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Meditations with Matthew Fox
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With Pregnancy Comes the Wild:
Clarissa Estes, Thomas Berry |
To speak of gestation and creativity and birthing as being integral to advent is to speak of the wild as well. |
Clarissa Pinkola Estes, in her classic work Women Who Run with the Wolves, talks about pregnancy as a door to wildness and wildness as a mark of authenticity. “For some women, this vitalizing ‘taste of the wild’ comes during pregnancy.” Maybe this is why Mary's Magnificat is as
wild as it is. Wildness, says Estes, also arrives during nursing, or during “the miracle of changing oneself as one raises a child, during attending to a love relationship as one would attend to a beloved
garden.” | |
She tells us about the deeper issues that are important to women and that psychology often ignores. Issues such as “the archetypal, the intuitive, the sexual and cyclical, the
ages of women, a woman’s way, a woman’s knowing, her creative fire.” All this is included in the Wild Woman archetype. When she uses the world “wild,” she is not using it …in its modern pejorative sense, meaning out of control, but in its original sense, which means to live a natural life—one in which the criatura, creature, has innate integrity and healthy boundaries. Wild and Woman go together she feels such that all women recognize it: |
“Savage Daughter” | Wyndreth Berginsdottir. Video by Gwendelyne. | No matter by which culture a woman is influenced, she understands the words wild and woman intuitively. Estes speaks eloquently of the wildness of creativity, a passage I happily included in |
my book on Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet: She
is ...patroness to all painters, writers, sculptors, dancers, thinkers, prayermakers, seekers, finders—for they are all busy with the work of invention and that is the Wild Woman’s main occupation. As in all art, she resides
in the guts, not in the head….She is the one who thunders after injustice. Thomas Berry also recognizes the wild as being at the heart of all creativity among all the creatures of the Earth when he
says: |
Wildness we might consider as the root of the authentic spontaneity of any being. It is that wellspring of creativity whence comes the instinctive activities that enable all
living beings to obtain their food, to find shelter, to bring forth their young: to sing and dance | |
and fly through the air and swim through the depths of the sea. This is
the same inner tendency that evokes the insight of the poet, the skill of the artist and the power of the shaman. |
| To view today's video, please click the image. You will be taken to today's post on the Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox website, where you can see the meditation in a larger version and also view and post your Comments. In the sharing that follows, a kind of community is developing around the DM.
If you can't reach Matthew's video on the website, try his Vimeo channel HERE. |
Adapted from Matthew Fox, Christian Mystics: 365 Readings and Meditations, pp. 282, 281, 285
And
Fox, Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet, pp. 152, 42.
Banner image: Wolf. Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash
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Queries for Contemplation Do you recognize wildness as a “wellspring of creativity” to be found among all creatures? And as coming through pregnancy and through works of art? What follows from that? |
Responses are welcomed. To add your comment, please click HERE
to go to our website and scroll down to the Comments field. |
Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations
The 365 writings in Christian Mystics represent a wide-ranging sampling of these readings for modern-day seekers of all faiths — or no faith. The visionaries quoted range from Julian of Norwich to Martin Luther King, Jr.; from Hildegard of
Bingen and Meister Eckhart to Thomas Merton; from Father Bede Griffiths to Dorothee Soelle and Thomas Berry.
“Our world is in crisis, and we need road maps that can ground us in wisdom, inspire us to action, and help us gather our talents in service of compassion and justice. This revolutionary book does just that. Matthew Fox takes some of the most profound spiritual teachings of the West and translates them into practical daily
meditations.” — Adam Bucko, co-author of Occupy Spirituality.
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Creativity: Where the Divine and Human
Meet Because creativity is the key to both our genius and beauty as a species but also to our capacity for evil, we need to teach creativity and to teach ways of steering this God-like power in directions that promote love of
life (biophilia) and not love of death (necrophilia). Pushing well beyond the bounds of conventional Christian doctrine, Fox’s focus on creativity attempts nothing less than to shape a new ethic. “Matt Fox is a pilgrim who seeks a path into the church of tomorrow. Countless numbers will be happy to follow his lead.” –Bishop John Shelby
Spong, author, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, Living in Sin | |
See Matthew Fox's full calendar HERE |
Join Robert Holden and Matthew Fox for A WINTER OF IMAGINATION – a mystical journey in
three 75-minute webinars that reveal the spiritual invitation and deeper meaning of Advent, the Solstice, and Christmas time. 12/19 ("A Solstice Meditation"), and 12/22 ("Soul of Christmas"), 12 pm PT/3 pm ET/8 pm UK. Register HERE. Join Matthew Fox as the Center for Contemporary Mysticism hosts him in a Conversation on “Creation Spirituality: Birthing a New World.” Sunday, January 8, 2023, 11 am PT
(UTC/GMT-7). Register HERE. Creation Spirituality Conversations |
In a podcast episode with the Earth and Spirit Center, Matthew Fox reflects on how creation-centered spirituality, and the marriage of the divine feminine and sacred masculine, can help us respond with hope
to the troubles of our apocalyptic times. Listen HERE. | |
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