Beautiful, Wild, Searching Naomi

“All of us are wild deep within.” A Wild Woman Project

What can I say about you, sweet Naomi?  Meeting you changed my life.  You ‘saw’ me. you ‘heard’ me, you ‘knew’ me.

You witnessed, named and honoured my deep sharing and vulnerability.  You thanked me for my tears, and cried with me at our first gathering together, and in so doing cracked open a space in my judgement:- haha, I thought you were perfect, young, beautiful, partnered, happy.  Our meeting, the time, conversations, and visioning we’ve done since has contributed so much to my understanding of A Beautiful Mama Project and A Wild Woman Project.

Walking down to the river to pray, play, cry and work through shame, fears, lost dreams, deep desires, and new hopes and visions with you…hands and feet in the mud, searching, probing, the constant trickle of flow, the rich earth, Cedar growth and death, constant.  The rich, rich smell of it all, loamy, wet, so incredibly female….thank you for your vulnerability, thank you for you questing, thank you for your gentleness with yourself and with me, thank you, Naomi, for helping me understand my wild craft, my wild photo wanders.  I can’t wait until the next time we create together, we hold space together, we cry and love and love together.

I love these words you have written on rewilding.

“Rewilding to me is a remembering, a tuning into the Earth & her sacred, ancient ways & energy.  Of beginning to match our nature with Nature.  To allow ourselves to listen to our heart beat & the heart beat of the earth, air, water, fire & begin to bring balance back within ourselves & so then without us as well.  To allow there to be seasons within our lives & to allow shame & guilt to melt away as we listen to our inner knowing & learn from others who are walking this path & who have walked this path before.  To unlearn all that does not serve & begin anew.  Being mindful with our choices, our words,  our food.         But also being gentle with ourselves in the unfolding.

I find it amazing that now rewilding is a movement.  Yet I have always felt that deep connection to be connected with the earth & it is always there.  All of us are wild deep within.  We have just forgotten the old ways.  The most basic of ways.  To flow with our own seasons within the seasons.  To be unwavering in our strength & to above all be connected with all beings.

By slowing down & spending time in nature, gathering food, preparing our own food. Remembering that all food is living & that we must take life to live and yet we can give back and so the circle of life continues.  That, in the end our own lives will end and if we allow return to the sacred circle.  We all need to be humble and we all need to accept and embrace our innate power and light as beings who are here to protect and live as one with this earth.  We are here to create a new way.  Together.”

Rewilding photographic wanders take us on a  journey through a wild and natural landscape that we love or are drawn to, and in so doing we travel inwards, searching for lost or broken parts of ourselves, our wild selves, “collecting the bones” of our personal stories so to speak.  The forest, trees, roots, rivers, shoreline, caves, stone, sand and mud draw us towards them.  Perhaps we tune in to one or another element more, the river forever running, bringing life and taking it away, a babbling brook of women’s voices, tears, laughter, wisdom of ages, perhaps the mud, rich and mucky covering our hands, feet, bellies….there is healing here, on this journey, this process, of wandering over the road, away from the garden, towards that untended self, tracking a wild woman hiding in the shadows, foraging for sweet berries, sweet truths of self, delicious intuition, flashes of realization, there is release here, in casting off domestic shame, slowly peeling off layers of preconception, and allowing Mother’s embrace, Mother’s example embodied in Tree, Flow, Root, Soar, Release, Compost, there is love here, self love, self embrace.

Thank you for your courage Naomi.  Tender Love, Belinda

Naomi and her partner Dante and their two children live in a beautiful, semi wild setting on the land in Sooke, BC, where they offer, facilitate and hold space for rewilding, community, healing, play, spa and wild food events.  They are an amazing, inspiring couple.  I have learned so much from them, recieved so much love and hope. I am ever grateful. <3 Belinda

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