Shot by a moose hunter
Tale of a wild woman in the woods
I have been warned several times to not walk in the deep woods unless I wear a reflector vest. “It is a hunting season,” a short explanation would follow. I did not take those alerts close to my heart. Perhaps, it had something to do with my recklessness or years of living under shelling in Ukraine. Yet, it was when I met an actual hunter in the forest who started waving his hands ferociously explaining that I might be a target, that I took it a bit further into my head and heart.
“Do I look like a moose?” That was my first thought and it made me laugh. Let me explain. Moose is the world's tallest, largest and heaviest (up to 700 kilograms!) species of deer. It is a massive tower-like animal! Gosh, how could a hunter be so blind to confuse woman with a moose?
And yet he can. He can, because very often it is not an animal that men are hunting for. It is the wildness in that animal. Its beauty, its mystery, its untamed spirit. Its capacity to live its own life separate from ordered human life. This is something people tend to silence to show it who is the master here, who rules the world (and, apparently, during the hunting season it is not girls, pardon Beyonce).
After all, does the hunting season ever end? And if girls do get to rule the world do they keep their spirit free, their feminine mysteries, their wildness alive?
Wild woman = dangerous woman
Witch hunts and torture that we, women, had to undergo for our true nature remain so vivid in my mind that I still tend to wear an invisible reflective vest among people to ensure that nobody will smell my wildness and shoot me down. It sounds totally foolish, XXI century after all! And yet, that fear has lived in women for way too long to be evaporated easily. It is also derived from our feminine collective and ancestral lines that have warned us a zillion times: women, be wary of your power to survive. Do not repeat our fate. That painful memory of witch hunts has buried itself in cells of every woman who is in deep connection with the Mother Earth, who hears Her heartbeat and translates the invisible into human language. But will she dare to deliver the message? Will she have the guts to share her truth and unconventional wisdom, to challenge the existing narrative and make herself a potential target for hunters?
I have done a good portion of showing up in this lifetime and paid for it dearly. I have also done a good portion of keeping my wildness concealed. Or, even worse than that, convincing myself that it is a problem and must be tamed, kept captive, if not killed. And by ‘wildness' I mean the plethora of feelings, emotions, impulses, flows of ideas and thoughts that are taking their origins from intuition and bodily wisdom.
Many of us are still hiding our true selves. We prefer to stay invisible, unnoticeable, voiceless. Underneath our unspoken words and baggy clothes lies a horrendous fear to shine in our full feminine capacity.
There are many aspects to the feminine that have been suppressed both internally and externally and put under the lid labelled as wild and, thus, dangerous. Let me make it clear: femininity in her wholeness might be not pretty at all. It might be wrathful, lustful, harsh and ruthless. Yet, there is a huge potency in the wildness we have denied, since it is there that our feminine vitality lives in.
Predators and prey game
My fellow embodiment practitioner got so exhausted with unwanted male attention that she decided the only solution is to ‘desexualize’ her body. I must confess that I had never heard that word before and it made me appalled. It is the same as saying: to keep my peace I have to deny myself. I have to deprive myself of my sexuality and femininity. In other words: I have to become my very own predator before somebody will shoot me down.
“Be very careful with men. Some will want to use your body. Others will want to use your brain. The slyest ones will want to take advantage of all of it,” my father told me a while ago, and that statement has been echoing through all of my life. Unfortunately, I saw clear evidence of what he meant, even though I tried my best to convince myself that times have changed, and woman is not an object of male dominance or control anymore. Surprisingly enough, to save ourselves we, women, became our own objects of dominance and control over our true wild nature.
Hunting season will be over. Yet, at the end of the day, hunting never ends. Regardless of whether you are in the deep woods or in the concrete jungle, hunting goes on and on. The scope of it is unimaginable, and all of humankind is playing both predators and prey hunting for recognition, for approval, for superiority, for money, for sex, for spiritual awakening, for belonging, for safety, for pain or pleasure etc.
Many of us are in a perpetual survival mode, and I am a firm believer that current challenging times require more awareness, more courage and more curiosity towards one’s wildness. Essentially, this episode of me walking in the woods and wondering whether I will be shot by a moose hunter made me ponder in what ways I hunt myself down. So, if you came this far in my wild woman’s tale I welcome you to explore your own hunting patterns by reflecting on the following:
What are you most hungry for in this brave new world?
What do you hunt down (deny, reject, kill) in yourself?
Are there parts of your that you deem to be too wild? What would you lose if you befriend them?
What makes you scared of being you?
What would happen if you allowed yourself to speak your truth unapologetically?
These are deep questions. Yes, I know. Scary also, right? Yet, they may open up an internal dialogue that will lead to liberation and reclamation of one’s power. Not for dominance or control in the hunting game, but for preserving and nurturing what is deer (or dear) to your wild heart.