In the early days of writing class for group #2, one of the prompts I gave my students was, “Write a set of directions for how to bring more wildness into your life.”
This was my response. What would yours be?
Stop listening to the news.
Stop looking at your list. Better yet, burn your list. Tear it into tiny pieces.
Bring your attention out of your head and into your nerve endings. Ask them to bring you the glory and beauty of the world. The ugliness. The uncertainty. The real sensory details of each moment. This moment.
Put on some music and dance.
Close your eyes. Keep dancing as if no one is watching.
Take off your makeup. Let down your hair. Take off your bra. Definitely take off your bra.
Think about your favorite animal and move like that animal moves. Move from the impulse that starts in your belly, your ribs, your liver, your vagina. Let your body unfurl.
Resist the impulse to make another list.
Put away your cell phone. Power it down and lock it another room. If you need to, give it to someone else and tell them to keep it for the next 24 hours, no matter what you say.
Step away from the digital world. Enter the moment.
Pray. Pray to whoever or whatever you pray to because you are not going to accomplish this alone. You are too conditioned, too habitual, too addicted, too deadened, too harried, too hurried, too wedded to comfort.
Fuck comfort.
Do something completely unexpected. And keep breathing.
Invite. Allow. Open.
Open the palms of your hands.
Let your responsibilities slough off like peeling skin. Allow the new skin to shine beneath the surface.
Embrace raw.
Embrace uncertainty.
Say no, a great big loud no to anything that gets in your way.
Say yes. YES. YES. YES. YES.
Enter this new world with curiosity, receptivity, and above all, courage.
This will not be easy. This will not be comfortable. All your inner protectors will rise up in alarm. Tell them they can have their say later. Right now this moment is for you and you alone.
Roar. Cry. Sing. Open your throat and use your voice.
Don’t plan ahead.
Embrace wildness.