The Radical Act of Not Shrinking & Reclaiming the Wild Self
Why Skateboarding, Motherhood, and Magic Are the Same Ritual
Written By Jessica Goodoni
The concrete of an empty skatepark at dawn doesn’t look like a sacred altar, but it is. At 36, dropping into a concrete bowl feels remarkably similar to the first time I held my newborn child, and strangely identical to the intuitive pull of lighting a candle under a full moon.
On the surface, skateboarding, motherhood, and finding the wild feminine have nothing in common. One belongs to teenage rebels, one to domestic life, and the other to folklore. But when you inhabit all three simultaneously, you realize they are driven by the exact core mindsets. They are all acts of defiance, creation, and deep intuition.
To skate after 30 is to make peace with gravity. Your bones ache a little more, and the stakes are higher. You cannot skate with hesitation; the moment you second-guess a trick, you fall. You must commit entirely.
Motherhood demands the exact same reckless surrender. There is no “testing the waters” of postpartum life or the toddler years. You are dropped into the deep end of exhaustion, love, and identity shifts.
This is where the ancient practice comes in. Lineage knows that chaos is not something to be feared, but a raw material to be molded. Magic, like a clean trick or a middle-of-the-night fever, requires you to stand firmly in the center of the storm and trust your own power to survive it.
The modern world runs on logic, schedules, and optimization. Skateboarding, motherhood, and primal energy reject this entirely.
You cannot learn a transition by reading a manual; your feet have to feel the curve of the wood. You cannot parent a crying infant solely based on a textbook; you have to tune into an unspoken frequency. And you cannot connect with the rhythms of nature through a screen; you must listen to the wind, the cycles of your body, and the gut feelings that society tells women to ignore.
All three paths force you to tune out the external noise and tune into your internal compass. They require you to trust the wisdom of your physical body and your ancestral lineage over the opinions of onlookers.
Society likes women to shrink as they age. We are expected to become quiet, predictable, and safely tucked away into neat boxes of domesticity.
Skateboarding after 30 is a radical reclamation of space. It says, “My body is still capable of play, risk, and rebellion.” Motherhood, in its truest form, is a feral experience of bringing life into the world and fiercely protecting it. It connects you directly to the primal matrilines of the past. The divine feminine is the spiritual framework for this exact wildness—the refusal to be tamed, compartmentalized, or quieted.
When I am on my board, soothe my child to sleep, or honor the changing of the seasons, I am practicing the same ancient ritual. I am trusting the fall, honoring the magic of the present moment, and remembering exactly who I am. Women, Healers, Mothers can balance everything all while still putting themselves first.