UNLEASHING THE
W I L D I N S I D E
ISSN: 1839-2318 | ISSUE #42
WILDNESS
Editor's Note ___________________________ 3
A Taste of Wildness ______________________ 4
Unleashing the Wild Inside ________________ 6
The Dolphins Made Me Do It _______________ 10
Wooing the Wild Woman Within ____________ 12
Truth or Dare? __________________________ 16
5 Ways to Unleash the Wild Woman in You ___ 18
Why Women Are Like Houseplants __________ 22
Declare Yourself Wild – 5 Ways to be Free ___ 24
A Silent But Wild Revolution _______________ 28
Seasons of the Wild ______________________ 30
Go Be Wild _____________________________ 32
Your Wild Self __________________________ 34
Confidently Approach Any Situation With the Wild New You _______________________ 37
Does “Normal” Mean “Happy”? ____________ 38
Break Out of That Box ___________________ 41
Next Issue ______________________________ 47
Cover art by Lori Portka.
Hello wild one,
! Welcome to our WILDNESS issue! !
I can’t think of a more perfect topic to end this year.
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With the super exciting release of the first Wild Sister book, WILD + PRECIOUS, + plans coming together for 2015, wildness is certainly in the air for me.
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I hope this issue sparks your inner wild woman to life.
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I hope the stories + advice shared in these digital pages inspire you to end this year with a bang.
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And I hope you ignite your wildness + begin 2015 with a ROAR!
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I’m giving you a big high-five for all you’ve achieved this year.
! You know you rock, right? ! ! Infinite love,
a taste of 
WILDNESS
By Andrea Belarruti
I hear the rainfall. I listen to a mantra on the back. The chimney sparkles. My two partners, friends, and teachers are with me. The place is a mess, a gorgeous kind of mess. One is devotionally counting money, organizing it in little envelopes, making sure every penny is divinely placed and properly assigned. The other assembles little flower arrangements, more than 30 of them. She wraps the flowers in a piece of cloth and lovingly ties them with thread. Every knot she makes is filled with her love. They both shine, I can almost see their love extending out their hearts and expanding to their auras.
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We are in the woods, the "sierra". There is no cellphone cover here, no internet. We're in the midst of nowhere. We are excited, tired and joyful, ready to receive 31 more women tomorrow. It is our time.
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Bring it on God. We're ready. Ready to transform, ignite, shine forth.
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We have been working on this project for months now. A four-day women's retreat in the woods of Mexico. I can't really believe we are here. This is the biggest project I've been involved in so far. It is so in terms of logistics, money, energy and love required. Still, I'm calm, at ease, feeling completely blessed. I'm free now, unattached, even though we've gone
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through so much to get to this point, even though we have a huge responsibility, even when we'll be holding space for 31 women for the next four days. I honestly feel like a wild woman today.
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I think about wildness while I experience it directly here, right now, in my heart, listening to the storm, looking out the window and seeing nothing but total darkness.
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This is the kind of wildness that does not bear fear.
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One that makes me strong and courageous, but graceful and devotional all the same.
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I used to be an addict. I am okay with it today. No need to explain the details now. In summary, I clung to too many things for too long. I remember what wildness meant to me back then. What a different taste now, what a different life. Those days I thought I was expressing my freedom while I slaved myself in fear instead. I felt wild when I thought I was breaking all the rules that there were to break. I said I felt free when I was partying, but really, I was just scared of rejection. Of course that supposed wildness brought me a lot of suffering and pain.
!! ! ! ! Bring it on God. ! ! We're ready. ! ! Ready to ! ! ! transform, ignite, ! ! shine forth. ! ! ! ! ! ! !
