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Dear Biddy,

I think you were a wild soul, someone who knew how to embrace the world and allow the world to embrace you with a wildness that was only tempered by the boundaries of the elements.  To be wild is being able to live free range, in harmony with the environment. This is living large, un-contained by the usual boundaries of fear and anxiety; it is a living in trust and confidence.  Like the birds of the  air and the fish of the sea knowing that your wildness is what enables you to navigate the currents of the air and the ocean.

Once you have had a taste of living wild, it is hard to be domesticated by the rituals of routine and predictability.  The spontaneous moment is suffocated and what is an attempt to gasp a breath is subject to misinterpretation of being oppositional. Sometimes there just isn’t enough room to dance or paint and you need a bigger dance floor or canvas.  Being wild is being alive.

View from Kay Brothers, Mc Laren Vale

View from Kay Brothers, Mc Laren Vale

― David Whyte, House of Belonging

I have had a deep drink this past week from the well of wildness.  Giving yourself permission to embrace your own wild soul is a response to the invitation that was always there to be set yourself free from the cages you put around yourself.

It has been poetry and listening to your fellow countryman John O’Donohue that has helped to open the door to the cage this week.  I have been rewarded at many levels and am enjoying affirmation across cyberspace.  And what an unexpected was the synchronicity has come. After being in Russell Crowe fandom last week, a number of fans have read my poem and I even got the courage to tweet it directly to a couple of the people who got a mention in it (including Russell). Who knows if the stars read it, but I do know from some of their fans that it meant something to them and gave them a glimpse of their idol from this untrained eye.

Poetry is a wild craft. Taming the free range words as they find their way to the page is to patiently wait for them to work out which ones can stay and which ones will be given their leave to return another day.

For the wildness of my soul and my poetry coming together in a happy union this week has been a divine intervention. I am enjoying the fruits – it is bliss and a wonderful confirmation of a decision I made a year ago to leave a set of circumstances where I felt caged and imprisoned. I am wild.

Tree in Scrub behind Courthouse, Willunga

Tree in Scrub behind Courthouse, Willunga