by Lucinda Bakken White
Wild Woman Books
An excerpt taken from Confessions of a Bone Woman: Realizing Authentic Wildness in a Civilized World
by Lucinda Bakken White
On a warm summer day in August of 2013, I sat on a couch in our den staring at the texture of soft padded walls covered in khaki linen. Glancing up, I noticed the olive-green-and-gold twisted trim set in the seams, lining the room where cloth met wooden crown moldings and baseboard.
My husband, Rhys, and I had just returned home from dropping our youngest off at college. The house was silent. Tired and drained, I was in a melancholy mood, but not for the reasons you might think.
My kids were gone, and I missed them, but I missed myself just as much. Most mothers I knew were distraught by the thought of life after children, and they held on tightly to their kids for as long as they could. In sharp contrast, I could hardly wait for my nest to be empty. Barely hanging on, I was ready to let go and collapse from depletion.
I loved being a mother, a wife, and a homemaker. But by the time my children were teenagers, much of my joy was squelched by the never-ending routines of meal prep, carpools, homework, housework, volunteer work, college applications, and people pleasing. No matter how much I did, it never felt like enough, because there was always more of the same to do. Go to this party or that. Be pretty and pleasant in public. Listen to people brag about their lives and kids. Go to the gym. Wash my hair. Have sex with my husband. Walk the dog. Run errands. Put out little fires. Host extended family for dinner. Prep for the holidays. Acknowledge birthdays. Pay the bills. Organize the house. Fix what’s broken. And just when I crossed the last “to do” off my list, it was time to repeat the cycle all over again. Perhaps I could have rebounded with a month of sleep and no kids around the house, but that was not going to happen. Two of my stepsons were married with three children between them, and I was babysitting this weekend. Many women dream of and long for grandchildren. I did too. Nevertheless, I needed a breather to thoughtfully transition from being a mother to being a grandmother. In fact, I was longing to be a grandmother. Yearning to bring a sense of the sacred to the forefront of my everyday life, my heart was set on becoming a wise-woman elder with a spiritual vocation. I knew where I wanted to go; I just didn’t know how to get there, and I didn’t want to make a wrong turn. At a crossroads, I needed time and space to explore the deepest meaning of my heart path so I could follow, embody, and express it.
Fifteen years prior, my husband and I had realized a peak of material success and popularity that came with both blessings and burdens. I was grateful for our abundant life, but eventually the weight of living for external measures tipped me out of balance and crushed my soul.
Slowly but surely it was the animal kingdom that called me to rise from the dead. Curiously, my relationship with animals began with the touch of a bone. First I found one, and then two, followed by a burst of three, four, five, and six. When I put my hand to bone, electricity ran through my body. Enlivened, I studied the animal bones and I wondered: To whom did they belong? What purpose did they serve? How did these animals live? And how did they die?
In love with the bones, my heart kindled an authentically wild and burning passion that stood in stark contrast with the rest of my life. Late at night while my family slept, I researched animal anatomy, bone identification, and animal behavior. Harkening back to my ancestors, I also learned the symbolism associated with each animal and their individual parts, which enabled me to receive and interpret profound messages at every encounter.
By following my heart, I no longer felt lonely. Instead, I was deeply connected to the animal kingdom, my inner self, and a greater mysterious life-force. Looking back, I realized that bone by bone the animals I found were a metaphor for my personal process of discovering, unmasking, and reconnecting the scattered parts of my true self.
For decades I had been developing a lot of self-awareness and realizing my authentic wildness, but I was not yet fully synthesized. My soul-driven, spontaneous nature did not always align with the norms and values of the surrounding civilized culture. To protect myself, I was living a life of dichotomies, expressing different personalities with different masks in different places. All this shapeshifting of personas was depleting, and it was painful to contain or hide my full self. Terrified to come out of the closet, I was far more afraid of being trapped inside modern society’s limiting and often narrow definition of what it means to be a woman, a grandmother, or an elder.
Teetering on the cusp of something old and something new, I was ripe for transformation. But change does not come easy at any time in this contemporary world, no matter how ready we are. I had a feeling that my family and friends preferred I stay the same. Few of them seemed to understand the vision born inside of me and how it was essential to my mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. After all, who dreams of being an elder?
As I sat on the couch in a slump, I noticed a flicker of movement from the corner of my eye. Shifting my view, I looked past the light streaming through a sash window and saw the orange-and-white- barred breast of a Cooper’s hawk. He was perched on a post at the edge of our circular pond, looking at the lush aquatic jungle before him, full of tall fuzzy cattails; shiny-green lily pads; pink lotus blos- soms; orange, black, and white koi; and iridescent dragonflies.
Animals had become my guides. They came to me often and spoke to me in symbols, the language of my soul. Intuiting a message from Hawk, I perceived that he was symbolically hunting for spiritual sustenance as represented by the fish in the water and the winged ones in flight. It was clear to me that he was suggesting I do the same to lift myself out of my funk.
Taking Hawk’s advice, I decided to visit our property in the country. Just a twenty-minute drive door to door, it was another world away. The construction traffic getting out of my town was heavy as usual. My skin, neck, and back all tightened as I navigated the congestion. Everywhere I looked big trucks clogged the streets. Yards were being torn up for new construction, and the air resounded with a constant percussion of jackhammers.