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! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
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I don't know if I really get what wildness means today, but I've definitely got a truer taste to it. A big wholehearted ‘YES’ when everyone would say ‘no’. Paying the extra bucks because you know you're worth it. Putting the red lipstick on just for yourself and the reflection on the mirror. Believing in something bigger. Trusting and taking a huge leap, knowing the net will somehow miraculously appear. Being brave enough to amplify a message. Showing yourself honestly. Taking the responsibility to follow a calling. Meditating and just sitting there with your shit. Saying 'This is who I am', especially when you know it is definitely not all unicorns and daisies. Embracing your darkest shadows and knowing you are always evolving. Loving fully. Being One. Opening your heart when it wants to shut down the most. Praying to be free from judgment. Simply praying. Surrendering it all… Knowing who you are, and who dwells within you. That you are a child of God and for that, you are powerful beyond measure. That you and I, my sister, were brought here to heal, and shine, and be as wild as we possibly can.
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Andrea Belarruti is an energy healer and Kundalini Yoga teacher, happily obsessed with soul-centered entrepreneurship. She helps women thrive from the inside out, helping them transform the energy in their bodies and businesses. Website Instagram Twitter Facebook
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unleashing the
Winside ILD By Elizabeth Kelsey
“It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for – and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing. It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool – for love – for your dreams – for the adventure of being alive.”
! – Oriah Mountain Dreamer ! ! !
We've been told for so long how we should act. Whether it's our need to have a 9 to 5 for work or have to dress a certain way. For many, it's a combination of both plus other rules we pick up in our childhood by our parents and community.
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Why is there so much desire in our world to conform when it's proven that having more rules doesn't make a society safer, nor more intelligent or happy?
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exhibit traits that go against the grain we could be labeled or condemned.
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If there is anything I've learned over the past few years, it's how our world is in need of our wildness. Just the other day I spoke with a friend of mine who decided two years ago to up and move to Thailand. Intrigued by his story, I began asking him his perspective on life and our world, in particular the issues we all face. To sum up his sentiment, he spoke about the intelligence of the individual but lack thereof of the group. His thoughts made me wonder how we can make groups that break the stereotype and not only empower the individual, but also the community.
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The only way to do that is if we as individuals choose to not hide our wildness, our passion-driven creativity.
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No one feels happy when they conform, so why pretend to do it?
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Releasing The Wild
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The divine wildness trapped within us can be released if we let it. Therefore the first step is allowing it to manifest. Only then can we birth it into the world.
Freedom in my ! mind comes from releasing the wild inside. ! !
The creativity and imagination and desire that lives in all of us and manifests itself when we allow it. But for the most part, people hide their wildness. We believe society needs to be a certain way and if we
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The second is to own it. Yes, we're all different and (GULP) not perfect. And we make mistakes on a daily basis (if not hourly). We all have guilt, shame, and other feelings that weigh us down and make us feel less of ourselves. But don't you see that that is why it's okay to just be ourselves? If we all suffer, why not forgive ourselves and empathize with others?
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The last step is to accept our imperfection. Whatever our wildness is, whoever we truly are, we cannot be compared to something else. There is no such thing as the same person. The only thing we truly share with others is the fact we all suffer in
some way, frequently by the feelings I mentioned above.
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There is nothing to be judged; no true judge and jury. It's only us holding ourselves back. We need to let our wildness out so that we can be free.
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Elizabeth Kelsey Bradley is an award winning writer, photographer, and consultant. She coaches holistic entrepreneurs on social media and content marketing over at Thriving Healer. You can also find her writing about simplicity + holistic living at Savouring Simplicity.  
How wild it was, to let it be !
– Cheryl Strayed
dolphins made me do it
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the
By Mary Bartnikowski
Wild dolphins don’t make friends with you unless they want to.
!But how do you make their acquaintance? !You get in the ocean where they frolic and
swim over to their pod. You don’t have to chase them. They’ll play with you if they feel like it.
!This changes your life. !I forget I’m human, swimming in 20 meters deep of crystal cobalt water with wild dolphins. But we’re both mammals.
!Only thing is, they’re more evolved. Their eyes are wise and full of emotion. !Yes, it was the wild dolphins that seduced me
to the Big Island of Hawaii in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on a rock of lava. My home is here now.
