I am being lured into uncharted territory by the appeal of wildness. It is a persistent appeal that draws me forward, and I am not at all aware where it will lead.
I constantly struggle to shed the constricting chains and deceptive layers of domesticity and cultured convention. These conditioned strictures have shaped my life, my experience and my expectations. They have kept me separate and created an atmosphere of separation in which I have lived. I have the undeniable hunger of someone who lusts for wildness, for a life of unconditioned freedom.
I now understand better why two things have such an earnest appeal to me. The first has been the women’s movement and the second is Buddhist teachings.
For perhaps forty years, the women’s movement has held a fascination for me, and I never quite realized until recently that it was not just for women but for me as well.
I think that the struggle of women to be fully human and be recognized as fully human is very much like my own struggle. Those women who spoke out and acted out have been pioneers in their efforts to celebrate the essence of their humanity.
Not unlike wild animals, women were domesticated to be subservient to men. Many women have been casting aside the restrictions of that domesticity and subservience. Like them, I want the freedom to experience the freedom to be fully human.
Regrettably, I have heard very few voices of men who have had the courage to look and live beyond the purloined privilege of being male, embracing their deep humanness. There has been, of course, the voice of Robert Bly, but even he mostly celebrated maleness with a mixed message of what it meant to be simply human.
Stanley Kunitz has been a voice I have come to love. His words speak to me of the deep human, genderless energy of being a gardener. But it has mostly been the voices of women who have spoken to the wildness inside me. Their daring bid for liberation does not feel foreign or strange to me. Instead it speaks to my own deep desire to be fully human, unshaped by the conventions of centuries of control.
The second thing that has been of similar appeal to me has been the traditional teachings of Buddhism. The voices of Buddhists have resonated with and reinforced my own desire to experience what it means to be fully human.
The experience of deep concentration offers a clear window into the spiritual nature of humans. It has shown me a glimpse of what is possible. More than any other path of insight, the buddhist teachers I have encountered have given me a map of liberation, a taste of wildness.
They have shown me how to free the natural human wildness. For me, Buddhist teachers offer the experience of leading an unconditioned life and being fully human. This brush with wildness has given me the nascent feeling of being fully alive.
I may have all the appearances of being male, and I am definitely male-identified. But my heart is neither male or female. It is becoming abundantly clear that it is a combination of both.
As I grow more confident in my coming out as a human, I am especially gratified for the female voices and the presence of great women in my life who have awakened the sense of feminine in me. I am grateful that they have allowed me to walk beside them and share their path to wildness and freedom.
I am grateful for all my spiritual teachers who, each in their unique fashion, have encouraged me to enter a world of unconditioned wildness.