Teachings of the Wolf, Gifts of the Mockingjay: Part 2.

Last night I went to the theatre and saw the last of the Hunger Games, and I could not help but reflect on its story. I revere Suzanne Collins for her work; cunning, strategizing, empathetic, reflective and sympathetic to our experience. She gave words and a story to our time; to my time: A flawless rendition of our acts towards each other, our triumphs and our follies of today. But I digress (and rightfully so.) It moved me many times to tears as I saw the districts oppressed, and the people who had been given the precious gift of leadership abuse it, directing its power and influence from their shadows which had consumed them, not to build up a community, but to tear one down in vengeance. I asked myself how many of them had to suffer on one side or the other, so that a few may rise above the rest? Perhaps you cannot see the districts in your own life because they are across the Atlantic, or south beyond a vast desert that you don't care to visit. After all, isn't life much more exciting in the Capitol; so much to do and see, why bother with thousands of kilometers of sand and dust? Although I am at times as guilty as any, I also see the faces of refugees from the other districts and listen to their tales: Iranians who want the freedom to be able to worship without threat, Iraqi families who want safety from the bombs that rained upon them, Afghan parents who want their children to sleep in a bed away from the rubble we gave them, the tax of the Capitol on their district. Rebels and innocent alike have paid and will continue to pay the oil tax for the Capitol; some give their lives, and others their souls, driven to hatred and anger.

As irresponsible as children, too smart for their own good, lacking the temperance of wisdom to know the cost the districts pay to support the Capitol, is too high. They want what they want. Never realizing that the gift of Leadership is always a two-edged sword: On one blade is the power of authority, the other responsibility. The greater the authority, the sharper the responsibility.

I see their faces, the refugees from foreign places, they are the ones who ultimately pay the price so that we may maintain our high-rise societies and our suburban communities intended to shelter and protect us from the forces of nature that in truth dwell within ourselves. To what end? We subjugate, betray and bleed others to protect us from ourselves. So the lesson of Wolf is complicated and nuanced.

Before we can lead we must be balanced. We must weigh the price of progress against the true cost of blood and if we would not bleed ourselves for the cause, to force another is to negate all benefit. A sacrifice must be willing and for the greater good. Wielding authority and responsibility is effective only in balance, but in fear and anger, responsibility will run us through, and doing nothing invites authority to open the stream of blood. The path to balancing our light and shadow sides is compassion.

Only when we teach ourselves compassion and are gifted with the sword of Leadership, can we wield it with either edge to build communities instead of tearing down. And in building up others, we build our selves.

This is the message of Father Wolf. He used a powerful dream, coupled with Suzanne Collins's powerful words to teach the nuances of leadership, their potential benefits, pitfalls and responsibilities. All that we choose is an action with some reaction; thoughts and deeds rippling through space and time. The ripples carry our names into the eternities, and if we watch very carefully, with balanced authority and responsibility, we can make ripples that change our world [and beyond] for the better. This is the teaching of Wolf Spirit, and of Leadership. Perhaps I am beginning to hear the calling of my soul… I will remain unattached, but will heed it’s voice if it beckons me to continue down the path.

Teachings of the Wolf, Gifts of the Mockingjay: Part 1.

 I dreamt last night: Father Wolf took the form of a man and held me as I slept. He whispered softly in my ear, "Let me hold you, show you how to love yourself, and support you until you are strong enough to love you as much as you need." He sat behind me and held me next to a fire under a moonless sky; the stars ablaze as his embrace tightened to the point that I could not move. It was extraordinarily comfortable and I fell asleep a second time, in his arms. I dreamt within that dream, that I was with others like me: Learning to balance the power that had been given us whilst not even realizing what that power was. We were all disciples of Wolf Spirit. Sitting around a campfire, some could change into the full body of the wolf, others perhaps only a wolf head. And others still, myself included, enjoyed a place between: not quite man and not quite wolf, modeling our form after our own mythologies, allowing just enough wildness to emerge yet just enough restraint to not be completely taken. Taken where, I did not know, just that it was far enough on some spectrum of existence to understand I'd be completely erased.

