Embracing the Wild Darkness - and Why Trees Will Have you Crying...
“The more courage and vulnerability we have on this journey, the deeper we can embody the Witchy fullness of our Souls” ~ Nicole Barton
I’ve been sitting in a women’s circle myself for the last few months, with some magical, powerful women - all coaches need their own space for expansion, and so my own deepening was into the Feminine, which I had experienced some resistance to (much like I explored the resistance many of my own women have to the word ‘Witch’ in my last blog). Where there’s resistance, there’s also usually gold - which is really what we are here exploring this this blog post today, as it’s all about embracing the darkness. It’s likely we won’t be going into the darkness without some resistance - because the dark is a messy place; and yet, it’s one we must embrace if we are wanting to walk the path of Soul, because it’s where the truth is found.
And so, along this journey, I noticed my resistance to other women crying. I found this strange, given my work is to help women go deeper into their pain, their difficult emotions, their shame, but nevertheless, I noticed that there was something in me wanting to resist going into my own emotions. It surfaced later that this was because I had some trauma surfacing of my own that I’d pushed down - which I’ve explored in a podcast (Ep 17 - How to Use Your Body’s Sensations ) that was shared last month. The thing is, we are so often unconsciously scared of the darkness - and so we tend to avoid it, even when we think we aren’t. Secret Witches, especially, tend to avoid going into their emotions and being with them, because if they do, that’s usually when they will realise that they’ve been masking the call of Soul for a while. So, it just gets pushed to one side, until, one day, they notice they are getting intensely irritated by their coach being deeply emotional in circle, or crying over her connection to the trees.
I was baffled - rolling my eyes, I thought “oh for goodness sake, here she goes again - crying over her trees.” Until I went into the darkness for myself and sat with it, held it tenderly, loved all that was coming up for me, loved my inner child through her pain. Sat with the difficult stuff. And then, I found myself cracked wide open, vulnerable and soft. Cracked open to more love, more acceptance, more openness to being my true self.
Next circle, we had to imagine a wild place where we felt peaceful - and I found myself back in Bali on the beach. And then we were asked to find a tree. There was no tree in Bali, on my beach, so I got annoyed and stuck an Oak tree on the beach - and found myself wailing as up surface some Soul longings to be in Bali. On the advice of my coach, who suggested that it wasn’t about being in Bali but more deeply my connection to my inner wild (though Bali is a long-term heart-felt longing for future), I decided to cultivate a relationship with my local wild, to see if that helped me to connect a bit deeper to my inner wild.
A few weeks later, I went visiting to my regular tree - a sit spot in the wild, which I made a point of connecting more deeply with. I went there to make an offering to the Masculine, as during this circle I was attending, I had some profound realisations that made me want to give reverence to the Masculine. So, armed with my Sandalwood infused rose petals, from a bath I’d had earlier in the week, I offered these to the Wild and asked for guidance on creating my own ‘Invoke Your Wild Creatrix’ circle that I was leading that week - which is a new, Feminine way in which I’ve found myself creating, instead of sitting at my desk. I sat there a little while, by my tree, and heard “touch me” - so I touched the tree and felt this immense amount of power pulsing through it - and heard “it’s safe”. I found myself sobbing, feeling the release of all of the emotion I’d bottled up - the idea that we aren’t safe with the Masculine, that we aren’t safe to be in our Feminine - including our Soul desires. And I realised, this was the teaching for my group; I was being called to share with them that they were to rewild so that they could allow themselves to receive the power of their Soul desires.
And so, really, my point is, the darkness contains all of our fears, our resistances, our weirdness, anything that we deem unwelcome - including this post, which feels an edgy share because it’s so not the sort of post you’d share with your bank manager - or modern society. But, it’s exactly the kind of post my Queen Witch would share - open-hearted, vulnerable, emotional, weird, wild and raw. And that’s what the darkness will do; it will take us deeper into this uncomfortable, wild, messy, undesirable, and it will have us cracked open to truth and love. Cracked open to feeling all of our emotions - even to crying at our connection to the wild.
The darkness has us become more of who we are - living our Soul will. And that is worth going there for, because without it, our wild and weird and wonderful gifts remain hidden. Will you join me in unravelling your Soul? If you’re feeling the call of the weird and wonderful truth, why not join our community in the Secret Witch Circle facebook group. All of you is welcome there.
Much love
Nicole x
