tumultuous world, where trespassers can cause bedlam. Beware the gaze of Dame Nature, for she is capricious, and can turn her wrath raging upon us in an instant. Yet, she produces exhilarating vicissitudes that can open all our senses to the ephemeral sights, scents, and sounds of life-evolving. Perhaps, this is a representative of Irish FAiry Queen, Maeve. Or she may be the great Hawaiian volcano goddess, Pele, awaiting the return of her lost lover. Dame Nature's flute, akin to the magical Pipes of Pan, calls lost lovers through the storm, bringing them to each other's arms_ or to death.
Invocation to Dame Nature:
Help me learn to hear your voice and appreciate your elemental
magic. Help me open up to the storms of life, with a willingness
to be tossed in your winds of cleansing power.
Show me how to effect purification, after periods of struggle and
difficulty. Let me brave the unknown forces, in order to heal
the wounds of a sexist, racist and chauvinistic culture.
The Maenad-Madwoman has an instinctual erotic power that amplifies our voice, escalates our pace, animates all our creative expression. But, it is she whom we try hardest to suppress, deny, eradicate-- for she is our Crazy Self. The madwoman within compels our attention through acts beyond our wildest dreams, in thoughts we would never harbor waking, but obsessively cherish in slumber.
In this painting, shameless, outrageous, alluring women dance, sing, and play in the wild with animal companions. The crescent moon glows orange through a fiery sunset, reflecting on the burnished skin and ruddy hair of these fairy maidens in their green glade. Irish are they? I would guess they are daughters of the great Banshee, herself. Oblivious to the moral judgments of civil society, these daughters of the Wild-woman hark only to their physical senses and spirited instincts. They represent the truly free aspect of women's erotic spirit-- that which dares ride the winds of fate in the wake of a ravenous and chaotic dream-lover.
These are women with the powers that men dread: the power of female orgasm, orgy, and insatiable sexual appetite. As followers of Dionysos, Bachus, and Pan-- gods of sexual revelry and intoxication-- the Maenads can be clowns of the universe, capering foolishly to the brink of disaster. Yet, they come to no harm, for they are merely paying respect to the gods of festivity, merrymaking, and mirth.
Invocation to the Maenad-Madwoman:
Help me release the untamed creature within me to dance in the
night without fear. Let me open myself to my own crazy mystery,
and embrace my own madness that must be loosed to heal. Help me
banish feelings of timidity and separate myself from the bindings
and traps of propriety.
The Whore stands for Sex, stark and naked. Her sexuality is her power in a world that is ruled by sanctimonious, rapacious, profligate men-- and she meets them at their crudest level. To her, sex is nothing romantic, it is just a job. Her services are in constant demand, even while she is damned and defiled for them. Her history is seminal to all women's sexual emancipation, for it reaches back to our beginnings. The "oldest profession" originates in the earliest religious rites, where harlots and hierodules of the ancient world were an essential civilizing force. By the prostitute's cultured skills of eroticism, mankind was humanized.
In this painting, standing naked in a blooming bower, the Whore shares the shimmering fruit of sensual enlightenment with her venerable consort and companion, the serpent-- phallic, fecund creature of original mystery and primal cunning. Together, promiscuous and sexually knowledgeable, the whore and her sinuous cohort strike terror in the hearts of so-called "decent" people-- those with senses too timid to meet openly the wanton gaze of undiluted sex.
This is Jahi the Whore, unknown to Westerners. Her tale is told in Persian Zoroastrian scriptures, where she is said to have seduced the first man in her primal garden, and thus introduced sex into the world. She was a revered goddess in the permissive joyful worship of women, but reviled under ensueing inhibited patriarchal asceticism. Of course, we do know Jahi by another name-- Eve.
Invocation to the Whore:
Help me recognize my own habits of exploitive opportunism. Let me
use my erotic wisdom to achieve important goals, but not to become
a victim to my sexuality, nor a slave to another's. Yet help me to
banish sexual shame and withstand negative judgments of others for
my natural erotic appeal.