To align ourselves with our instinctual nature means to establish territory, to find one's pack, to be in one's body with certainty and pride regardless of the body's gifts and limitations, to speak and act in one's behalf, to be aware, alert, to draw on the innate feminine powers of intuition and sensing to come into one's cycles, to find what one belongs to, to rise with dignity, to retain as much consciousness as possible.
- Clarissa Pinkola Estés
This eclipse in Leo is an energetic boon and the perfect time to claim dominion over your own energy, will, and freedom to self-express and determine the direction of your life.
During this Celestial Cycle, we have been exploring the archetype of The Sovereign. As we come full circle, returning to a new moon in Leo, it is an opportune time to ask yourself what would it take to truly establish dominion over yourself.
In Women Who Run with the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estés brilliantly traces the relationship of women with their inner sovereignty through an enlightening presentation and discussion of myths from numerous cultures.
These myths present various aspects of the female psyche in the context of the inner and outer landscapes of a life journey through metaphor and symbolism. She identifies and calls the aspect within women that holds the key to our sovereignty the “Wild Women”.
There is perhaps no archetype that is judged more harshly or more culturally sanctioned than the truly self-possessed, self-authorized, authentically expressive women as articulated by Estés’ as the “Wild Women”.
While exploring the concept of sovereignty and the embodiment of willpower, energy, self-possession and expression associated within this Leo cycle, I have noticed many women (including myself) have or do feel deep-seated ambivalence about embodying the the qualities associated with the “Wild Women”
Self-authorization is not something that comes easy for many women. Most women I have sat in circle with, shared Astrological Interpretations with, and worked with in other ways share that they are out of balance with respect to their relationship with their Wild Women.
We can work on the level of mental awareness, emotional release, and expression through our bodies in ways to access our Wild Women; freeing ourselves mentally, emotionally, spiritually and with respect to our bodies.
Take some time in the power of this eclipse in Leo and the New Moon to consider your relationship with your Wild Woman.
What was/is the response of your family and peer group when your express free spiritedness and own unique way of seeing and approaching life?
What were the messages of your upbringing in response to you wanting to be seen, voicing your preferences, desires or opinions?
Was it okay to question the assumptions accepted by your family or peer group?
Do you feel or sense that there is a part of you that has been squelched or neglected?
When was the last time you let yourself dance, play and move with freedom of expression?
Feel into and free right about what it would take to reconnect or come into right relationship with your Wild Women within?
Some have subdued the qualities associated with personal sovereignty and self-authorized living in order to fit in and avoid pushback from others (women can be the harshest critics of a self-possessed women).
Women tend to gauge what they will risk in terms of self-expression from other women. We compare ourselves to others and take cues about how much it is safe to express.