Yesterday I was speaking to a friend about my identification with the Wolf, as in “Women Who Run With the Wolves“ by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Phd – My sense of adventure, my wild spirit and maternal protection of those I love… but the wolf is also about life and death (being misunderstood), transcendence, and rebirth: the ability to “see again”. In the natural world, life and death is the natural rhythm of “life” – one in the same in a cycle that never ends, even when it seems to. There is prey and predator, competition and loyalty to the pack; alliances between animal kingdoms, gifts and betrayals. Some sense of justice ensues. Even the giving of a life, willingly, like a bird falling from the sky before its prey, or the raven signalling a wolf of its next game; these too can signal an underlying sense of cooperation, balance and renewal.
In “Mutant Message from Down Under”, author Marl Morgan journeys unwittingly with the aborigines to her own wild nature, her birthright as human. Though wild, though mixed with death and mutilation (her skin burned by the sun in many layers, the soles of her feet replaced with new skin like a snake), she sees the light in her quest, the smiles of her silent gatekeepers to the “underlife” (my word), the underbelly of the world. They teach her that things are not what they seem. Even what appears to die or be sacrificed, is just a part of the cycles we keep.
Where is our wild nature to go in a world ordered by what we perceive as warring nations, battles between life and death, good and evil? Where do we fit in when we feel at the mercy of a world that seems at odds with its inhabitants?
We can learn a lot from nature. I know I could. I spend a lot of time in my backyard, on walks, on mini-adventures; and when I am out in the desert, or by the coast, I breathe in all that is different and mine. My wild nature calls me to the road, to the dirt, to the sand. The heat grounds me, makes me sane, the wind blows me awake. My animal nature rises. Like the wolf, it can be suppressed, misunderstood, abandoned. But it will return.
In Del Mar, Carlos & Claudia taught me a lot about their people and rhythms. Claudia beat a drum and sang the tribal rhythms of the sea; a rich heritage from the deepest places. I felt lucky listening to her under a near full moon.
Tonight the moon is full again. And the Wolf in me howls with great clarity, great insight, great beaming pride. It is not a dangerous place to be. As with life and death, there is more than one way to see.
Tonight I howl at the moon and pray. I call my brothers to me. I laugh, frolic and play. I write. I pass the “peace pipe” (or a bottle of wine). I stand on the grass, wet with dew and wave my hands over the pool. The night shimmers clear, the rhythm bright. There is nothing to do. The song is sung, the band has played. We huddle into the castle we made. Tomorrow there is much to do.
In this in between state, as we balance between the world we see, and the world we feel underneath our feet or through the stars, we clasp our brilliant nature, our wisest selves, our wild callings, our connectedness. The Wolf is only a symbol of this, though real; a totem to another life, an adventure, a way of calling the world into being. Not to be clichéd as an image of danger, but to be embraced as possible and purposeful, righteous behavior, balanced with attentiveness; the discipline we need to know ourselves, to give ourselves completely. To shine a light.
There is hope. There is clarity. And countless howls of possibility. And there is the den to return to when we need a rest until we are called again to rise to the great frontier of our better spirits.
P.S. I have discovered that my old way of seeing myself artistically as a “lone wolf” has changed: I am definitely a pack animal!
I'm the one smiling 
P.P.S. My daughter just passed me a bag wrapped up that her father told her to give to me. I unwrapped the bag. There were two bottles of wine, one white, one red. The white, which I rarely drink, is from South Australia. The name? WOLF BLASS!!
Happy Full Moon! AAAAAROOOOOOOOOWH!
