Once I trod a well worn route. Life was ordinary, until I woke up and started to blaze a trail out there where the paths are rough, rugged and not well defined.

You see, I turned my back on city life, with a city salary, to respond to the call of the wild, so I could release the parts of me that demanded to be unchained and untamed, that were unchainable and untameable. I longed to be carefree, to rebel in the face of conformity, to unravel, to travel and to be ravaged by the wilderness until I was left with nothing more than what was raw and undeniably me—panting and bloody from the thrill of the ride right there on the forest floor.

“I feel at home here—in the middle of nowhere.”

~ Kings of Convenience

The truth is, sometimes we have to let go of everything we have ever known and go it alone. Walk away from the conventions that have shaped us thus far and figure out who we really are. A cliché it may be but adrift at sea, bobbing around on the will of the universe with only the hands of trust and intuition to guide us, is it that we feel free.

“At times you have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.”

~ Alan Alda

Even though we might wrap ourselves in silver chains and cashmere sweaters, stuff our wallets full of cash and cards, fill our closets until they over flow with things bought on credit, there is no hiding the fact that beneath that we’re all driven by the same carnal quest and desires.

Once we were feral and wise. We lived in caves. Now we live in cages. And, we’re frustrated and wired. In an effort to cocoon ourselves in safety and security we have lost something that is sacred. Among the rules and routine spontaneity squanders and our happiness and satisfaction suffers.

According to Wikipedia, wild means to live in a natural state.

I can’t help wondering what would happen if we created space for the magic and mystery of life to simply be—if we allowed ourselves to live in the moment and be free, alive and full of wanderlust and whimsy.

What if we didn’t let ourselves be limited by city limits or the social and cultural expectation that fuels our conditioning, let the voices and warnings heeded by others fall into the void, acted on instinct, trusted our gut and opened ourselves up to a life that we couldn’t predict or plan?

Jim Morrison said, “The most important kind of freedom is to be who you really are. You trade in your reality for your role. You trade in sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel in exchange for a mask. There can’t be any large scale revolution until there is a personal revolution. It’s got to happen on the inside first.”

We need to step out from behind stability and sensibility and return to a more natural way of being, where our innate wisdom connects us unequivocally to everything that is wild within each of us.

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”

~ John Muir

That is less easy in the comfort of the cities, where our sixth sense is stifled by structure. Spending time in nature, even for just a short time makes us feel more relaxed and more connected. We begin to experience life differently, the elements engage and enrage us and we become enchanted by the perfect synchronicity of the life that surrounds us on all side. We are reminded that everything is in a constant state of change, including us. Somehow we feel like we’ve come home and we recognize that there are many roads to discover.

Dr. Brian Cox explains that the very laws that underpin the nature of the entire universe dictate change: “The Arrows of Time dictate that as each moment passes, things change, and once these changes have happened they are never undone. This is a fundamental part of being human. Out there in the universe, grand and epic cycles appear eternal and unchanging, but it’s an illusion. See, in the life of the universe, just as in our lives, everything is irreversibly changing.”

“The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences.”

~ Christopher McCandless

In other words, the more order we try to bring to our lives, the more we’re denying our true nature and the more we get the feeling something is missing. The truth is we are all adventurers at heart, exploring the oceans of our destiny. New experiences, places and faces feed our soul and inspire and exhilarate us. Skipping over them only brings sadness.

So untame the untameable within you. Forget the shoulds and woulds, forget being proper, polite or popular and go! Lust after life with a ferocity and thirst that cannot be quenched until you thrust yourself firmly out there into the unknown, until you are lost and alone. It is in that place that you will reveal everything that is breakable and unshakable and realise the whole universe and all you could ever need is within you.

“Sometimes you find yourself in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes in the middle of nowhere you find yourself.”

~ Unknown

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Apprentice Editor: Kathryn Muyskens / Editor: Travis May

Photo: Wikimedia Commons