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The Wild Sacred: Revisioning the Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood
Wilkes, C. S. (2001). The Wild Sacred: Revisioning the Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood. (Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute, 2001). UMI no. 3043121
The Wild Sacred is a state of consciousness in which numinous energies are experienced in our bodies and in everyday life. This awareness creates a felt connection with all of life. To reclaim the Wild Sacred, we must enter into the imaginal realm, reintegrate our instinctual animal nature, and connect with the creative energies of soul. This research explores the Wild Sacred from various perspectives: mythological, archetypal, historical, philosophical, psychological, and thealogical. The Wolf is an archetypal embodiment and image of the wild. Scapegoated in our patriarchal culture, wolves have been made to carry the projections of a society that has demonized an animal once held to be sacred. Using a hermeneutical approach, the threads of history that came together and virtually eliminated the wildness in our culture, both externally in the forests and internally in our psyches, are identified. To reclaim this wildness, we must enter the depths of the forest, there to meet, honor, and relate with the Wolf. Jung stated that archetypal expressions are manifested in the body as well as in the mind. Using six different versions of the fairy tale, Little Red Riding Hood, spanning from a sixteenth century oral tale to contemporary renditions, the archetypal symbolism of Little Red Riding Hood, the Wolf, and Grandmother are examined in light of the mythological figures of Dionysos, Saturn, and Rhea, as well as more ancient shamanistic figures of the Bone Mother, Trickster, and Mistress and Master of the Animals. The Wolf is the symbol and embodiment of chthonic energies of creation, Little Red Riding Hood is the sacred fiery energy of the soul, and Grandmother is the medial energy of the imaginal realm. Maps by which the Wild Sacred can be revisioned and reclaimed are set forth, interweaving the work of feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray, thealogian Catherine Keller, psychologist Michael Washburn, and psychiatrist Allan Chinen. Language is seen as a function of our relationship with nature, and animals and nature revisioned in a way that sees them as sources of the sacred. Together, a tapestry emerges that integrates instinct, reason, and soul, creating the Wild Sacred.
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