Take a Walk on your Wild Side - Where Shamanism Meets Fashion

If you’ve taken a stroll through your nearest shopping district recently, you will have seen that animal prints have taken the fashion world by storm this season.

In particular, Snake skin and Leopard prints are the must-have items in your Autumn 2018 wardrobe.

Now, it is not often that I take to my keyboard to comment on the ebbs and flows of the catwalks (ahem, never !).  But this season, my interest has been piqued …

Anyone that knows me knows that I am no fashionista !!  But I AM a wild woman who is down with Mother Earth and her creatures, and I have a secret about the Serpent and the Leopard to share with you …

In many ancient traditions, the Serpent and the Leopard/Jaguar bring gifts of healing, transformation and rebirth from the dark and shadowy experiences of our past.

Serpent holds the power to help us shed the skins of ourselves that no longer serve us; limiting behaviours and patterns, old and unhelpful thought processes, deep wounds that still pain us in the dark nights of our soul.  She connects us to the power of our sexuality. 

Jaguar also brings medicine that helps us to confront our dark experiences, and like all cats, she can see well in the dark, and she helps us to navigate our way out of our own personal shadowlands, and back into the light of hope and healing, and lust for life.

As a Shamanic Healer, I work a lot with women who are seeking to heal themselves from the deep wounds of Womanhood, often (but not always) at the brutal hands of toxic masculinity.  You will know what these wounds feel like, if you have been born in a female body.

Unless you are exceptionally lucky, or have been living in a nunnery for your whole life, the everyday misogyny that most women experience seems depressingly ‘normal’.  The violence of masculinity presents itself in very obvious ways, such as the horrific statistics on rates of domestic violence and the murder of women by men, sexual violence, sexual harassment, the lists of inequalities that women have to struggle against are endless, even everyday language that victim-blames women in the most mundane of situations.  And who can forget the tidal wave of honesty and tragic revelation that came with the #metoo phenomenon last year?

It seems to me, however, that with every passing day, women are starting to not only speak the unspeakable truths, but demand accountability from the men who abuse us, and the system and culture that perpetuates this abuse.

When I see Leopard prints and Snake skin adorning every model in every shop window I pass, I rejoice, because by wearing these prints, we are summoning the power of these creatures, we are invoking their healing medicine.

Whether we are conscious of this summoning or not, the power of collective invocation cannot be underestimated ….

When we call upon the power of these predators, we harness their power and become less and less like prey.

When we dig deep into our wild and primal selves, we find the courage to look at our wounds and lick them clean, allowing the gift of self-care to nurture and nourish us back to well-being.

Let us ride this fashion wave with intention and consciousness, and as a Sisterhood, we can collectively begin to heal the wounds of our own experiences, those of our Mothers and Grandmothers, and allow this transformation to break these damaging patterns, for the sake of out Daughters and Grand-daughters.

So, Dear Sisters, I strongly invite you to get on your Leopard prints, adorn yourself with the soft, sleek and irridescent rainbows of the Serpent, and bask in their healing power, as you Take a Walk on your Wild Side.

“Heal Your Womb,

Heal Our Womanhood,

Heal The World.”

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Joanna Joy is a home-educating mother of three small humans, and she works as a Shamanic Healer in Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK, seeing clients in person, as well as working with women all over the world using the amazing technology of the internet.

She runs group events and workshops and is about to take her courses online, to give more women the ability to use Shamanic Healing techniques to ‘Heal Your Womb’

Check out her website www.joannajoy.love

You can contact her at [email protected]