in pursuit... of improv
a beautiful passage from Women Who Run with Wolves
I began reading Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D.
I am on page 12. There’s just so much to unlock. I came to the following paragraph, and had to spend about 7 minutes reflecting…
“The Wild Woman carries the bundles for healing; she carries everything a woman needs to be and know. She carries the medicine for all things. She carries stories and dreams and words and songs and signs and symbols. She is both the vehicle and the destination.”
She is both the vehicle and the destination.
She is both the VEHICLE AND the DESTINATION.
Wow.
I am twenty-nine years old. I have spent a lot of my life focused on the destination. I am focused mostly on where I’m going. I am aware of this. I am aware of my inclination to want to get to the end, to check the boxes. It is my tendency. I have to make a conscious intention to be more present, to lean into more of the ‘vehicle’ part of this journey. I have almost shamed myself to push away from the destination part, and more into the vehicle part.
But I missed something again.
I am the vehicle and the destination.
It is not an “either, or” it is always an “AND.”
The theme of “AND” has consumed much of my thoughts these days. The idea I am both, all and everything.
I recently began a Improv Class. I am 3 weeks in of 6. If you’re not familiar with Improv, the tagline is “Yes, and.."
You are encouraged to build up others, expand, and think creatively. The goal is to always add something, avoid conflict and avoid saying, “No.” Improv is grounded on the idea that we can always be both. It is always AND.
Improv is everything. It is every interaction with the cashier, it is the silliness we can bring to our everyday. Improv is a joyous permission to think and be EXPANSIVE. It’s a way to encourage thinking less seriously about this confusing, difficult, insane world we live in.
And what Estes was saying? It’s the same kind of thing. We can be it all. We are it all. We are beautiful soup of everything we’ve ever touched, smelled, seen, tasted or consumed. We are every interaction we’ve ever had, we are the stories, the musings, the reflections, the joys of living.
Estes excerpt continues… What is a Wild Woman?
“She is ideas, feelings, urges, and memory. She has been lost and half forgotten for a long, long time. She is the source, the light, the night, the dark, the daybreak. She is the smell of good mud on the back leg of the fox. The birds which tell us secrets belong to her. She is the voice that says, “This way, this way.”… She is the one we come home to. … She is the mind which thinks us, we are the thoughts that she thinks” (Estes, 13.)
Oh goodness.
Oh wow.
She is the voice that says, “this way, this way.”
It seems women specifically are told who to be, how to act. We are told what we should be doing, most of our lives, most of the time. I mean, so recently, we have lost our own decisions for our own bodies.
And here, Estes so eloquently writes about our power — our inner power, our natural power. The power we hold in just being women. Without the patches and without the layers and without the labels we are made to put on ourselves. Our wild-ness.
You can imagine why I am only on page 13. I could read this paragraph for a long while.
This wildness — we have — all of us. In many ways, this wild-ness has been pushed down, it’s been kept inside a box. This childlike wildness often is begging to be unleashed. I believe community unlocks this wild-ness. Emotions, silliness and creativity all unlock this wildness. And I think, for me, my Improv class helps unlock this wild-ness too.
What’s your key to unlocking the wild-ness inside you?
XO and forever in pursuit,
T
