Posts tagged active weekends
Women in nature, and bum scooting
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Women have an ancient history of living closely with nature, caring with herbal medicines, keeping of sacred wells, living with the phases of the moon. To connect with nature is essential for a woman. As a modern city female, I grew up feeling alienated from nature, even scared of it.

It seems wild nature has been masculinized, only for the tough and daring so to speak. Well, that is just plain old bull, you can be in nature ANY WAY YOU ARE! Learning to get to know nature to trust her and your self in nature, as well as nature, is a journey to become whole for any human being whether he or she.

But for a woman it is different. Many of us grow up uncertain of our psychical strength and doubting our abilities. We tend to have a different approach to nature a slower one a more careful one, that is in the best sense of the word... we are full of care. This approach is worthy in fact it is needed right now. So many times in my Wandering Wild walks I meet women whose faces reflect a slight embarrassment as they hesitate to leap between stones across the stream, or get stressed and judge themselves for being slow. Well, what is wrong with being slow? You can bum scoot across the entire moor if you like on our wandering wild walks, but please just claim your right as a woman to be in wild nature!

When I first started going out on long trips of solo adventuring into the wild I had so much fear, fear of being a single woman on her own exposed, fear of heights, fear of slipping, fear of sinking, fear of falling, fear of pain, fear of fear! But I wanted to feel a sense of belonging on this earth, aside from our human-constructed cities. And frankly, I was pissed off that I as a female felt so inadequate in nature, something was surely not right there as WE ARE NATURE. And so as I spent more and more time in nature I learned and am still learning to trust myself and to trust nature, and in that trust, my feet find their own way and my being finds a sense of home.