This was originally shared for members of my Wild Woman Project Circle. If you desire in person connection with other wild women, please send me a message here, or DM me on Instagram at @wildandwise.woman.
Imagine with me a beautiful river, with clear water flowing and freely. Perhaps the above photo of the Deschutes River in Bend, Oregon, resonates with you, or perhaps there is a river in your memory or imagination that you know and love. Imagine that river. Breathe deeply into your belly and hold this image in your mind. Notice the quality of the water, notice how it moves. Notice what season it is, and how that impacts the flow. Notice if there are any wildlife nearby or in the water. Now, imagine if this river could speak to you, what would it say?
Journal prompt: What does the river speak to you today?
Within each of us there is a river, an energetic flow, productive, generative, vital force of life. This river is the outflow of our life. It is creative. It is powerful. It can be gentle or forceful. It might move fast or slow, but around that river, there is life brewing within and without. The river brings nourishment to the creatures that live within it and beside it.
Beneath that river, there is Rio Abajo Rio, the river beneath the river, the soul life. Our spirit works with the subconscious and the unconscious for the development of soul. This is the river that seeds and feeds the outer, more externally facing flow of our life. This is the deep river where all of our vision and hope and deepest prayers come from.
In La Llorona, Clarissa Paola Estes shares a shiver story told in Mexico and across the American Southwest that reminds us of the importance of tending our own river, with strong boundaries and respect for the creative flow of life, tending both the internal flow and external outflow. The story below is paraphrased from Women Who Run with the Wolves by Dr. Estes, Chapter 10.
As you prepare to take in the story, find an easy seat and give yourself a few moments to feel grounded. If you have a candle, please light it now and set it in a safe place in your periphery. Take a slow breath in through your nose for four counts, and out through your nose for six counts. Repeat this two or three times. The longer exhale sends your nervous system a message that you are safe and can relax. From here, we begin.
A rich nobleman, an hidalgo, courts La Llorona, a beautiful and impoverished young woman, and she bears him two sons. The hidalgo announces his intention to leave for Spain and marry a noblewoman there. His “real life” is not here with her. It is far off, in his home country, with wealth and grandeur at his fingertips. La Llorona is devastated and desperate. She is poor and the single mother of two children, with no support or means of any kind. She pleads with him, claws at him, tears at him and at herself. In her despair, she grabs her two young sons, runs to the river with them, and throws them into the torrent, drowning them. La Llorona is herself struck down by grief and heartbreak, and she dies on the riverbank.
The hidalgo leaves for Spain, and La Llorona arrives at the gate of Heaven. The keeper of the gate tells her she may come in, for she has suffered, but before she can enter, she must find and retrieve the souls of her children. And so, that is why it is said that to this day, La Llorona, the weeping woman, can be found sweeping the riverbank with her hair and dragging the river with her long, bony fingers, looking for her children. It is also why living children are warned to stay away from the river after dark, for La Llorona may mistake them for her own children and take them away.
Dr. Estes teaches that questions are the key to unlock the doors to the wild self, to bring light to shadow, to allow the expansion of soul. What questions come up for you as you sit with this story? Write them down.
Journal prompt: What questions come up for you in this story?
Setting aside your journal for a moment and settling in for a deeper meditation, imagine yourself at the edge of a river bank. In your imagination, if it feels right to stand at the river’s edge, stand. If it feels right to kneel, do that. If you feel pulled to dip our fingers in the water, do that. Rest here, and let the feelings that arose in the story settle. Feel what you feel. Notice what arises. Breathe.
In your imagination, if you are kneeling by the river, rise to your feet. Notice as you are standing that a path opens up to your left, where the grasses rise along the river’s edge. There is a footpath, one made the wild life and the wild women who come here, too. Begin to make your way down that path, following the river’s edge. You notice that there are trinkets and flowers from fellow travelers laid in the grasses and hung on branches — a pink carnation here, a sparkly bracelet there, a gemstone hanging from a thread. You reach into your pocket to retrieve your own gift. What do you find? Take a moment to find a place for it on this living, pilgrim’s altar.
As you keep moving down the path, you see it winding to the left, toward a cave set off to the side of the river. The river’s water bumps gently against the cave’s edge and continues flowing past, creating a safe, gentle, tucked away resting place. You follow the path along the outer wall of the bluff, moving to the entrance of the cave. You find there are candles tucked here and there along the edges, along with matches. Lighting a flame, you begin to light the candles one by one. As you move closer, you find there is a fire glowing in a hearth at the center of the cave, and you can already feel its warmth. You move closer, and you notice the cave walls are adorned with photos, handmade gifts and trinkets. You move toward the fire, warming your hands, and let your eyes rest on the flame.
Suddenly, standing before you on the other side of the fire is a wise, old woman. She gazes deeply into your eyes, and extends her open palms to you. She invites you to do the same. As you both gaze into the fire, you see there an image of your own creative work in the world — your music, your art, your writing, your poetry, your cooking, your garden — these metaphorical children you have birthed, or perhaps are birthing.
You see these creative attempts in fire, and your eyes land on one that holds heat and longing for you. The wise woman notices and quickly scoops the creation from the flames, holding it in her hands until it cools. She breathes on it, and it reanimates, catching your eye, to make sure that you see. Reaching across the fire, she gives it back to you. Holding this outpouring of your own heart in both hands, notice how you feel. Is thee tenderness, joy, anger? Feel into the moment. See if you can imbue this creative work with your love, and breathe on it gently. Watch it reanimate and become full of life. Pull it to your heart, and feel it disseminate into millions of tiny particles of light, coming to rest in the safety of your heart space.
Let your hands rest on your heart and breathe.
Now see the wise woman holding a clear glass of water, water from the river of your own creative life. See the quality of it, the color, whether or not it is cloudy. As you are watching, the wise woman pulls three seats from her pocket: one to clear up poisons and toxins, one for clear boundaries to protect the river, and one to nourish the river with life. She drops the seeds in one by one as you watch. Setting the glass down, she reaches into her pocket for a packet of seeds and hands it to you.
It is nearly time to go, but you feel a longing in your heart to offer something back, a gift to her in this space. Imagine in your heart what that offering might be. In your imagination, reach in your left pocket and find your gift there. Looking around the cave, find the perfect place to leave your gift. As you turn back to the fire, you see the wise woman is gone, but her fire is still burning. Making your way out of the cave, you leave on the same path that you came in, with the wall of the bluff to your right and the river on your left. On you way, you notice once again the trinkets and offerings of the women who have come before. Return slowly to the field where you began. Gazing out over the water, breathe here and remember the gifts otherwise woman.
When you’re ready, find your journal and consider these prompts:
What of your creative work in the world appeared in the wise woman’s fire?What does that work ask of you?
The wise woman gifted you three seeds: one to clear up poisons and toxins in the river, one for clear boundaries to protect, and one to nourish. Which one do you need the most right now?
Closing and Intention Setting
As you finish your journaling, notice what stirs on the inside of you. Consider this closing intention, or write your own.
This month I will clear the river of my inner life by ____________, and I will nourish my own vitality by _______________.
The river, Rio Abajo Rio, that flow of vitality, creativity, and expansiveness in your own life, is ready to revitalize and nourish you. When it flows, you soul and your work in the world can flourish. How can you keep the river clear this month? What does your creative work ask of you?
Love and howls to you!!