The First Time...

The meeting of Wild Women was special for us all. Sometimes it feels as though it was unavoidable. Ruth Snowden was one of the first Wild Women to join us. Infact, I sometimes think that Ruth "knitted" the notion in my mind! Now, Ruth is called White Owl by many, and I recently discovered that when she had been writing in her journal for somewhere to meet other wild women, I had been walking in my local countryside and had stumbled upon a white owl in a tree. She (the owl) and I just stared at each other for a while before we went our own ways, but I remember feeling distinctly spoken to at the time! A week later I had the dream about Wild Women. Over the years, we have experienced many such 'strange experiences' - so much so that we no longer call them strange!

I have had the pleasure of sharing the journey with her since that initial encounter, and I asked Ruth if she would share with us her memory of the very first meeting of Wild Women (in human form!) and what it has meant for her. This is her story...thanks Ruth for sharing your tale...

Joining Wild Women

"I can still remember sitting on the sofa at Vik’s place, deep in the countryside at Whale, the day of that first meeting. I was waiting for the others to arrive and already I felt an inner peace seeping into my bones, a feeling of `rightness’. As I watched woman after woman walking in, dressed in interesting, creative and artistic clothes, I thought to myself yes! Here they are at last – the people like me. This is my tribe! I was not wrong. I was three years into my career as a professional writer, with numerous articles in magazines and newspapers and my first book Working with Dreams already under my belt – but I was yet to discover my real passion and my true voice. My inner poet had been gagged and bound since I went to university at eighteen and I was afraid to stand up and say this is me, this is who I really am. That day, guided by Vik, I began a journey of self-discovery that was to plunge me head-long into the sea of my own soul. We wrote for our lives, witnessed one another’s tears and triumphs, did wild drumming and dancing, shared sumptuous feasts and ate an abundance of chocolate. There was no going back, nor would I ever want to. From that day on I have always been proud to stand up in the darkness, throw my arms wide to the moon and howl I am a Wild Woman."

Since that first day, Ruth has published many beautiful poems with Wild Women Press, and we released her first collection in 2004, called Green Dusk for Dreams.


One of the first things I noticed about Ruth's voice was her uncanny ability to jump through time to inhabit other people, places and even, at times, species! Hers is an evocative, feminine voice that is both tender and fierce, as a Wild Woman is. Here is the first poem in that collection:

The Morning After

She woke in damp grey dawn,
trying to claw her way back down into sleep;
her limbs numb from the cold stone floor;
her mind screaming at the unreality of it all
and the silence now that they had gone.

Had there been shepherds, kneeling before her?
Rough faces, bristly, pushing to get a look?
Ordinary folk, struggling in with baskets of bread, olives, figs?
Was there frankincense coiling from the mean fire?
The sharp smell of myrrh, calling up deep memory,
stirring unseen presences in the dark?

The babe whimpered, nuzzling for more,
stretching hands like tiny stars.
Then he paused, letting the nipple fall
from his slack mouth rimmed with curdy milk.
He burped, dribbled; gazed right at her
with ancient opal eyes that saw all things.

She wrapped him close, tight against the fear
that ran like rats in shadowed corners.
Wishing he were not a God; tearing him
from the chasm of another, distant, morning.

(Green Dusk For Dreams, Wild Women Press, 2004 Copyright: Ruth Snowden)

You can find out more about Ruth's ongoing adventure by visiting her blog Journal of a Wise Woman...and she will be back with us on our Wild Woman adventure with more tales of magic, mystery and creative journeying.