Maria Paregger, doctor specialised in anthroposofic medicine and Claudio Risé, psychologist and psychotherapist, talk about the identity of “wild women”, taking the cue from their book dedicated to them: “Die Saligen“, translated in Italy in 2015 with the title “Le donne selvatiche – Forza e mistero del femminile“. A great opportunity to reason on the topic of the choice of non-motherhood within the frame of life seen as a gift, as intended anthropologically.
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PAREGGER: «Wild women are the soul of nature, and also the spirit of nature, they are the spiritual image of nature. They know the laws of nature very well. They are told in the epic tales because they also talk about the spirit of nature; sagas are what’s left of an ancient spiritual wisdom of nature. They are female images, who live also within us as an archetype, as an image that gives energy and you can look for it inside yourself. I found it in dreams, then I imagined it in nature. They are a real… they are female figures who know the laws of nature, they are natural, they give advice, they are very generous, they give gifts that never end and for this reason they reflect this abundance however, you’d better not stop it with intellectual questions. If they give a ball of yarn that never ends it’s better not to ask when it will end, because then it will. So, they own this great abundance, this generosity, this knowledge of nature. They protect animals, so they also have this animal environment, they are close to animals, but also to the hunter if he is an honest and kind man. They join the farmers, as it is needed, and they help them, if they live in this farmstead, all is good, the cows give a lot of milk, and everything grows well. They also join in marriage with the farmer asking though… with the promise that the farmer will never ask her name, I mean, they want to keep a secret. This need to keep a secret struck me the most because these women of nature care a lot about having their own inner space, their own inner space, which allows them to be, as we wrote in the book, “one with herself”, someone who really knows how to be with herself, who finds her own energies, abundances and her own knowledge.»
RISÉ: «What really struck me all along about the wild woman, about this image, it is her wholeness; I mean, being one with herself, she lacks nothing and however, her great openness, her great openness to the world, to the other, to the farmer who falls in love with her, in offering her knowledge, even in childbearing, her availability to the farmer of course, who loves her and wants children with her and she gives him children and these teachings so that the farmstead and the land will flourish. This wholeness and this generosity does not prevent her from keeping her secret. I believe that there are… for what I have also seen in my life and in my relationship with patients and others, there are some very interesting points very central of the feminine and its relationship with the world, such as the wholeness, being a person, the relationship with nature and gift, which is a topic I found again also in my work on fatherhood, the ability, the possibility of giving oneself which of course, from my point of view comes from this strong relationship with nature. Nature gives itself, nature is a gift, it is the fruit, it is this great continuous creativity, it is this abundance, it is the “world of abundances” as Ernst Jünger said, “a world with infinite abundances”. Detaching from there, the gift becomes very difficult. Well, I think that this is a central point for both woman and man but of course, in some ways, it is more challenging for women because for her this gift of life passes completely through her body, because the baby is in the woman’s womb, not in the man’s belly. Then, the man’s gift, as in ceremonies celebrating fatherhood, is lifting the baby off the ground, taking the baby off the ground, and putting them on his lap saying: as if to say, “This is my baby”, regardless of whatever you are their biological father. That’s the father’s gift, who recognizes fatherhood as a commitment that will bind him for the rest of his life. While a mother’s gift, is somehow deeper and it fully involves her body and her identity.»
PAREGGER: «The wild woman has children, gives life to twelve, thirteen children but if her secret is…»
RISÉ: «… revealed…»
PAREGGER: «… revealed, she goes away and comes back maybe only early in the morning to comb these children. Then, she leaves them with their father…»
RISÉ: «… and then she never comes back. Anyway, there is an interesting aspect about motherhood, but then also about fatherhood. In my opinion, children are not yours, the children belong to themselves, they don’t belong to their parents. Parents have this gift of life, this gift of caring, they naturally have an affective relationship, but it is necessary, for the well-being of all and also for the development of the world, that they are recognized in their otherness, I mean, the child is never yours. If you think the child is yours, then maybe it is better not to have them and anyway you cannot even have them because it would be a superhuman effort even from the point of view of nature. In reality, the child is not yours, children belong to themselves, that is the human nature.»
PAREGGER: «Yes, I was struck by this “saliga” nymph who then goes away and leaves her children behind, and actually, you can understand so that…»
RISÉ: «…she is also the good mother. A good mother who is able to leave her children. This is also the great difficulty also in the modern world, because there is this idea of an enveloping relationship which lasts forever, but it is not like that. It doesn’t happen is nature, and neither in history.»
PAREGGER: «I also think that the mother has to be well, and precisely for this reason, if the farmer reveals her name, the “saliga” is no longer well and therefore she can no longer be a mother. That’s perhaps one of the reasons why she has to leave, because she needs to feel respected, to be seen and accepted. Maybe, even in that she sees the help she can give this farmer father, namely having a non- invasive relationship. I also love this “saliga” woman because she doesn’t hold up when invaded… by…how can I say… by the curiosity, by this wanting to know everything about nature, about the woman, instead of leaving something sacred in the woman who leaves with you, letting her be as she is.»
