#wild woman

[saintavangeline]

Posting my uncensored versions here

Please credit me if you repost elsewhere. @saintavangeline (all socials)

#dark femininity #female rage #vampire #the damned #vampire goth #cw: gore #blood and gore #bloody #blood lust #sapphic #lesbian #redhead #nudity #nude art #feral rage #feral art #feral #wild woman #dark fantasy #red hair #wlw blog #lesbian blog #saint avangeline #wlw musician #fantasy photography

[rose-pearlescent]

Sometimes, your mother will shame you and condemn you for choosing a life of ease and respect to your feminine energy and breaking the generational trauma of suffering and sacrifice that a lot of women have ingrained In themselves.

#sacred feminine #sacred femininity #wild woman #hypergamy #high value woman #high value mindset #level up journey #levelling up #leveling up #self improvement #self ownership #self care

[touched-by-nature]

She’s as wild and wavering as the ocean

#wild woman #naturelovers #couple content #beautiful #nature #beautiful views #couple #nude art #coupletravel #nudity #naturephotography #naked swimming #naked into the wilderness #nakedlife #naked hiking #naked in nature

[mystical-maelstrom]

My therapist says I need to make irl friends.. {HELP}

#mysticalmaelstrom #me #selfie #self portrait #my face #personal #girls with glasses #wild woman #weird girl #looking for friends #ootd #work ootd #tongue out #long hair #alt girl #natural girls #girls with piercings #blue and orange

[wolfteacreations]

Large bone necklace I will be taking with me to the oddities expo in Portland

#wolftea #vulture culture #bone jewelry #bonejewelry #animal bone #witchy #darkstyle #alt style #wild woman #feral

[dragonfoxgirl]

I started to become aware of the life I've built up. I have transformed into a character from a book I'm not entirely sure I've written myself. But if this is the case, my creator has certainly placed me in one of the strangest, happiest chapters.

I've become a house witch. Surrounded by her animals, plants and colorful trinkets.

I create with my hands. My eyes, the window to the worlds inside me.

I cover my body in colors and comfortable fabrics and bask through the mornings in bed with my three cats, my dog and my amazing fuzzy rabbit.

I walk barefoot as much as I can. Naked as much as I want. I lay on the cool floor, stretch like a cat and relishing in every single crack and pop from my achy back.

I drink terere like it's a magical potion and it may as well be in the sense that every zip is like drinking the scent of fresh soil.

I go out for no reason at all. I take my rabbit with me, sometimes my dog too and we sit at the supermarket bench enjoying the breeze of the door ventilators and people-watch.

I talk to them too. The ones brave enough to approach the crazy lady with a rabbit and dog in her lap. I see myself as the coocky zanny character they'll go tell their spouces about later.

I relish in the moment of being the magical creature in young children's minds when they see me in my rainbow hippie-ish clothes and walking my bunny on a leash because I know they'll recall my image for the rest of their lives while reminiscing about their childhood.

I enjoy my food unapologetically like an animal. I dig my teeth into my guilty pleasure burgers while whipping ketchup with my arm.

I've got a bird living in my bathroom as I raise it from a fledgling. A pigeon who takes showers with me. I talk to my plants as if they're my children.

I have lost the need for a standard and majorly consistent routine. I've created my own because I live and work for me. Me and my children, ofcourse.

I've become somewhat ... adapted to my limitations. But from that, I've embraced what I've accomplished and I've expanded them into real-life fantasies.

Maybe I'll never have the classic happy life. Maybe I'll never call anyone husband or work in a studio. Maybe I'll never drive a car or have many many many friends.

Maybe, I'll never dare to step outside my comfort zone in a major crazy way.

Because I don't want to risk this. This life I have. This autonomy. This freedom. This leasure.

To be crazy, messy, wild and fantastically deluded. I'm supposed to be!

I'm the crazy neighborhood lady. The witchy aunt figure that teaches you how to throw clay and lose your fear of bees.

I'm me. This me that exists for now.... and when that starts to change as I move to the next chapter... God I hope it still feels like it.

#artists on tumblr #neurodivergent #spirituality #wild woman #witch

[cuties-in-codices]

mary of egypt

in a copy of the "alsatian legenda aurea", alsace, c. 1440

source: Berlin, SBB, Ms. germ. fol. 495, fol. 162r

#15th century #medieval art #mary of egypt #saints #alsatian legenda aurea #wild woman #wild people

[goddess-of-alchemy]

#alchemy #authencity #depths #wild woman #quotes #poetry #e.h.

