About
The Wilderness Within
A reflective field journal by A. Wilder exploring inner growth, identity, relationships, sexuality, belonging, and the nonlinear process of becoming.
Why the Wilderness
Walking the Inner Forest
I’ve always loved the image of the forest. Maybe because a forest doesn’t pretend to be simple. You can’t see the whole thing at once. You can only see the trees immediately around you. There are paths, but you don’t always know where they lead. There are sounds you can’t identify. There are places where the light comes through so beautifully that you want to stay forever. And there are places that make you want to turn around.
The forest asks something of you. Pay attention. Feel your feet. Listen. Notice what you are drawn toward. Notice what you are running from. Learn the difference between a dangerous path and a difficult one. Learn when you are genuinely lost and when you simply can’t see the next step yet. I think the human mind is much the same. We carry an entire wilderness inside us. And we spend much of our lives learning how to walk through it.
Artemis
The Voice Behind It
I’ve always been drawn to Artemis. Not simply because she belongs to Greek mythology, but because of what she represents to me. The wild. The forest. The moon. Instinct. Independence. The ability to belong completely to yourself without being separate from the world around you.
Artemis doesn’t need to be rescued from the wilderness. She belongs there. She knows how to move through it. She observes. She listens. She trusts her instincts. She walks her own path. And yet she isn’t disconnected from the world. She is deeply connected to nature, to the animals, to something larger than herself. That is the archetype I keep returning to. Not a woman who has conquered her wilderness. A woman who has learned how to walk through it. So Artemis Wilder became the name I chose for the voice that will live here. Perhaps she is a character. Perhaps she is an alter ego. Perhaps she is simply a name for the part of me that knows there is still something wild inside me worth listening to. I haven’t quite decided. Maybe I don’t need to.
Perspective
I Am Not Your Guide
This distinction matters to me. I used to be a life coach. I loved it. I loved writing. I loved asking questions. I loved helping people see the patterns they couldn’t see from inside their own stories. But I don’t want this space to be about me standing on the other side of the wilderness telling you how to get through it.
I’m in there too. I’m walking the trails. I’m getting lost. I’m finding my way. I’m sometimes following my own advice and sometimes wondering why I apparently don’t take my own advice. So I’m not writing from the mountaintop. I’m writing from the trail.
These aren’t prescriptions. They’re observations.
A. Wilder
Things I’m noticing while trying to become more conscious. Things I’m questioning. Things I’m learning about myself. And sometimes, things I suspect you might recognize in yourself too.
★★★★★
“”I’m not writing from the mountaintop. I’m writing from the trail.””
A. Wilder
Writer and observer
The Wilderness Within