Women Rising Wild

I have been reflecting on childhood fairytales and nursery rhymes to study and rewrite their legacy. As inspiration for our gathering tomorrow in Boulder, I offer this reimagined I'm a Little Teapot childhood nursery rhyme:
I Am Not Your Teapot
I am not small because I must be—
I am nature's shape that carries me.
Here is my body, strong and wise,
Here is my voice that will not hide.
There is a fire that lives within,
Not to be silenced, not kept in.
When I feel pressure start to rise,
I honor truth—I recognize.
I will not allow others' hands to steer,
Or tip me when I’m not yet clear.
I choose the moment, pace, and way
My inner waters greet the day.
And when I pour, it is my will—
A sacred choice, a practiced skill.
What I release is mine to give:
My voice, my power, how I live.
Reflection
This playful reclaiming transforms the classic schoolyard rhyme about being handled into a new story about inhabiting our own lives. The body is honored, the voice is trusted, and what we share is offered in personal sovereignty and self-knowing.
As children, many women were taught to be small, accommodating, and endlessly available. We were taught to be quiet, diminutive, and never angry, loud, or passionate. This new version reminds us that getting "steamed up" is not wrong; we are not vessels for others to empty or control. We are whole beings with wisdom, boundaries, warmth, and choice.
Perform this childhood nursery rhyme and movements we all remember with the new words. How does this version feel compared to the original rhyme and dance? If you share this story with others, please tag us. And let me know what you think.🩵☕🫖🌹
Brunch Invitation for Women in Colorado:
You are warmly invited to gather for a beautiful Spring Brunch at my home in Boulder, Colorado, in celebration of sisterhood, renewal, and the season of becoming.
🦋🐻☕ Saturday, May 2, from 9:30 am to 1 pm 🦋🐻☕
(Allergy note: This is a dog and cat home. If you have health concerns we can move our event outside.)
As the earth awakens and flowers begin to bloom, we too are invited to rise, soften, expand, and share what has been quietly growing within us. Spring reminds us that nothing meant for life stays hidden forever.
Inspired by the spirit of reclaiming our voices and honoring our inner wisdom, this gathering will be a space to nourish one another through conversation, laughter, warmth, and community.
Please bring:
🌿 A box of your favorite tea to share
🌸 A potluck brunch dish to contribute
☀️ Your stories, your presence, and your beautiful self
Together we will sip, savor, and celebrate the many ways women pour love, courage, creativity, and healing into the world—by choice, by wisdom, and in our own time.
Come as you are. Bring a friend if you’d like. Let us welcome spring surrounded by kind hearts and kindred spirits.
May our brunch be a celebration of consent over compliance, agency over obligation, and sisterhood that nourishes every woman.
RSVP now! Reply for my home address.
With warmth and joy,
Melissa Lynn Reed

This week, we continue rewriting the patriarchy out of our favorite stories. Let us know what you think of this wilder version of Goldilocks and the Three Little Bears.

In the early breath of spring—when the snow loosens its grip and the earth exhales the first scent of thaw—there is a forest that remembers everything.

Meltwater sings over stone. Buds swell with quiet insistence. The ground, once hardened, softens enough to receive footprints again.

And in this season of becoming, when hunger and renewal walk hand in hand, three bears emerge from their winter den.

Mother Bear rises first, her body lean from the long sleep, her knowing ancient as root and river. Behind her come her two cubs, no longer tiny, not yet grown—carriers of instinct, still learning its language.

They are hungry.

Not the restless wanting of excess, but the deep, cellular hunger of life returning. Their bodies call them forward—toward green shoots, toward thawed earth, toward the first fragile movements of prey and plant.

Mother Bear does not rush. She teaches through presence.

They dig for roots newly awakened beneath the soil. They turn over logs, revealing insects and the slow work of decay becoming nourishment. They move along the edges of streams, where the ice has broken, and the water speaks again.

“Take, and move. Take, and listen,” her body says.
“Nothing is only yours. Everything is part of the turning.”

Not far from this unfolding, a girl enters the forest.

Her name is Goldilocks.

She does not arrive as a trespasser, though she has been told stories that say she might be one. She arrives as many do in spring—drawn by something unnamed. A stirring. A call that feels like both longing and remembering.

She has walked farther than she planned.

Her stomach aches. Her limbs are heavy. Something inside her feels frayed—like she has been holding herself together for too long.

When she finds the small shelter tucked between trees—a place shaped by bear life, by fur and breath and season—she pauses.

The old story whispers: You should not enter.
But her body whispers louder: You need care.

Inside, the space is simple. Not a human home, but a resting place. There are remnants of food gathered before winter—roots, dried berries, the faint scent of fat and earth.

She hesitates only a moment before taking a small portion.

She eats slowly.

Not greedily, not carelessly—but with the reverence of someone remembering what it means to be nourished.

Her body softens.

She sits, then lies down in a hollow shaped by another being’s rest. It is not “hers,” and yet it holds her. The forest, after all, does not draw its boundaries in straight lines.

She sleeps.

•

When the bears return, they feel it immediately—not as intrusion, but as shift.

The air has changed.

Mother Bear pauses at the threshold. Her cubs stiffen behind her, alert.

They enter.

The scent of human is there—woven now with the scent of eaten food, of warmth, of vulnerability.

They follow it to the resting place.

Goldy Locks wakes.

For a moment, the world sharpens into fear—the ancient recognition of otherness, of power, of possible harm.

But beneath that, something deeper moves.

She sees them.

Not as villains. Not as characters in a warning.

