I am going to be doing something very new this year which challenges me and frightens me, but also invigorates me and excites me. I will be offering workshops for women to help them find their Wild Voice.
I wrote this last year when I was just beginning to find my own Wild Voice and it feels very much like serendipity to find it again on the day I had made the decision to share my intentions with others.
*image credit Mohammad Metri on Unsplash
“Onwards” T.L.Wood 2018
She had faced her fears so many times that they no longer troubled her. The same demons hounded her days just as they had for many years previous. The same ugly faces and angry voices swam through both her dreams and waking life alike. They were nothing more now than a mere hindrance to her. Insects of Doubt and Insecurity who tried in vain to land on her, and which she swatted away with ease. No label could describe her now, no box would contain her. She had seen the reflection of her true self, and in an act of great defiance and rebellion, she had celebrated all that she had seen.
She knew that most others believed she was tired of fighting, but the truth was she felt no emotion either way. She had long since accepted that the fight was a necessary part of her, understood that her resilience was ongoing and infinite. She grew ever stronger from each encounter, learned about herself and those around her, and used that knowledge to better herself so that she might also be better equipped to help others. She accepted defeat as much as victory, knowing that the lesson did not come from within the conflict, but from what she could salvage from the wreckage, piecing together new parts of her understanding, and adding to her ever-changing self.
Through each hardship she persisted, in every challenge she prevailed. She stood up and spoke up and lifted up all those who needed her help. She would never turn away nor offer her surrender. She walked amongst the bitter ones and hurtful ones who sought nothing but to vanquish her, and gave no heed to their distain or vulgarity. She took the hands of her comrades and sisters, her friends and her lovers, and led them to seek their own freedoms. She gave them the guidance they requested of her, so that they could forge the pathways of resistance in their own ways.
She walked not as a goddess nor as a warrior, but merely as a woman who knew her own mind and had found complete confidence in herself. She had found Love, and it had grown from within her as much as she had received it from others. They called her a Wild Woman, as she would not be tamed, but instead she strode out of the howling darkness and carried her own light.