Actress Shailene Woodley is very outspoken about the wayfaring, earthy and open — erm — hearted way that she lives her life. So outspoken, in fact, that The Cut writer Maggie Lange was able to collect all of Woodley’s lifestyle advice and try putting it into practice for one whole vagina-sunbathing week.
Lange’s crash course in la vie en Woodley took place, appropriately, at a Colorado wolf refuge where she slept in a tent, didn’t wash her hair and said “man” a lot.
Some highlights:
She gave her vagina a day in the sun.
Tanning nude (i.e., sunshine contacts a vagina). Friends: Just do it. It’s lovely and warm. Shailene promises this will guard you from yeast infections, and who is to say she’s wrong. I was lucky to be on this remote mountain, but I still got a chill buddy to guard. (My chill friend could not resist Vitamin D [as in dick] jokes, which was fun.) I nestled under some nice aspens, which provided flickering shade.
She embarrassed herself at local watering holes.
Always carrying: a notebook (“to write during moments of feeling inspired”), a flashlight, a lighter, and a Mason jar with me. I try to get a bar to put beer in there and am ridiculed, rightly.
She hugged everyone she met.
Hugging people I wouldn’t normally hug. This is not that weird. No one complains. People should hug more.
She did NOT get stung by a nettle and thusly never felt what it’s like to be AWAKE and ALIVE.
Allowing myself to be a stung by a stinging nettle. I couldn’t do it. This was particularly pathetic, because my CSA actually sent me stinging nettles the week before I went to Colorado. I failed and learned exactly where the limits of my hippy-spirit lay.
Despite that failure, Lange mostly seemed to thrive under the Shailene plan. Maybe we should all start eating clay and connecting with our inner wild wolf woman.
You can read about the rest of Lange’s week here.
Image via Getty.