[lucyinthesky222]

If you have attempted to fit whatever mold and failed to do so, you are probably lucky. You may be an exile of some sort, but you have sheltered your soul.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype

#clarissa pinkola estes #wild woman #women who run with the wolves

[acrosscenturiesandgenerations]

▪︎ "Wild woman” with unicorn.

Place of origin: Strasbourg

Date: ca. 1500-1510

Medium: Wool, linen, cotton, silk, metallic thread.

#16th century #16th century art #tapestry #textile #wild woman #unicorn #Strasbourg #ca. 1500 #ca. 1510 #renaissance

[with-reverence]

Art is important for it commemorates the seasons of the soul.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves

#clarissa pinkola estes #women who run with the wolves #quotes #wild woman #archetypes #jungian psychology #jungian archetypes #jungian analyst #art therapy

[saintavangeline]

My interpretation of “In The Desert” by Stephen Crane

Please credit me if you repost elsewhere. @saintavangeline (all socials)

#saint avangeline #in the desert #stephen crane #existentialism #dark fantasy #nude art #nudity #blood and gore #cw: gore #gore lover #blood lust #bloody #feral rage #feral art #female rage #feminine rage #divine feminine #wild woman #lesbian #wlw blog #redhead #modernism #lesbian blog #eat your heart out #dark photography

[rose-pearlescent]

#sacred femininity #wild woman

[touched-by-nature]

Welcome to my tree house 😊

#naturelovers #couple content #beautiful #nature #beautiful views #couple #nude art #coupletravel #nudity #naturephotography #treehouse #in the jungle #wild woman #naked into the wilderness #nakedlife #naked in nature

[thevenusianlife]

#aphrodite #love #venusian #goddess #goddesses #wild woman #altar #women who run with the wolves #reminders #zen

[adarkrainbow]

Romanian witches: Muma Padurii

(Note: I unfortunately cannot add the accents needed for the writing of those names since my keyboard is not equiped. So know that there are accents missing)

I originally made a post about one Romanian fairytale figure... which turned into a post about two fairytale figures... which became a post about three fairytale figures... So ultimately I decided to split this post into a whole series because it was getting too big. I want to explore with you three characters tied together in Romanian folklore and all present within Romanian fairytales, but each fascinating in their own right. And I want to begin with the first of these ladies... Muma Padurii.

Muma Padurii means "The Forest Mom", or "The Mother of the Forest" (Muma is an archaic form of "mom").

In fairytales, Muma Padurii is an antagonist. She is an embodiment of the wicked witch, or rather of the hag. She is a very old and very ugly woman (so ugly the expression "You look like Muma padurii" is an insult) who lives all alone in a little, dark and scary house in the depths of the woods. She is not a normal woman: she is a witch gifted with various supernatural powers (including shapeshifting), and she is also an ogress who loves to eat children. It is as a children-predator that she usually appears within Romanian fairytales, luring kids to her house to kill and cook them. One of the most famous Muma Padurii fairytales is the Romanian version of "Hansel and Gretel", which mostly differs by A) having the witch named B) the house not being made of candy and C) the genders are reversed (here it is the girl that is to be boiled alive into a soup, while it is the boy that pushes the hag into the oven).

But the thing with Muma Padurii is that, in a similar way to Frau Holle, she is an entity that was "split" between fairytales and legends. There is a Muma Padurii of folktales which is the evil hag I presented above, but there is also a Muma Padurii of beliefs and legends which is quite different and much more neutral.

This Muma Padurii is still an old, ugly, shapeshifting witch - but she is presented as amoral rather than wicked, with a personality mixing a fairy-like mischieviousness and just pure insanity. The name "Muma Padurii" is also very revealing... In the fairytales this name is used in the typical motif of the witch/hag as the "false mother" or "anti-mother", but in the Romanian mythology, this name indicates what Muma Padurii is. She is the Mother of the Forest, as in the spirit of the forest. Her main role, and the reason for her hostility towards humankind, is her function as the guardian of the woods. She still lives in a remote and hidden location - but it is not always a little cabin, it can just be a tree, and it is usually within a virgin-woodland at the heart of the forest, untouched by human hands. She still brews potions - but they are good potions, that she uses to heal injured animals and sick trees. For Muma Padurii always keeps the forest alive. She does attack humans - but only those that destroy the fauna and flora, or that trespass within forbidden areas where only wild things are supposed to be. This was why those that entered the woods were warned to not go too far and to respect what surrounded them: else Muma Padurii would at best scare them away, at worst drive them to insanity with her magic. As such, it was forbidden to pick up certain wild fruits and berries in the forest during certain times of the year - they were for the animals to replenish their strength, and Mama Padurii made sure this rule was followed. In the most extreme cases she would kill the trespassers and devour their corpses like a wild animal - a bogey-version of Muma Padurii that explains her role as a child-eating crone in fairytales...