!I didn’t intend to stay but as soon as I left the
Big Island after a month-long visit, I knew in my heart I had to come right back. My dolphin friends were not living down the street from me. What were they up to without me checking on them?
!So I bought a return ticket to the Big Island
and fell in love again. The dolphins live down the street from me now. No, they don’t live in huge tanks poked and prodded by tourists.
!They live in the ocean, wild and free.Dolphins inspire me. Their wildness is rubbing off on me.
!It was not a logical decision to move here, but wildly following your heart usually isn’t. Logic is not final wisdom.
!In our hearts beats a drummer that only we
know. No one else can decipher that rhythm
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for us. We discover our own secret longings by listening.
!If we give our hearts time, our wisdom rises to the surface so we can hear it. Sometimes it’s loud and clear.
!I told my friends I was leaving to be with the dolphins on the Big Island of Hawaii. !“When are you coming back?” !“I’m going to live over there.” !Perhaps it wasn’t clear that this was not a
visit. My path was in front of me like a beckoning whisper thumping in my chest. There was no other choice but to come here. I didn’t analyze it.
!And it did change my life. I now lead
photography and dolphin safaris on Hawaii and am excited to share the magic and magnificence I have discovered here with people who want to get on a plane and come to paradise. But how do you make friends with wild dolphins?
!Here’s how my day goes. !I wake up to clouds of birds serenading me
every morning. This prepares me for divine happenings. Fresh Kona coffee in hand I walk to the shore to see if the dolphins are in Kealakekua Bay.
!Are they splashing in the water? !If they are, I get my fins and mask and swim
out to their play area. Each time is different. This morning they welcomed me with smiles, swimming closely by radiating love. Other times they’re nursing, playing in their pod and spinning in the air after jet blasting out of the water.
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!But this morning they came so close it was
like being hugged. I floated in a state of pure happiness. I didn’t want anything. Didn’t need to strive or grasp.
!If you see dolphins in the bay flipping their
tails and coming up for air, get in the water, swim over, and soon you’ll hear sonar squeaks behind you.
!Yes, they’re here now. Swimming around you in a circle, crazy close, careening by your astounded face. That’s the mystery. They show up when they want to.
!Dolphins hunt at night for fish to eat and in the morning they go to sleep drifting with their pod. One half of their brain turns off; the other half is alert and ready to flee if a shark shows up. A few had their eyes closed this morning. They looked tired after all that hunting.
!But they want to play with us humans, god
knows why, but they do. Us snorkelers plop right down in their bedrooms. In Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii.
!The biggest dolphin of the pod knows me
now. He was the one who talked to me. Yes, really. One morning he got in my face and began communicating in sonar squeaks, within inches of my astounded eyes he had something to tell me. We were eye to eye while he was delivering his message. I was in an alternate universe. But what was he saying?
!I felt like joining the pod. !King Dolphin glided by me this morning. The
expression on his bottlenose face said “Hi-ya” with a smile. He swooshed by slowly like silken drive-by sonar scan taking in every detail. He knows exactly where I am positioned down to the centimeter, but there is never any touching. Just like a nun and abbott in a Buddhist temple in Thailand. No touching ever. Not even a handshake.
!The dolphins are my friends. They are why I
live here now. If this island is good enough for them it’s perfect for me. I’ve not found a good reason to leave here. Talk about Aloha. The wild dolphins invented it.
!Who would have thought that these amazing beings from the wild and free ocean would change my life?
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!! !! If we give our !! !! hearts time, our !! wisdom rises to !! the surface so !! !! we can hear it. !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! Mary Bartnikowski is an author, award-winning photographer, and educator. She travels the world leading photography, yoga and wild dolphin retreats in Hawaii and other exotic locations.
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Discover Mary’s Photo and Dolphin Retreats Here. Web | Facebook | YouTube | Magazine
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wooing the wild woman
within By Jackee Holder
"Once when I was nursing a very tender heart God spoke to me through the trees, the early morning dew and the urban fox. In those days I wrote to spirit telling spirit my troubles and spirit wrote back. In the company of a single tree I returned back to myself."
