the Wild and the Hearth
Jun. 11th, 2005 01:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelidonI edited part of a response to a friend's recent question about her hunger for and desire to abandon herself to the Wild, something perhaps felt more acutely by those who are doing some forms of personal work (Feri, in this case), but it's something I think we all grapple with in one form or another:
-------
I can tell you my own experience that, for better or worse, that tension, that dynamic moving balance, never goes away, it's always there, changing, shifting. The Wild cannot be safe -- if it were safe, it would not be the Wild. There is always a tension between the Wild, and the laws of gods and men, that's a simple truth. But your own place of balance will always be shifting, changing, evolving. There are no swift truths here. The best thing I can tell you swiftly is that I've found it necessary to make places of and for wildness in my life, around and in me, and to at times cultivate them like gardens, knowing that like gardens, some will be choked off by unwelcome weeds or unsuitable soil and die off (key phrase: "why ever did I think *that* was a good idea..."), some will enthusiastically overrun their beds (they are Wild, after all), and perhaps need to be cut back or even abandoned, free to do as they will without my interference, and some will thrive, at least for a time,, and feed and nourish me with their unpredictable, wild and primal beauty and vigor.
Each person is different, of course, but I find that I need a certain amount of genuine Wild in my life, but I am also not willing to turn my life over to complete chaos -- as much as to the Wild, I am also deeply dedicated to hearth and home, to making a strong, enduring haven for myself and my loved ones and dear friends to be at home and share and thrive, be nurtured, and come back to community in order to process, heal, and grow. The boundary between Wild and Hearth is a hugely magickal place of potential, if both sides of the boundary are healthy and in balance.
-------
Incidentally, that need for balance is a big part of why the work at Tejas Camp this year will place work with the wild and ecstatic Dionysos/Dionysus inside the container of the Fates (Moirae) -- it's the opposition (and perhaps, integration) of pure ecstatic potential, that which takes us beyond ourselves, beyond the laws of gods and men, breaking all limitations and boundaries, and the necessary grounding and order provided by the Fates, by fate and destiny and social norms and guidelines within which our lives have meaning. Interestingly enough, Dionysos, god of wild ecstasy, is one of the very few Greek deities who was, as far as the stories tell, faithful to his wife (Ariadne), and to the social contract they made together.
Neither pure Wild nor pure order are sustainable for humans. The Fates hand you a box, within which is your life, your Fate, your Destiny, preordained and predetermined at the moment of your birth. Dionysos breaks the box, says there is no box. The human truth lies somewhere in between. One way to see the mystery is that we, ourselves, are the box, the container within which our lives evolve, change and grow, and that flexible, changeable nature is a key to living genuine lives. That which does not bend, breaks, but life without boundaries cannot survive -- the limitation of a cell membrane is what allows the cell to survive and grow beyond itself.
-------
I can tell you my own experience that, for better or worse, that tension, that dynamic moving balance, never goes away, it's always there, changing, shifting. The Wild cannot be safe -- if it were safe, it would not be the Wild. There is always a tension between the Wild, and the laws of gods and men, that's a simple truth. But your own place of balance will always be shifting, changing, evolving. There are no swift truths here. The best thing I can tell you swiftly is that I've found it necessary to make places of and for wildness in my life, around and in me, and to at times cultivate them like gardens, knowing that like gardens, some will be choked off by unwelcome weeds or unsuitable soil and die off (key phrase: "why ever did I think *that* was a good idea..."), some will enthusiastically overrun their beds (they are Wild, after all), and perhaps need to be cut back or even abandoned, free to do as they will without my interference, and some will thrive, at least for a time,, and feed and nourish me with their unpredictable, wild and primal beauty and vigor.
Each person is different, of course, but I find that I need a certain amount of genuine Wild in my life, but I am also not willing to turn my life over to complete chaos -- as much as to the Wild, I am also deeply dedicated to hearth and home, to making a strong, enduring haven for myself and my loved ones and dear friends to be at home and share and thrive, be nurtured, and come back to community in order to process, heal, and grow. The boundary between Wild and Hearth is a hugely magickal place of potential, if both sides of the boundary are healthy and in balance.
-------
Incidentally, that need for balance is a big part of why the work at Tejas Camp this year will place work with the wild and ecstatic Dionysos/Dionysus inside the container of the Fates (Moirae) -- it's the opposition (and perhaps, integration) of pure ecstatic potential, that which takes us beyond ourselves, beyond the laws of gods and men, breaking all limitations and boundaries, and the necessary grounding and order provided by the Fates, by fate and destiny and social norms and guidelines within which our lives have meaning. Interestingly enough, Dionysos, god of wild ecstasy, is one of the very few Greek deities who was, as far as the stories tell, faithful to his wife (Ariadne), and to the social contract they made together.
Neither pure Wild nor pure order are sustainable for humans. The Fates hand you a box, within which is your life, your Fate, your Destiny, preordained and predetermined at the moment of your birth. Dionysos breaks the box, says there is no box. The human truth lies somewhere in between. One way to see the mystery is that we, ourselves, are the box, the container within which our lives evolve, change and grow, and that flexible, changeable nature is a key to living genuine lives. That which does not bend, breaks, but life without boundaries cannot survive -- the limitation of a cell membrane is what allows the cell to survive and grow beyond itself.
