I listened to the audio version of The Wild Woman’s way on New York subway trains, in pieces and parts, watching the city and its inhabitants come and go through train doors, under tunnels and over bridges. I listened to it after having witnessed it’s author, Michaela Boehm, in public and private settings over the course of years, and having seen students of hers come and go like subway riders, entering in one psycho-emotional place and exiting in another. I listened to it in many ways all at once; noticing the content and style of writing, but also the author’s voice as she delivers it, one I recognize as both soothing, challenging and full of incredible depth. A voice I have heard over many years and that has come to represent something to me. That something is the body and mind from which the voice comes, and all of the ways that this particular body-mind is a resonating chamber for deep feminine wisdom in a world where this type of thing is extremely hard to find. Boehm’s voice and it’s resonant tone tell a story of womanhood that is beyond and entwined with the pages; one that is earthy, intelligent, sensual, mystical, and spontaneous, but also very real and human. Listening to this particular tone coming from this particular body has been something I have used as a north star of sorts. We all shape ourselves through our journey by picking a destination, or the journey shapes us anyway without our agency and a direction chooses us. I’m not sure we ever really stop growing up, and growing up entails growing towards something and away from others. The woman behind this book is something I have wanted to grow towards, and has been a light of hope in a world of what often feels like a rather dismal array of options for women.And this, more than anything, is what I think will stand out to readers of this book. This ability to offer an option for womanhood that just isn’t easy to find. Boehm could have gone in many directions with this book. She could have used it to craft a public persona for herself as the result of exotic and mystical spiritual traditions that confer some secret knowledge, far removed from ordinary womanhood. She could have been another voice in what feels like an army these days, promising some sort of state of permanent happiness if only the student could adhere to a regimen of new-age tricks and tips that are only accessible to women with a great deal of money and time on their hands (which ends up being women without children, those with substantial financial support, or both). She could have created another myth of perfection for women to live up to, and positioned herself as the example. This seems to be what many, if not most, public personae are up to these days in the realms of spirituality and sexuality. Instead, Boehm used her book to break down all that s**t.The book offers a substantial and very thorough account of how to get in touch with one’s sensual aliveness, reclaim sexual pleasure and receptive feminine soul in the midst of an increasingly fast-paced world. But the part that stood out to me most was her chapter “The Plight of the Modern Woman” (pp. 25-34). In it, Boehm discusses the competing demands of modern life, and some of the challenges within it that very few people are willing to talk about. While in certain ways we have more choice than ever as women, in others there are still some very real sacrifices to be necessarily made. Having children and a marriage, especially if it is to someone with a high-powered career, still entails giving up your own career, creative pursuits, and time for spiritual inquiry, unless you yourself would like to have a high-powered career and see quite little of your own children. And this is just one of many forks in the road of a woman’s life where choosing one road means not choosing another. It is a myth that life does not come at the cost of death. Instead of offering a new green smoothie recipe alongside an instagram feed that promises a solution to these challenging choices, Boehm faces them head on. There will be sacrifices to be made. There will be things left undone. There will be much imperfection along the way. And we will not always be happy. These things feel almost revolutionary to say right now, in a world where we are surrounded by quick fixes and smiling blonde models doing impossible yoga poses with children laughing nearby. Yet, they are exactly what women need to hear, and that’s what I’ve loved most about Boehm all these years, and why I keep coming back to her work time after time; she’s willing to say what everyone needs to hear and no one is willing to say. I’ve seen her get vilified for it, I’ve seen her be adored for it, I’ve seen it provoke rooms full of uproarious laughter and desperate tears. But, she hasn’t changed as her popularity has increased. She’s not getting whitewashed and watered down, and the way she wrote her book tells me that she probably isn’t in danger of doing it in the future.It has struck me for many years now how divergent much of modern spirituality in America seems to be from the things I learned about Buddhism as a teenager that were so comforting to me. Acknowledging the existence of suffering, the impermanence of life, the fact that all things will pass or die, though seemingly dark, is in fact the most freeing of emotional acknowledgements we can make. In doing so, we free ourselves to deal with things as they are. We allow ourselves to stop pretending that the world, ourselves, or the configuration that the two are currently in, is somehow wrong. We begin to look for ways to change things that will actually work. There is incredible relief in seeing things as they are. And that’s what Boehm offers her readers, like she always has her students. A chance to see things as they really are. A way forward that is realistic. The reason that so much laughter and so many tears come from this type of teaching is because so many women are holding it together by a thread, trying to go along with a world that tries to pretend that there’s nothing wrong. When you give them permission to acknowledge what’s really up, a flood of emotion and relief comes pouring out.It’s certainly tempting to go along with the trend of pretend perfection. And there are enough instagram filters, pre-made inspirational quotes, and formulaic dating tips easily available for anyone to craft their own version of a more-perfect-me. And it sells. It’s much harder to be both inspirational and real, sensual and intellectual, deep and hilarious, brave and sensitive. Boehm manages to walk these tightropes, and I’ve seen her do it for years, often with onlookers cheering and booing from the sidelines in tandem. This tells me that what guides her is something rooted deeply in her very soul, something abiding that stays with her in the face of external flux and public opinion, something fundamental. To find out how to get that for yourself… read the book.