Then, as I turned onto Sand Hill Road, my body softened. Heritage oaks, pines, and redwoods soothed my eyes, causing me to breathe deeply and slowly. I paid no attention to the lineup of iconic Silicon Valley venture capital firms at their prestigious addresses. Venerable trees framing an ascending road claimed my full attention. Headed west, I imagined a processional of ancients ushering me to a place beyond time.
As I reached the avenue’s peak, oaks parted and a bridge lifted me over a discord of cars on Interstate 280. My heart soared like a bird through a liminal shift at the crossroads and carried me to the other side, where I was greeted with a vast and lush panoramic view of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Halfway to my destination, I was now gliding through countryside where stoplights and streetlights were outlawed and open space for wildlife habitat was preserved.
To my left was Stanford University’s Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, 1200 acres of refuge for wild animals and native plants. To my right was the Horse Park at Woodside, 270 acres of wonderland where equestrian activity dotted open pastures and oak-studded hills. Soon Sand Hill Road turned into Portola Road, and I saw a life-giving freshwater marsh before me, home to cattails, herons, ducks, and coots. Then came the wooden sign, “Welcome to Portola Valley.”
A few minutes later, I arrived at my destination on the scenic corridor in the heart of this small town, population four thousand. Turning into the driveway, my tires crunching on gravel, I was greeted by a barn, where the historic name Finbarr Ranch was painted on the gable under a set of eight-point deer antlers.
The sun was warm as I walked along a wooden fence thickset with yellow trumpet vines serving nectar to hummingbirds and honeybees. Our ranch manager, Chase, waved hello as he drove by on a tractor. His dog, Riley, wiggled his tail and brushed by my side before bounding off after a squirrel.
As many times as I had done it, I was never quite prepared for the awe I experienced opening the pedestrian gate to an almighty presence of an evergreen-forested mountain. The lap of her base lay before me, holding fourteen acres of orchard colored with organic red apples, green pears, and yellow quinces. I stood there for a few moments, allowing all of my senses to open in devotion to the resplendent beauty that lay on the edge between wilderness and civilization.
Blackbirds were singing, bees were humming, warm air brushed the hairs on my skin, and a potpourri of juicy fruits and wildflowers tickled my nose. In a ceremonial gesture, I took a deep breath and exhaled three times, allowing my abdomen and lungs to fill with clean, fragrant air. I was about to enter my barn—an outward reflection of my heart that had been sub rosa in the making for thirteen years.
From my vantage point as I walked alongside the building, it resem- bled a farmhouse with off-white horizontal wood lap siding and a metal corrugated roof. But when I turned and presented my back to the orchard, facing the entrance, it reminded me of a Greek temple, New Orleans style. The roof was pitched, and porch columns flanked oversized double doors that were painted a brilliant mosque blue.
Up the three stairs, I slid between a pair of pillars and opened the sapphire-colored portal to another realm. Crossing the threshold, I was stilled by a thick silence. This was a holy place, the house of wild animal spirits who were reborn when I infused their bodies, bones, and parts with my total presence and pure awareness.
Touched by their grace, my body tingled. Art made of bone, claw, horn, tooth, sinew, and fur was exquisitely arranged. As I felt my heart lift from the splendor, it raised my attention to the expansive cathedral ceiling, where bouquets of orange, yellow, and purple dried flowers hung upside down from the rafters. Amidst the heavenly garden, a fully articulated coyote skeleton appeared to be galloping midair near a black-feathered crow who soared with wide wings and a felted gnome on his back.
Drawing my eyes downward to the opposite end of the room, I connected with a longhorn-bull skull at the center of a large built-in altar. In homage to the four elements of earth, fire, air, and water, it was surrounded by two wooden candlesticks laden with wax drippings, a hand-carved quartz crystal chalice embellished with gemstones on a gold stem, and a generous bouquet of wild turkey feathers. Ceremonial relics, from bones to mortars, pestles, and fur, also adorned the shrine.
At the center of the room, twelve high-back barstools surrounded a thick slab of reclaimed teakwood sturdily crafted into a tall rect- angular table. Draped over the back of each chair were twelve Polish sheepskins of the finest quality. Each pelt was vegetable tanned, soft and supple, with its own unique shape, texture, and color. Long and straight, short and curly, or medium fluffed pelages varied in tone from brown, to white, golden, or marbled. My hands were drawn to pet them as if they were living, loving, and breathing sheep.
Gazing at the twelve empty chairs around my classroom table, I imagined the women of all ages who would gather here to explore the masks we wear and what’s behind them. My heart fluttered to think I would soon be the spiritual feminine elder I had always dreamed of, ready and able to guide women to realize their authentic wildness in a civilized world.
Come with me now on a journey from my childhood to present day. If you are on a path of healing and self-discovery, may my stories of personal truth and transformation show you how to quicken your process.
- Lucinda Bakken White is the author of the memoir Confessions of a Bone Woman: Realizing Authentic Wildness in a Civilized World. White is also an Inner Wildness Guide, helping women through the process of self-discovery and personal transformation. For more information visit http://lucindabakkenwhite.com/ and connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.
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