Our games of shapeshifting were interrupted by the noises of wild beasts. The memory of my dream within this dream fades, but through the fog I remember seeing clearly in the dawn: An enormous pack, hundreds strong, of bestial wolves, with our wild souls awakened, we sensed in them no restraint, completely given to some wildness no longer their own but not wholly unlike our own; they consumed whatever they could catch and whatever stood in their way. Slaves to some strange force of ravenous destruction. We kept our distance from their hoard lest they consume us too.

The message became clear and I embodied the wisdom in that lesson, that within me, and perhaps you too, there truly are two kinds of wolves: The gray wolf of balance; teacher, healer, leader, defender and soul-warrior. And shadow wolf; the destroyer, consumer, savage and indiscriminate annihilator. The difference is thus: gray wolf is gray because he is neither black nor white but balanced between the two spectrums. Should he bring forth his shadow-side, however, without great care he can be consumed [by his own shadow] and become an agent of the primordial forces of chaos and destruction. He is not evil, he merely looses his grip and falls into something that is not his nature; it possesses him, and by its very nature overcomes him and he may well be destroyed in the process, creating shadow wolf. Nothing more than a shell for the forces of destruction. I should take a moment and mention White Wolf; some may say he is a third wolf, but from the perspective I have gained, white wolf is only a transient stage of gray wolf in which he looks back towards the source, the spark, the fire from whence he was first imagined to gain a disembodied glimpse of the world around him. It reflects and reminds him that the same fire dwells in all beings, and he suspends his ego from controlling him. Should he truly become white wolf, he would become simultaneously everything at once and cease to be wolf at all. I therefore see white wolf as transient.

One might ask how this lesson is relevant or even practical in the world today, where we no longer feel the need to respect sacred wildness, revere untamed beauty, or practice good stewardship of the natural world; of our true nature. After all, is not the goal of our high-rise societies and our suburban communities intended to shelter and protect us from those destructive forces? I offer a warning before an explanation of the lesson's application: The wild forces of nature we have attempted to tame are part of us, we cannot hide it nor suppress it. And for me, there is no amount of paint, nor beats in a measure, nor words from all our languages that can express the sovereignty and supremacy of unadulterated wilderness; its arcane reiteration, my very soul. To truly understand this gift, I look to the Mockingjay...

(Please continue to part 2...)

Encounters With the Gods: An Artist's Conundrum.

Okay, so I don't what Hawk is doing; I see him following me around, but no visits in dreamtime like Wolf always has. And yet I feel something changing in me: I have had this irresistible desire to be with the gods, and I've been doing research about them. I also really wanted to [randomly] paint/draw this weekend. So why not draw the gods? So I sat down and got out my stuffs but I just couldn't figure out how to do it. I realized that although I love the mythology and imagery, I just can't get behind the anthropomorphizing of the gods. The god of wind is not some dude floating about casting air about the planet. He/she is air, and how do you draw air, much less the spirit of air? I get it, that's why we do anthropomorphize them, but what if there's another way? Thinking of something abstract... (except Cernunnos who always seems to be changing, but often shows himself as a man - and I mean, damn, what a beautiful man..., if not equally as often as something else.)

In the meantime, these questions have really changed my relationship with the gods very quickly. They feel so much more powerful now, and the parts of myself that they represent are opening to their influence more and more. Take for example my incessant mind-chatter: if air and the God is related to the mind and thoughts, then what causes unstable air? It literally comes from imbalances across the landscape; from mountains and deserts to oceans and forest fires. So the lesson there was that all my other elements need to be really careful to stay balanced to help my mind learn quiescence. A specific instance was that I needed to lower (remove) the sentinel mountains erected for self-protection; erode them into fertile soil so that they would not force the air element up into creating storms and provide for more self love/acceptance (hence the soil) to be cultivated.

So I've realized that even though anthropomorphizing the gods has it's uses, I decided I'm an Animist by nature, and there is evidence to support that that was more dominant in ancient societies than a dogmatic system like classical Greece or Rome. In Japan we have the Shinto religion which is still very animist, and I read that the ancient celts were most likely animist in their own spirituality before anthropomorphizing their gods and goddesses in response to those concepts being introduced into their societies over the years.