! – Jackee Holder ! !
There was a time more than ten years ago when God spoke to me through the trees. I was fresh out of a long-term relationship and the leaving was messy and left me deeply wounded and bruised. I had the choice of either psychotherapy and other healing modalities but the wild of nature called, descending on me in the way a gale force wind arrives and plucked me from the bricks and mortar of my home where each day I would camp out on the sofa, and guided me to the presence of a robust and sprawling evergreen oak that lived on the top of a small hill in my local park.
!Every morning, almost as if nature had
prescribed a daily prescription, I would wake up around 5.30am, pull on my running gear and head out the door for my daily appointment with, as I eventually named my tree, Sanctuary. Most mornings after completing my hour long run following the path around the edges of the park I would begin the ascent uphill towards Sanctuary.
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As I approached Sanctuary my energy would often shape-shift into how I imagined pilgrims would feel who, having walked for miles, would feel the surge of energy from the heart soar as they got closer to their chosen destination, a sacred space, a holy spot, a place of reverence. Sanctuary became my place of comfort and refuge.
!Sanctuary had a huge crown of thick
branches flush with leaves all year round. I knew about the different healing energies associated with the oak. Considered a tree where one could draw courage, strength and inner spiritual guidance, Oak trees were known to live for up to 700 years, outlived only by the Yew. The oak trees we know today are so much smaller when compared to the earlier giants.
!According to Jacqueline Memory Patterson in her wonderful book, Tree Wisdom: The Definitive Guide to the Myth, Folklore and Healing Powers of Trees, "The oak is possibly the most revered of all trees.” Great oak forests and holy groves were once common across Western Europe and traditionally couples were married under oak trees before the Christians domesticated the tradition and took marriage into the church.
!Perhaps in my soul I already knew what
many before me believed – that we are distant cousins to the trees, and as Adam Wilson reminds us in his book, Seeking Silence in a Noisy World: The Art of Mindful Solitude, is that “The trees have followed a different lineage from us, as have the
!mosses, the toad stools and the birds.”
Perhaps the wisdom of the customs and traditions of the indigenous first nations people of the Americas who revered trees and referred to trees as the standing people embodying the spirit and wisdom of the ancestors had returned to help me at this point in my life.
!Sometimes I would lean my back against
Sanctuary's bark and draw strength from this great tree and pour it into my weary body. Other times I would stretch my arms as far as they could go around her stout bark. I felt really resourced by this tree and I’m not alone. In her book, Poem Crazy: Freeing Your Life With Words, Susan Goldsmith Woolridge writes about a similar feeling she experiences with a eucalyptus tree, “I went in and breathed in the steam of a eucalyptus tree. I felt like I was inhaling life force.” In Sanctuary’s presence I too felt that life force.
!Sometimes I would perform an ancient
African tradition of pouring libation (water) onto the earth as a way of expressing gratitude in remembrance and celebration of our ancestors and those who have gone before us. The traditions and rituals in Sanctuary’s presence nourished me. Despite my obvious depression at the time, in Sanctuary's presence I found not just my feet, I also found my voice.
!Many mornings I would sit and write at her
feet in the small notebook I carried in a pocket. Sometimes a prayer or poem would take root on the page or an idea would emerge for my work. Sometimes I would write words or quotes unaware of the medicine the words were revealing. With no words, with only her willingness to give, Sanctuary’s presence and unconditional open heartedness showered me with healing, refuge and a safe space.
!Under her wise counsel I learned to stand
on my own ground, how to weather difficult and turbulent passages in life and how to return to love of self. It seems I am not alone in having regular meetings with a tree. Adam Ford in his book, Seeking Silence in a Noisy World: The Art of Mindful Solitude shared how, “Instead of calling on some scholar, I paid many a visit to a particular tree, of a kind which are rare in the neighbourhood, standing far away in the middle of some pasture, or in the depths of a wood or a swamp or a hill top.”
