This post is part of a series where Wild Wilderness Women is exploring the true definition of “babe” in preparation for our upcoming Babes Off the Beaten Path trip in Glacier National Park. Please consider supporting the babes forging paths for other outdoor women by making a donation on our fundraising page. If you’d like to share your words on “babe-dom” with us, please contact us!
Submitted By: Jamie Furlan, WWW member
Which of my many selves am I today? Am I pensive, or curious, or wild, or loud? Am I rock-solid or fluid or brazen or shy? I am all of these, at once, and others, still. “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” – Walt Whitman
To me, being a babe is about recognizing the duality of my nature and accepting it. It’s about embracing my femininity and also the fierce warrior within me – acknowledging that they can coexist in harmony, and that I am stronger because of this.
Being a babe is about nurturing my many selves and allowing myself to grow, unswayed by social norms or media images telling me I should be a different way. I can be strong; I can be soft; I can be explosive; I can be still. I can be who I want to be: I am enough.
A babe accepts herself for who she is, and moves through the world with grace.
Being a babe is about joining with my sister warriors in community, in support of one another. For when we come together, we create a wave of positivity that carries us through the fields and the mountains and the streams, aloft on the crest of our friendship. We ride on each other’s strength, and lift each other up, and this is right and good.
Being a babe is about allowing my multitudinous selves to exist in balance. It’s about celebrating my tenderness as well as my fierceness, and making space for the full expression of my self. Being a babe is about exploring both my inner and outer worlds. It’s having the courage to look inward and confront what I find, and the courage to look outward, roam the land and forge my own path.
Being a babe is about being a strong individual and coming together with other strong individuals, and uniting in our babe-ness. It’s about finding peace within myself, and securing my place among others.
If I can have peace in my heart I can blossom and breathe life into the world. And stand tall among the other babes – we each a beautiful stem – offering ourselves to the rainbow, comprising the rainbow; complete on our own but better as a collective whole.
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If a babe bares a lithe leg in the forest but there’s no one there to see it, is she still sexy? And if she bays at the full moon but there’s no one there to witness it, is she still wild? Why – yes! A thousand times, yes. She is primal, she is alluring, she is all fierce foxy lady.
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How to be a babe:
- Be fiercely kind
- Confront your fears; be brave; surprise yourself
- Be raw, be real, be free
- Own your babe-ness: if you feel confident, you exude confidence
- Embrace the wild woman inside you – let her come out to play
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