Between Domesticated and Wild

At the Spring Equinox

I look up at the quarter moon. The half-moon, my mind wants to say.

Because it’s half there, half of the full circle. Half light, and half…gone? But I can picture it there, dissolved by the shadow.

In the lunar meditations I am currently half-practicing, the goddess of the waxing quarter moon is named Tvarita. She is the aspect of Shakti power that gives immediate spiritual rewards, agility, harmonious action, and feminine radiance. There are pictures, well, pictures of paintings of her online, and next to her are two ‘half-moons’ looking like cups, cups full of moon-light, of soma, of potential energy.

It’s important to actually look at the moon while doing these meditations, partly not to get caught up in the intellectualizing of the concepts, and also to actually receive the gift of the moon light, to meet the moon, to know her name in the exact phase, day by day. I should say to know one of her names, because I am sure many people have given those names (or been given them) from many cultures throughout time. But I am grateful to know one, and become more intimate with Her in this way.

The quarter moon came just a few days ago, before the important marking of the Spring Equinox. The quarter, of the year, looking at the 8-pointed wheel of the year, and also a half way point…half way between Winter Solstice, the time of most darkness, and the Summer Solstice, the time of most light.

Most of us are craving these days here in the North. And though there is no doubt more light, March makes us wait, makes us beg for the warmth. This month is just so perfectly exemplifying balance, though…the fact that it is not a still point. That balance comes through action, ebbing and flowing, rising and falling, teeter and totter. Snow and Sun. Sun and Moon. In Ayurveda we understand our inner world to be reflecting and responding to those wild outer environmental patterns…a contracting and expanding of tissues, a liquidity then solidity of fluids.

An ecstatic dance between opposite energies.

And then Ayurveda offers the understanding that our staying healthy will come through inwardly staying as flexible as possible, and observant as possible to those subtle changes in our digestion, metabolism, mood and energy. Then it’s basically all stay warm, law low, and keep your head down until things mellow out.

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I am coming to realize how important time keeping really is and was for us humans. These days, we can so take it for granted that we know our exact dot in the time-space continuum (at least in this relatively recent agreed-upon way of calculation) by just looking over at the closest screen, down at our phones, or over our shoulder at the digital kitchen clock. I regularly think about what would happen if the electricity grid and the wifi went out - if it was for more than a day or two everywhere, would time start to bend for us? And imagine if seasons, or even a season went by like that? How quickly would we remember that we need to know when to start prepping our firewood for heat? Or when to harvest to wheat? Or what exact time it would be best to plant the non-cold-hardy plants in the garden so the sprouts don’t freeze and die? When the trout will be running?

I think it would get really real, really fast. Too fast for us Domesticated folk.

And I think into another pair of seeming opposites: Domesticated vs. Wild. How may of us consider ourselves to be ‘domesticated?’ It’s not an adjective I jump to describe myself with, though I know it to be very true, more than I would like to admit. In that word I feel there is an implied weakness, a dullness, a less-than-full-ness. There are many people waking up to this realization that we are no longer ‘wild’ and that it might not be such a good thing to be ‘civilized’ slash ‘domesticated’ when it comes to survival without the modern food systems, and electricity etc, but also because most of us are realizing we are not really in control our our lives and destiny. That we know we have lost our sovereignty. That the comfortable life our ancestors have worked towards may have actually taken something from us.

But what does it mean to really be ‘wild?’ From what I see, those who are aiming to move towards a more wild life are looking to gain skills. Skills to keep themselves fed, warm, safe and healthy. This might involve wilderness survival (hey the word’s right in the name!) or hunting and fishing, natural medicine, strengthening their bodies, and their minds through martial arts or meditation practices. It’s in these latter disciplines of meditation and martial arts that I find a seeming juxtaposition to this wild versus domesticated question. These ancient disciplines formed out of some of the most advanced and aged human civilizations, ‘domestications,’ yet they teach skills which are vitally necessary to be ‘wild.’

Wildness is not being out of control or ‘loose,’ it is to be intentional with every choice and movement. The ultimate mindfulness. To survive in the wild, we must practice the ultimate mindfulness and discipline. The fox does not waste energy. The rose blooms when the bee will come. The mouse does not do much just for the fun of it, lest she risks being seen by said fox.

Perhaps this is where more of the unique journey of being human lies. We are the ones who create domesticity, out of wildness. We tame the wilderness (or we have tried.) We know both, we are both, we desire both…all. 100% A man in a suit who can kill with his hands is the sexiest thing alive. The light ebbs and flows.

So, is to be wild to be the darkness, or the light?

Is the waxing light only growing to reveal what was already there behind the curtain of shadow?

I was reading a blog post about taking full responsibility for ones own life, and how in relationship, with anyone or anything, it is not about taking the 50/50 perspective, but that the shift into full responsibility is to take the 100/100 vantage point. To realize that in any relationship, in romantic partnership, business relationship, between myself and the dog or the Maple tree, it’s both of us, each of us, coming in with our full 100% self. And this means seeing within ourselves, and allowing in others, a complexity, a messy mixture of light and dark, and as we blend, observing what you tend to give and take. Learning where you end and another begins.

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The light is always moving, we are marking the major shift from more darkness, into more light, after Spring Equinox. The creeping, the emergence.

The revealing.

The next of the circle within the circle, the continuation of my spiral. Around I go again, learning, remembering, awakening.