RISÉ: «But there, for me, there is a very important point, which lies in being uncatchable, in the feminine universe being impenetrable. You cannot investigate the feminine universe fully. The woman also as a representation of nature. Nature is the bearer of a mystery, that the human rationality and knowledge can never penetrate to the core and from this point of view, the feminine namely the woman, perfectly represents this mystery probably more than the masculine. But it’s not like the masculine can be scrutinised all the way, because each man, in his own wholeness, has his own mystery and it is important that he has it and that he knows how to maintain it. However of course, women possess it ontologically because she represents nature, more than the man, and she is “nature” more than man, she is identified more with the body. A typical characteristic of the masculine is relatively identified with the body. This also explains the war or the fact that the man always died with a certain ease, he had risked is life easily, for others, for the country, for the family or whatever, even for fun while women struggle with this, and rightly so, since her body is sacred it is the body of nature.
I believe that we need to see what happens, whether this is an total rejection of the dimension of motherhood or whether this is renouncing to biological motherhood.
I believe that, they are very different stories in this position that may seem univocal. I believe that there are worlds and personal aspects different personal stories each time. And I believe maybe, it would be interesting, and I’m interested when I come face to face with this position to see how it evolves, how it is declined in one’s personal life from the point of view of giving oneself to others, because I think that the aspect of giving to others is central to everybody’s life. Somehow, it is our life.
We are… Man is a rational being who lives, grows, strengthens, changes in relationships with others which is a gift, to a great extent, the most interesting part, the most creative part; this is also one of the rediscoveries of the anthropology in the last one hundred and fifty years, it is the gift, not the market, not the purchase, the gift is the most significative part.
Then we need to see when this withdrawal, that can look as a withdrawal from the donative relationship, is actually this or if it is a withdrawal from the biological maternity, thus a different form of a choice that has always been in the female history. Precisely, the Blessed Mothers are just a representation but women who did not have children for different reasons, are totally part of the history of the feminine, even as an archetype.»
PAREGGER: «Anyway, they are mothers…»
RISÉ: «They are mothers, anyway… Diana, Artemis is a virgin, she is a Blessed Virgin, but she is also the patroness of women in labor. She is deeply connected to the whole world of giving, creativity and so on. So, we need to see how this is declined in your personal life. I believe that it is also very important for us who look at this phenomenon as a psychoanalyst, a doctor, as storytellers one way or another. We need to be very careful not to fall into stereotyping, into creating new stereotypes, and therefore also new stigmas towards these women, but instead follow them and recognise them precisely in their specific peculiarity as people who have different stories every time.»
PAREGGER: «I found it… very important because nobody talks about it; because it is also a theme that you find it difficult even to ask someone: “Why don’t you have a child?” Also because the reasons for not having a child are very complex. As a consequence… I think nobody talks about it. Nowadays it is a topical theme, because I think it’s becoming a bit more difficult to deal with motherhood, also because people seem to forget that a woman with no children is still maternal, can still be a mother. This is seen much less nowadays, and so this theme… I find it very important, I think.»
RISÉ: «It seems to me a very topical theme, and we even see it both trivially and statistically in the continuous decrease of childbirth rate in the Western world. Now this decrease, this fall in the birthrate of this… of the Western culture, affects many men as well, even many men are… they are on such a position, namely rejection of fatherhood, but it affects women very much, so it is right that it should be investigated in both fields. Moreover, it affects couples as a whole, childfree couples are organized in their own entities and associations and so on, therefore it is a very important social phenomenon and it is right and reasonable to deal with it. As I said before, the focus should be on not making it an acronym for a lifestyle, because in such a way we loose all its deepness, and we would swiftly go back into mere consumerism creating new behaviors, basically what our social model is interested in, new consumptions and so on. I believe that this is an aspect to look at very carefully, on the other hand, anything related to a deeper personal understanding is of course very useful and it makes absolute sense to develop, since it is one of the great problems of our time.
It was not… in Italy it was, but it was not my invention because, for example in America, since the 70s they had been talking about a fatherless society, a society without fathers, focusing the attention on this huge social phenomenon, which was the refusal of the father to remain a father
and to take his responsibilities towards his children and the whole society. So, it was a phenomenon of the time that I firstly found in my personal life, and then in my relationships with others and also in my profession as psychotherapist. It only needed to be recognized, and I did so, because it seemed right to me, because I could clearly see it. Since then, fortunately, it is much more recognized as one of the great issues of our time and I experimented it in the field. I experienced it in my life and in the life of people I met, both of women and men.»
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