house, I am a Priestess of the Wild Earth. I am Lilith, Inanna, and Persephone ascended from the dirt. I am a soulful temptress blessing these wooden floors with my bare feet as I walk from hearth to porch, and I am a keeper of this fortress.
In this house, no one gets in unless they are invited. Here is where I’ve spread the salt thick and painted the windows with cedar smoke more times than I can count. This is the House of the Wild Woman, and solitude is valued as much as company. Come in if you like, but I may not ask you to stay. This is my house, after all, and if you are here sipping my brew, my rules are law.
Handwritten Verses: House Rules of the Wild Scribe
This is a ritual of fierce boundary setting. Go to a place in your home that feels like yours, as if it were a true sanctuary, a sort of inner sanctum and the wild woman’s holiest of holies. Light a candle, and begin writing your own house rules. These are not limiting ways of being in your world but a liberating testimony to who you have become. You may use the prompts I offer here or write your own, wild scribe that you are.
This is my house, love. Here, I wake up remembering...
This is my house, and I will not permit entry to...
This is my house, where I welcome...
This is my house. I am the highest Priestess within these four walls, and I worship...
This is my house, where every guest is adorned with...
Post these rules in a secret place, where only those who are most trusted will read them.
HALLOWED BE YOUR HEATHEN HEART: TOWARD A MORE SOULFUL, EARTHEN JOY
Make no mistake, Priestess; it is a brave thing you do now, claiming a crown called shameful in fairy tale, sacred text, media, and myth. Set your boundaries, and give a nod to your worth every now and again, for it is far too easy for the feminine to claim humility and retreat. Now is not the time for charm and lace. Now is the time for ash as face paint and the weapons of your words. Know that coming home to the wilds is a courageous act. The Priestess of the Wild Earth within you is destructive only in her ability to break up patterns and beliefs that no longer serve you. She is the Goddess of personal power, and she emerges within you when you closely examine belief systems, social norms, and cultural structures that do not suit your awakening wild self. You, as Lilith, begin to not only taste the forbidden fruit but ask yourself why it was forbidden to you in the first place.
May you believe in your powers of discernment, and may you risk social isolation over and over again in the name of your soulful joy. May you be willing to exist on the fringes in the name of liberation, finding and belonging to those wild circles of openhearted seekers who make you feel as though you are a larger version of yourself and leaving those circles where entry always demands you wear a too-tight mask to disguise your true face. May you rebel against all that covers and constricts your beauteous worth, and may you write your own holy verses of wild feminine lost and wild feminine regained.
Hallowed be your heathen soul, and blessed be the Holy Wild.
Wild women speak the language of ritual. We understand the art of marking our initiations and our endings, those many rebirths and deaths we undergo as Priestesses of the Wild Earth, and marking them well. The intuitive skills and ancestral medicine that support the shaping of a good ritual are treasures acquired along the underworld journey. We know in our bones when we are being called to our Craft, and we long for that particular closure and healing salve brewed only within the cauldron of ritual. Here, in ritual, we set boundaries around our life transitions and make the mundane magickal. Here, we hold rituals as symbolic action, impactful events of ceremonial sense-making that begin with an accessible container, a set of steps or conditions that serve to frame the transformation that will, eventually, arise from our depths and alchemize an ordinary moment in time into pure embodied presence.
The seven rituals offered in this chapter are intended to be adapted by you, dear Priestess, to suit your unique purpose and story. Some of these offerings are simple, easily performed in those small and unexpected moments of solitude and grace we may find ourselves in throughout the day, and some rituals are more complex, requiring a joyous but steadfast commitment, thoughtful resource gathering, and careful planning. Move through only the rituals that seem authentic to you; leave out any steps or wording that does not fit; and, as always, remember that the best rituals are the ones that will gift you with something you need, be it closure, healing, empowerment, or a sense of belonging.
In any solitary ritual, Priestess, you are the beginning, the center point. Start with your story. Recall the aspects of Lilith’s revisioned tale that resonate with you, and assess those traits embodied in the Priestess of the Wild Earth archetype that are your soul-true attributes. When have you eaten the forbidden fruit, breaking the rules and risking certain isolation in the name of sovereignty? When did you so bravely call in what was yours, sacrificing all that was not authentically for you despite any garden comforts? These are the moments worthy of honor, my love, for they are truly holy transitions, times of becoming, and more genuine birthdays than those we are accustomed to celebrating. Craft your rituals and begin with you, a living altar embodied in the soft skin of a woman.
YOUR INNER EARTH ALTAR: A RITUAL FOR THE EVERYDAY WARRIORESS
Materials: Paper and writing utensil
You are a living altar. Do not be afraid of leaving behind your Pagan statuary, blessed totems, and sensual candles, for you carry all the divinity you need with you in your blood and your breath. Handcraft a personal mantra to keep with you, to remind you of your journey along the Red Road and to affirm your personal Priestess power. Words carry power. What can you tell yourself, in a single sentence, that will remind you of your magick and your wild? What words can you cling to when the storm comes, when some snide remarks threaten to break you, when someone calls you “too” this or “too” that? What can you tell yourself to remind you that you are, after all, born of the elements, a star-child of the Holy Wild?
Any mantra you write with your hand will be far better than one I could give you, my love, but you can begin harvesting the right words by freewriting on the following prompts, if you need a starting point:
I am the Priestess of...
I am calling in...
I am building my temple for...
This is my year, and I will...
I am the wild Witch of the Earth, and I know...
Find a short phrase you can hold housed in your heart. Imagine it blood-written in calligraphic script and placed on that inner altar built from your rib bones. Every time you speak it, you are enacting a ritual of coming home to yourself, owning the value of your voice, and engaging in practical alchemy. If you feel called, write these words on a sacred object, a small piece of wood or fabric, and leave your mantra in a wild place for all to see. May a little girl find it, tuck it into her sleeve, and keep it close. And so it is.