In time, my running took me to new green pastures across the neighbourhoods in London where I lived and each time I physically signaled out and adopted a tree along route or in the park or local common and used it as a landmark as the point of completion of my run. But none offered me the reverence and healing that Sanctuary offered me for those first few months when I was tender and raw.
!Even now, fifteen years later, I still think
dearly of that precious time with Sanctuary, and even though I no longer live nearby, I am close enough to make the trip once in a while when I need a spiritual surge to go pay her a visit.
!I am always excited about making a trip to
visit. Often I arrive halfway during the day when the park is bustling with dog owners and mums with children in buggies. Yet I always find the space under her huge canopy empty and Sanctuary is always waiting with her arms wide open. For anyone looking on at the scene it would be hard to imagine from a first glance at the woman standing in front of this tree, heavily wrapped in several layers of clothing to keep out the chill of the crisp winter air, the history and intimacy I have with this tree. It’s our secret, a secret of where the wild things go. It is memory, a reminder that when the soul is in charge it knows what the natural thing is to do.
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wild writing !
I am curious to know what your story is of the wild, either real or imagined. Perhaps you have a story of being out in the wild, or a place in nature that reminds you of the wild or a time in your life when you were the wild woman for real.
!Wild is where we come alive. We become
the huntress not the hunted. Like I have just shared my wild story, how about writing your own story of a time when you connected with the wild? Try my wild writing exercise below. You’ll need a notebook or digital device, whichever you prefer.
!Before you begin, set aside seven minutes
and sit quietly in what I call a contemplative
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!sacred space. Just focus on the rhythm and flow of your breath. As the thoughts come, gently breathe through each one, one by one, letting each slip by.
!At the end of the seven minutes, turn to
your notebook or digital device and write this prompt at the top of your page or screen,
! There once was a time when I… !And then for ten minutes write what comes
next – that is a real or imagined story of you connecting with the wild.
!A tip for your wild writing practice is to
choose either to write fast and furiously or slow and deliberate. In other words write in whatever way feels natural to you. Remember the invitation is to write a story that is real (as I did) or one that is imagined or made up that connects you to the word “wild".
!Give yourself thirty minutes for your wild
writing practice. Remember this is natural writing so there's no focus on spelling, grammar or punctuation. Once you’ve finished, take four deep breaths before you move on to the next stage.
!Get comfortable, maybe grab a cup of tea
or glass of water and settle down. Read over what you’ve written and as you read underline, using either a highlighter pen or mark in bold words that jump out or resonate with you. In particular, highlight any words that demonstrate any of the following: • • •
Your strength, your bravery or courage Your resilience and resourcefulness Your creativity and determination
!If you imagined or made up your wild story, still do the same. !Now you have a list of words, qualities and
characteristics that speak to your wild self, even if you believed you were writing about someone else. If your story was imagined you’ll be adopting the words you highlighted as your own. These words show you and
others who you really are, rather than the woman you pretend or think you ought to be.
!Next write your response to the following
prompts. Don’t worry if other things come to you as you write, just go with what comes:
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• •
How might using more of these qualities in everyday life shake things up for the better? How might embracing the words and qualities allow your wild woman to be more present in everyday life?
!We all have a wild woman within, and we
can connect with her in many different ways. My wild woman revealed herself to me through a tree and my early morning runs. Yours may appear as a result of a life event and for others she will come through fiction and stories.
!However she reveals herself to you is fine,
but when she comes make sure you enjoy the magic and healing of her presence and fearless companionship. She is your natural birthright and heritage.
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Jackee is passionate about writing and journaling. She is the keeper of over one hundred journals and she has a committed and ongoing writing practice of pen to paper. Jackee holds a Masters degree in creative writing and personal development from Sussex University (UK), and believes wholeheartedly in the healing and therapeutic properties of creative and expressive writing.
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