But as beings who, like her, have just emerged from a season of emptiness into a season of need.

Her voice is quiet, but steady.

“I was hungry,” she says. “And tired. I didn’t know where else to go.”

The cubs shift, uncertain. One feels the echo of loss—the missing food. The other feels curiosity.

Mother Bear steps forward.

There is no rush to judgment in her. Only perception.

She sees the girl’s thinness, the way her body curls inward even while reaching for rest. She smells not only what was taken, but what is needed.

And in that moment, the forest itself seems to listen.

Nothing speaks in words.

But something is understood.

Hunger is not a crime.
Rest is not a theft.
And yet—everything taken ripples outward.

Mother Bear turns, not away, but outward—toward the forest.

She moves slowly, inviting.

Goldy Locks hesitates, then rises.

Together, at a distance that honors both instinct and curiosity, they walk.

To the place where the earth has softened enough to dig.
To the fallen log rich with insects and decay.
To the stream where water returns, carrying life in its cold current.

The cubs begin to forage again. They take what they find, and move on. They do not clutch. They do not hoard.

Goldy Locks watches.

Then, tentatively, she kneels.

She presses her hands into the damp soil. She feels its give, its generosity, its limits.

She learns.

To take only what she can hold with awareness.
To notice what remains.
To sense when enough has been received.

Her hunger does not disappear.

But it changes.

It becomes part of something larger—no longer a private urgency, but a thread in a vast, living weave.

By the time the light begins to soften, something within her has rebalanced.

She returns to the shelter only long enough to gather herself.

Before leaving, she pauses.

Not in shame—but in recognition.

She has taken. She has also learned. And now, she will move differently.

At the edge of the forest, she turns once more.

The bears are no longer watching.

They are living—fully, presently, within the great turning of spring.

Goldy Locks places her hand over her heart.

She understands now:

All life needs nurturance.
There is no wrongness in needing food, warmth, or rest.

But to belong—to truly belong—is to enter the circle with awareness.

To receive without forgetting relationship.
To take without abandoning balance.
To live as part of the great exchange.

And as she steps beyond the trees, the forest does what it has always done—

It continues.

Holding, feeding, transforming—

A living circle, where nothing is wasted,
and everything, eventually, returns. 🌿

The traditional Goldilocks and the Three Bears story has long been framed as a lesson about manners, boundaries, and respect for others’ property. But beneath that surface, it often carries a quieter psychological message—especially for young girls.

Goldilocks enters the house because she is hungry and tired. These are fundamentally human, embodied needs. Yet the story does not treat her hunger as valid or her fatigue as worthy of care. Instead, her actions are coded as wrongdoing: she is “too much,” “too intrusive,” “selfish.” Her attempt to find something “just right” becomes a flaw rather than a form of attunement. The resolution reinforces this—she is frightened, shamed, and ultimately driven away.

For a developing psyche, particularly in girls who are often socialized to be accommodating and self-denying, this narrative can land deeply:

Hunger becomes greed
The need for rest becomes laziness or entitlement
Seeking comfort becomes something to feel guilty about
Over time, this can contribute to an internal split: I have needs—but expressing or meeting them might harm others or make me wrong. The result is often over-adaptation, self-silencing, and a disconnection from the body’s natural signals.

The reimagined spring story transforms this pattern at its root.

In this version, Goldy Locks is not positioned as a moral failure but as a human being in a moment of vulnerability—hungry, tired, and drawn by an intuitive pull into the forest. Her needs are not erased or judged; they are contextualizedwithin a living system.

Crucially, the story does not swing to the opposite extreme of saying “take whatever you want.” Instead, it introduces a more mature, relational truth:

All beings have needs—and those needs exist within an interconnected web of life.

Goldy Locks eats, rests, and receives—but she also awakens to awareness. She begins to understand that what nourishes her is also part of a larger cycle that nourishes others: the bears, the forest, the soil, the future. Her growth is not about suppressing her needs, but about holding them in relationship.

The bears play an essential role in this reframing. They do not punish or shame her. They model ecological intelligence—taking what they need, moving with the seasons, trusting the flow of resources rather than clinging to them. Their response invites learning rather than fear.

This shift creates a new internal narrative:

Needing is natural
Receiving is part of being alive
Awareness and reciprocity create balance
Instead of teaching girls to disconnect from their bodies, this version supports embodied wisdom. It affirms that hunger, fatigue, and the longing for comfort are not moral failings—they are signals of life asking to be sustained.

At the same time, it introduces responsibility in a grounded, non-shaming way: we are participants in a shared ecosystem. Our choices matter. Balance is something we actively co-create.

This is a therapeutic reorientation.

It replaces shame with belonging.
It replaces fear with relationship.
It replaces rigid morality with living balance.

And at its heart is a truth that extends beyond the story:

All life needs nurturance.

Humans, like bears, like forests, like rivers, are part of an ongoing exchange of giving and receiving. When we honor our own needs while remaining aware of the needs of others—human and more-than-human—we help create conditions where life can continue to thrive.

This is not selfishness.
This is participation in the circle of life. 🌿

Embody belonging, relationship, and balance with the more-than-human world on retreat this summer in the mountains of Colorado. Take up room. Know your space in the circle. Honor your needs among all others.

We rise together. We rise wild.

womenrisingwild.org/colorado

Join Women Rising Wild on retreat. Nourish the Free Spirit, the Inborn Leader, and the Visionary Artist within you among sisters and wolves. Event details at link in bio.

Which archetypal qualities of Wild Woman live within you? Join us on retreat at Women Rising Wild and explore the Healer, Seeker, and Empath.