collection of writings and musings by Chloë Mae Whitley
A Wild Girls Field Notes and Steps on Finding Freedom
There is a Garden of Eden accessible to us all, it just takes freedom to find.
What is Freedom?⌕
The word “freedom” has Germanic origins, stemming from the Old English “frēodōm”.
The root word “free” meaning “not in bondage”. The word “free” comes from the Old English frēo/ (verb frēon) meaning “to love, like, honor, OR set free”. This root also gives origin to the word “friend”.
The suffix “-dom” indicates a state or condition, similar to the “-dom” in words like “wisdom” or “kingdom”.
The word freedom by definition means a state of non-bondage; But it also means a state of honor, a state of love.
This means that Freedom is a condition of love!
You cannot claim love where freedom is absent. For love is a choice—not bondage. And I think this is why “freedom” feels so good to us; it indicates love is abound!
I know this to be the same reason God gifted us free will. He wants us to choose to engage in Love, because if it was not an option, it would not be Love.
“If love is the supreme ethic, and freedom is indispensable to love, and God’s supreme goal for all of us is that we will love him with all of our hearts and love our neighbors as ourselves, for God to violate our free will would be to violate that which is a necessary for love to flourish” Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish.2021.God’s Gifts of Free Will and Love – John 3:14-21.
A Wild Girls Steps to Finding Freedom;
Step 1: Climb Barbed Wire Fences ⫘⫘⫘
Barbed wire fences were created with the intention of keeping cattle contained and the wild from entering. But barbed wire fences aren’t unique to farms anymore. This tool is used as a subtle reminder that you are not allowed to explore outside the confines of your simulated cell. Such an illusory tool it is. The second we see the razor trap we know better than to even imagine what lies beyond it. We’re fearful of the pain, of the blood, of the punishment, and even of the healing process that would come if we addressed what lay beyond the barbed wires.
But remember, barbed wire is a sign that something precious, something vast and free is being fenced off from your exploration. And isn’t anything worth hiding ALSO worth finding?
Step 2: Strip Your Clothes𖨆
Our clothes are a barrier to the elements—a barrier to the natural network we’re apart of. Our garments are called protective layers, but what are they really protecting us from? Because surely, it’s not danger, nor could it be the elements that reach so easily through cotton and spandex.
What is it then that these garments shield us from? Ourselves and God.
Clothes were the first type of bondage introduced to humanity. When Adam and Eve realized their sin they decided to fashion themselves clothing out of fig leaves. SHAME entered the world and we made CLOTHING.
7Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.8Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
The Rebuke of Adam and Eve (by Domenichino, 1626, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.)
In our wild search of freedom, in our plight to our Garden of Eden, we have to strip ourself of bondage lest we be cast out.
Yes, get nude in nature! It’s our most natural state of being as humans—but to strip your clothing means so much more.
It means to strip yourself of worn identities. It means to strip yourself of shame. Even if just for a short time it must be done to be welcomed back into the garden. Gardens that your shame caused God to close you out of can only be accessed by dropping said shame. Drop the shame and the barbed wire fence might even come down too.
I was sitting on these field notes for over a week before a muse reached out and sang to me. I was laid out, bikini clad on a fallen tree, basking in the warmth of the sun when I read the following excerpt from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran;
“AND the weaver said, Speak to us of Clothes.
And he answered:
Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful.
And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain.
Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your skin and less of your raiment,
For the breath of life is in the sunlight
and the hand of life is in the wind.
Some of you say, “It is the north wind who has woven the clothes we wear.” And I say, Ay, it was the north wind, But shame was his loom, and the softening of the sinews was his thread.
And when his work was done he laughed
in the forest.
Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean. And when the unclean shall be no more, what were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind?
And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.” (35-36)
Step 3: Following The Birds 𓅰 𓅬 𓅭 𓅮 𓅯
This word freedom, this state of being unbound and untethered, is so sacred to me. It is my Garden of Eden. I was a latch key kid and I thank God for it. If it weren’t for the days I spent in endless unsupervised exploration, I’d not have the spirit or the words of the poet. For the poet must meet the face of God, and God does not show his face to the self-proclaimed warden nor to the masochistic prisoner. Yes, to meet God I had to break my chains. I had to fly to the garden. And when I find myself being pulled on, dragged to Sheol. I look down at my ankles, and unclasp my braces. I had to be a nameless child, following the birds. Becoming the bird. Not like the raven that Noah sent, endlessly flying and surviving on carcasses- but like the dove, on a mission. I return to the Ark and wait a round of creation. 7 days. I go out again in search of an olive branch, in search of Eden. I find Her.
Birds are the messengers between worlds. They embody the element of air; illusiveness, thought, and communication. They hold a natural instinct that humans have lost. They sense changes in weather, they stop singing when predators are lurking, and have incredible eyesight advantages. Some birds see ultraviolet light, others have a 360-degree field of vision, and certain owls, like the barn owl, can see in light up to 100 times dimmer than what the human eye needs.
To follow the birds means to follow the whispers of nature, to follow the whispers of your intuition, and to go where the wild things are. It means to use your 6th and 7th senses. To hear without ears, to see without sight, and to feel without touch. It means to recognize the patterns of nature, and follow them.
Because when you follow the birds, you’re following a messenger of Eden.
Field Reflections✎
1. Where are the barbed wire fences in your life? Where are the places you were told you’d be injured for exploring? Are these places that you fenced yourself off from? Or maybe someone else/ a higher establishment?
2. What garments must you strip yourself of in order to be welcomed into the garden? Abandonment wounds? Shame? Identity attachments?
3. Do you listen to the messages of the birds? How do you heed their warnings, their comings and goings? Do you go still when they go quiet? When they sing their songs, do you let your body be stirred?
Chloeandclover 