Muma Padurii is present all across Romania, sometimes in local variations (Padureanca, Muma Huciului), and this explains why there are so many different incarnations of her. Sometimes she is an angry ghost of the woods, a vengeful spirit which can be heard crying among the trees for all the plants that mankind destroyed, and if a house built near the forest isn't carefully locked up at night, she will enter in them at midnight and kill all those inside... Other times she is depicted as a young and beautiful fairy of light, who will be kind and helpful to children but will trick adults into being lost, having their body paralyzed or dying in various ways. This specific idea of the "young faced Muma Padurii" is notably present in another folktale/fairytale, where it is said that the Muma Padurii is a witch that needs to eat human hearts to keep herself young and alive - as such she takes on the appearance of a beautiful woman to lure young men into the woods, but once they are isolated enough she turns into a giant monster and rips their hearts away.

Her link to the forest is highlighted by how she is often said to disguise herself as a tree, to be a part-tree woman, or a hag clothed in moss (she also can appear as a cow, a horse or an ox) ; her function as a "Romanian fairy" is also highlighted by how in various legends she either makes babies sick, or replaces them by changelings (and as such they were several folk-spells and rituals Romanian country-folks used to protect their babies from the Forest-Mom). But mostly Muma Padurii stays an embodiment of the woods in what they have of dangerous and scary. She can be kind and helpful - but only towards the "innocent", animals, plants and (sometimes) children. However she stays an ancient woman of the woods, the mistress of the wild animals, the embodiment of a state of non-civilizations, and as such she is the fright that drives one mad and the savage force that will kill and eat men. And even then, the fauna and flora itself is not always escaping her wrath - some records say that Mama Padurii knows the name of every tree of the forest, but that she can get angry at some and curse them to fall either by the woodsman's axe or by lightning.

The last interesting difference between the fairytale Muma and the legendary Muma is that, while the fairytale Muma is usually a lonely entity, in beliefs Muma Padurii was part of a large family. Sometimes Muma Padurii herself was multiplied into several "Muma" - there was notably a belief about many of them sometimes visiting the cabins of those that lived near the woods, asking to have their hair brushed and cleaned, with a comb and butter (which isn't an easy feat since she had her hair dirty, tangled in snake-like braids and so long it touches the floor). Anyone who agreed to the task and performed it well could receive a wish from the Mother of the Woods - but the rule was that they could only pronounce three words in total as long as she was here, if a fourth was pronounced, she would take your voice and leave you mute. Sometimes Muma Padurii was given a male counterpart of companion called "The Father of the Forests", or the "Woods Papa".

Muma Padurii was also said to have several sons, which were the spirits of the woods and/or of the night (going by names such as Decuseara, Zorila, Murgila, Mamornito or "Midnight"). She is also linked to a set of female forest spirits known as the Fata Padurii (Fata being of course linked to the "fairies", "fées", "fatum" - but here it is to be understood as "The Daughters of the Forest", "The Girls of the Woods, and fittingly they are said to be the daughters of Muma Padurii) ; and to an entity I personaly do not know much about, "Mosul Codruilui" (she is said to be her mother, and "Mosul" means "old woman")

Finally, there was a certain Christianization of the Muma (as some tales started saying her task as a guardian of the forest was given to her by God), and a modern attempt at explaining how she could be such an ambiguous entity, benevolent and malevolent at the same time: most modern storytellers highlight how protective she is of the fauna and flora, and how she was said to wail and cry for the destroyed wood, to explain her "transformation" as her becoming more and more bitter, and angrier and fuller of hate the more humans destroyed her domain, harmed her trees and wounded her "children". A true ecological fable.

Some people point out that Muma Padurii could be a "Romanian equivalent" of the Russian Baba-Yaga which is... not quite exact and not quite true. The two characters seem to derive from a same old "forest mother-goddess" but there are too many differences between Muma Padurii and Baba-Yaga for them to be consideed one and the same. There is however a interesting link between the two, which will be the subject of my next post... about Baba Cloantza.

#romanian folkore #romanian fairytales #romanian witches #romanian mythology #romania #muma padurii #forest goddess #hag #witches of folklore #legendary witches #forest-woman #wild woman #fairytale antagonist #forest mother