When we are children, the wild comes naturally to us.
We don’t stop to ask whether something is sensible, proper or useful. We simply explore.
We gather flowers and herbs, fallen apples and rose hips, shiny stones and curious little treasures we discover along the way. We collect feathers, raindrops, poems, tears and memories, placing them all into the imaginary cauldron of our souls.
A bucket of mud can become a magical potion. A wooden spoon becomes a wand. A patch of woodland becomes an enchanted kingdom.
As children, we don’t worry about knowing all the answers. We simply experience the world around us.
In our own innocent way, we are little witches and wild children, dancing with imagination and possibility.
Then We Are Told to Grow Up
Eventually, something begins to change.
We discover that acceptance often comes with conditions.
Wash the mud from your knees. Wipe the chocolate from your face. Put down the wooden spoon. Stop pretending it is a wand.
We are taught what is considered sensible, respectable and normal. Slowly, we learn to avoid things that might bring criticism, embarrassment or rejection.
We are told that this is simply part of growing up.
But perhaps growing up doesn’t have to mean abandoning the wild and creative person we once were.
That part of us may never have disappeared. It may simply have been buried beneath years of expectations, fears and other people’s ideas about who we should be.
Finding Our Way Back
Finding that wild spirit again isn’t always easy.
We may have to walk through the darker corners of ourselves and face fears that have gathered over the years. We may need to question beliefs and assumptions that once protected us but no longer serve us.
Some of the clutter has to be cleared away.
When we begin doing that, something wonderful can happen.
The world starts to feel larger again.
The horizons stretch further.
We remember that there are possibilities beyond the narrow boundaries we once accepted.
And somewhere within that darkness, we may rediscover the person we were before the world told us who we were supposed to become.
Becoming Wild Again
Our true self can emerge once more: wild, curious, creative and free.
Free to explore our potential.
Free to dance beneath the stars.
Free to follow the rhythm of our own drum.
Free to love deeply and without embarrassment.
Free to lie in the grass and watch the stars, bats and clouds drift across the night sky.
Free simply to wonder again.
We don’t have to know everything.
We don’t have to have every answer.
Sometimes we simply need the courage to pick up that imaginary wooden spoon again and stir the great dark cauldron within our souls.
Because within that cauldron lies something we may have forgotten:
Our imagination.
Our creativity.
Our curiosity.
Our magic.
Our wild spirit.
It has been there all along — brilliant, restless and untamed — waiting for us to find our way home.
