March is Women’s History Month and I’m also celebrating the fifth anniversary of the release of my book Wild Women, Wild Voices, Writing from Your Authentic Wildness.
I get all nostalgic when I remember the many groups of wild women who have joined me in meeting rooms and around tables throughout the years to write their stories and give voice to their lives.
Our first group took place on six summer nights nearly twenty years ago. We called our group “Hot Nights, Wild Women.” It was and we were. At the end our our workshops, we created a chapbook of our writings.
Since that time, before Wild Women, Wild Voices was published and after, I’ve sent out the call many times and scores of women have responded. Each season, we gather, we remember, we write our stories and we tell our truths.
“Every word a woman writes changes the story of the world, revises the official version,” wrote Carolyn See. (I love her book, Making A Literary Life.)
This month, as we celebrate the one-hundredth anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, as we go to the polls to, once again, change the world, I urge all of us to write our stories in whatever form they want to take.
Here’s this from the Introduction to Wild Women, Wild Voices:
By nature we are creative. Creativity flows through us like the blood in our veins. In our natural state, we are writers, dancers, singers, poets, and makers of art, even though in our daily lives we may not practice our art or even acknowledge this part of ourselves. Still, our hands intuitively know the shape of a bowl; our fingers naturally curve around a pen or brush. We sing when we’re alone in the car or the shower and dance by ourselves when we hear a certain song.
We know many things: why spiders like dark places, why moths are drawn to the light; we know the urging of blossoms to break open every spring. Given a clear night and a blanket spread on the summer grass, we can translate the midnight language of the the stars. We understand the necessity of sex, the order of death, the beauty of mourning.
These are intuitive knowings that we sometimes forget, but they reside just beneath the surface of our daily lives and come alive in our nightdreams. Try as culture, politics, religion, or families might to eradicate it, this knowledge of our innermost Self—intuitive and rich and wild—is always with us. We may have forgotten how to express it or we might stutter when we try, but the deep song of our authentic voice still resonates within.
Now is the time: write your story, tell your truth, make history; change the world.
Thanks for teaching me how to write wild!
You knew it all along, Jill. And I love the noise your wild voice makes!
I’ve never understood the difficulty of using one’s authentic voice. It is after all divine gift. Use it. Make the world a better place.
Hey Linda G. That’s because you are a rare woman. Keep using yours. I know you will.
Thanks for stopping by once again.
My comment sounds arrogant all right and I was just thinking about that as I opened the blinds and looked out at the wet 5 AM streets like everywoman’s Wild Woman teaches us.
My upbringing (we get to blame that for everything) is such that when someone had a feeling or a thought, everyone knew about it. Immediately and forever. My grownups had a comment for everything in fact I am sure and certain that Bigelow named its beautiful orange spice black tea after them: “Constant Comment.” I grew up telling it like it is. Familial culture also lent us to say what we feel and show too and while I do know some quiet and ladylike (what’s that?) Italian women we are not among those.
The result of all that is I write like I talk and speak like I write.
And of course I’m an annual study practitioner of Wild Women, Wild Voices just in case I ever forget to tell it like it is.
Check out that tea. You can decaffeinate it by putting a bit of boiling water over the bag or leaves for 40 seconds, pour it out, add water. Black and orange box.
Hey Linda,
I’ve always known you to just say it how you see it, and good for you.
Thanks for the comment about the tea (Constant Comment); I’ve had it before, but not for a long time. A good reminder of a good tea treat.
We keep writing.
Judy
Great post Judy….
I read the following a few years ago and thought it to be quite insightful:
“……Alain de Boton, writer about philosophy, in his book How Proust Will Change Your Life, talks about people, literary tourists, looking for Combray, the fictional village where Proust set his masterwork. And he said in many ways they’ve got it kind of wrong because if they want to have a true homage to their hero, Proust, instead of looking at his world with their eyes, they should look at their own world with Proust’s eyes.”
Grayson Perry
Long may we cultivate Proustian eyes!
Sincerely
Michael
Yes! Proustian eyes. I like the way that sounds.
Thanks for stopping by with your thoughtful quotes and good cheer, Michael.
Judy,
Thanks for this interesting and informative post.
I enjoyed reading it.
Thanks for stopping by, Arlene. Let’s make some history! (Oh, we already are.)