Wild Wisdom by Lea Bayles
Wild Wisdom is not city water.
It has not been piped, managed, studied,
treated, purified, fluoridated or chlorinated.
It does not pour obediently
out of your household fixtures.
Wild Wisdom does not stop when you turn a knob.
It does not travel around the world
encased in layers of plastic wrap.
It does not end up in the landfill or
kill baby albatross.
Wild Wisdom is water you slurp
right out of the icy stream melting off the glacier.
Wild Wisdom gushes from a
mysterious subterranean vein.
In it you taste ancient minerals from
plant and animal bodies
decomposed nine million years ago.
Wild Wisdom flows through the cave where your
bushmothers gathered and ate aurochs and
painted with their hands and worshiped
fecundity, food, survival and spirit.
Wild Wisdom is not the pet on your leash.
It is the untamable creature who claims you as kin,
quickening your pulse,
breathing your breath,
seizing your senses.
Leopard, sea anemone, dragonfly,
languid bear sleeping with cubs,
fox staring boldly in the forest,
dying rabbit,
lion stalking,
roebuck running,
serpent wrapped close around your warm belly,
raven offering you a courtship rattle,
amber eyes shining in the night.
Wild Wisdom is not a Wal-Mart tomato.
It has not been manipulated to stay pretty
on the shelf for months.
It has not been gassed and shipped from a
hot dry field in Mexico to Nebraska in January.
Wild Wisdom is a lumpy, funky, weird,
reddish-brown tomato
that alerts your tongue to
new possibilities of delight.
Wild Wisdom is the soles of your feet
longing for bare earth,
longing to grow roots that
descend and spread,
longing to seek nourishment
among the thick, gnarly organs and
fragile filaments of
oak, yew, fir, alder, cedar and redwood,
longing to rise as sap up and up and up,
longing to reunite with the Tall Ones who
towered above for centuries and
whose presence beckons you still through
strip malls, subdivisions and tree farms.
Wild Wisdom does not have a marketing plan.
It does not work 9-5 and take two weeks vacation.
It is not in the voter’s pamphlet.
It does not rule from a throne or a boardroom or a pulpit.
It does not tell you to follow rules that it violates.
Wild Wisdom is not a polite guest.
She crashes the party and seduces the hostess,
eats with her fingers from other peoples’ plates,
belches loudly, dances on the table and
spills red wine all over your precious manuscript.
Wild Wisdom is in you.
It needs you.
And god knows …you need it.
You need it to come alive.
You need it to find your path.
You need it to stay true to your core.
You need it to grow into your
honest version of lover, friend, mother, father,
teacher, artist and healer,
instead of the pale imitation who has for years
gotten you such nice nods of approval.
Wild Wisdom may shatter the container,
to save the contents.
Wild Wisdom shakes up your marriage
so you both have a chance to discover
what you really came together to create.
Wild Wisdom wakes you up at 2 in the morning and,
yes, you can ignore her,
I tried for years,
so go right ahead and
pathologize her as a sleep disorder,
do an herbal protocol for your liver or
get a prescription for Ambien
to try to make her leave you alone or
-Good Grief!- at least
come back at a civilized hour!
But honey, do you really want her to leave you alone?
Are you sure?
Wild Wisdom is the potency of the eggs you will not shed,
eggs that become memes for our new story,
fertilized and brought to life as
you make love with your creative destiny.
Wild Wisdom is always cooking deep
in the warm darkness of your loins,
ready to impregnate possibilities
we have barely begun to dream of.
Wild Wisdom is the 13th Godmother not invited to the christening,
Lilith banished from the Garden,
Holy Infant dumped in a trashcan,
Aphrodite locked out of the wedding chamber,
Greenman starving in your basement,
Brilliant Poet forgotten in the asylum.
Wild Wisdom is the shaman who
strengthens your spine as you
bear witness to the horror of
mountains beheaded, forests demolished,
oceans acidified and children starving.
She is the trickster who
cracks you open to love beyond human reason,
gives you courage to take a stand,
shoves you off your comfort ledge and
clashes a terrible gong just when
you’ve reached enlightenment.
She is the Timber Wolf who chews off her leg to be free.
Wild Wisdom may shine through in
your biggest mistake, a failed career,
the time you didn’t meet your responsibilities,
gave up and disappointed everyone.
Wild Wisdom may summon you to
turn down the generous donor,
gorgeous lover and ideal job.
Wild Wisdom may show up in the
cancelled meeting, dead battery,
prime opportunity snatched away….
Making room for something new.
Each day, dear one, you get to choose.
Curse her?
Or embrace her as ally?
Wild Wisdom is coming in through the cracks and
under our doors and through our dreams.
She hisses and cackles out of withered lips and
touches the world with just born fingers.
Wild Wisdom knows we cannot
open to the fullness of our longing,
cannot serve our sweet planet and cannot
evolve into our next stage of being human,
without her.
Wild Wisdom is not the words
you practice and edit until they are perfect.
It is the vapor that rises at the very
edge of what you know,
tantalizing your palate with ideas you
do not fully grasp.
Your Wild Wisdom may need
chaotic drumming and drooling dancing to
set it free.
Your Wild Wisdom may need
people who hold tender space,
giving lavish permission to be timid,
ridiculous, clumsy, too quiet and too loud
as you become a conduit for the voice that has
not yet found its way into this world.
Wild Wisdom needs you to stop hiding behind:
I don’t know. I’m not enough. I’m not ready.
And to start saying, Hell yes, I’ll give it a try!
Wild Wisdom needs you to stop trying to figure it all out
and to be done with bowing to authority.
Wild Wisdom is light in trees,
frogs singing,
bright moon in the early morning sky,
books dropping off the shelf,
valiantly flirting with you to help you wake up.
Resistance is suffering.
Wild Wisdom may give up on you and
crawl into a tight corner of a dark closet.
Listen.
Can you hear her crooning softly back in the shadows?
Sit quietly.
Wait to see if she is willing to come out again to talk to you.
How many more times?
How many more times will you
ignore, medicate, placate, distrust,
second guess, tune-out and over-ride
your Wild Wisdom?
My beloved friend,
What if Wild Wisdom in you
has the piece of our puzzle…
the elixir for our healing…
the vision of our emerging world…
that only you
-- only you -- can deliver?
Wild Wisdom is calling.
How Will You Answer?
Wild Wisdom © 2012 Lea Bayles lea@leabayles.com www.LeaBayles.com