Maybe Hawk was just helping me open my inner gates to the gods, working behind the scenes until they had a foothold and really began their work in me. I feel wolf coming on strong again too; gonna need some wild-time very soon. With the waning moon it will probably be shadow wolf too (or as I sometimes call it, potential wolf.)

Although ever-grateful, hawk, you still owe me some dreamtime flying lessons...

Strange Beginnings; Maybe?

I had been sick for a few days, and a few months ago started a new job, so I've been way out of touch with myself. The last couple days I've really been buckling down to practice more meditation, and to more deeply realize myself. It seems father wolf is backing down, for how long, who knows? Bad timing for me starting this blog... but we'll deal with it. Good and bad are relative. He said it's time for me to let hawk spirit in with his message(s) and to focus on that for the time being.

As I really begin to let go of my identity, I should say my attachment to my identity, it becomes ever more clear that I am not acting from a place of truth; I'm not being myself. But I've done this my whole life, and I don't know who I am, or even where to start looking. In Plotkin's Soulcraft, he believes this is the norm for Western Society due to our lack of ritual, reverence, and/or community support for our children to grow from adolescence into adults. We do not revere or even seem to care for the idea of self discovery and every one must fit into the same mold of producer/consumer/economic stimulator.

I feel myself calling for an inner death, but my ego won't let go; there must be something to replace it. But what? I've been operating under the assumption that if I just start being what ever it is I'm supposed to be, that the old will just let go and die on its own. Now that I'm writing it out it sounds pretty naive. I did write in my poem that he had to trust in death and in his own rebirth. Perhaps the best road (maybe even the only road forward at this point) is to do just that. Maybe I'm not supposed to know yet.

I was contemplating this whole condition yesterday whilst driving back to work from running errands, and wondered if hawk was supposed to be visiting me with messages/guidance on this very subject. I hadn't even finished the thought when a very large bird flew past my truck heading the same direction adjacent to the offramp I was on. And yes, it was a hawk. I took it as a sign, I did ask for those...

So last night I wholeheartedly practiced meditation and the quiescence of the mind in hopes that hawk would visit me. I called the 7 directions and invited all the ancestors, gods, goddesses and nature spirits that would help. I waited for hawk but I never met him there. Perhaps the timing is poor. I admit I'm a bit distraught by the whole thing, but it was only one night. Maybe I'm still preparing myself, and I must continue with the hope that when ready, I'll receive the insight I need.

Call of the Wilderness

Do you ever crave wilderness? That feeling of primeval wildness, outside the facade of security our civilizations claim to offer us? So now that a lot of the background stuffs are out of the way, maybe I can organize my thoughts a bit better and get into the meat and marrow of this blog.


Real hardships in America are so rare, when we do have them, the lack of community is so stark and yet so forgotten, we think someone else needs to come and fix whatever happened for us. I know that real change begins with the self, but we can't be afraid of our own shadows; our own darkness, and we can't just sweep it under the rug because it isn't pretty. I've been called, and I think so have many others, to bring out the demons and deal with them once and for all, giving purpose to our own darkness, and allowing it to work together with our own light as a whole. For me, the Call of the Wilderness is just that. It reflects in myself my totality; simultaneous creation and destruction, harmony with nature and the universe, and the beast within wants to show our world its power; my power, our gifts. It is my true self. Not many people I meet understand this call (however it manifests itself to them), and/or are too often, too afraid to heed it.

If not yet apparent, my blog name, Lonely Wolf, is in reference to the isolation felt by the lack of support a healthy spiritual community would normally provide due to the death of the old self and birth of the new, as well as the loneliness felt when attempting to share my experiences of dream/meditation animal shifting events coupled with my desires for wildness, with others who claim to be part of our 'pagan' community yet regard these wild experiences as some outside force that's  completely unrelatable despite my knowledge that it is a real part of myself. Wolf is, or course, in reference to Wolf Spirit whom I have already mentioned frequently visits me in dreams and meditations to lend its guidance and so often represents the wildness within me, wanting so desperately to express itself and with whom I maintain a deep connection with.

I visited yellowstone this summer and was stunned by the wild beauty there. It's visceral nature called out to me in an unprecedented way with such depth and force that I'm still craving access to real wilderness. I wrote a sort of poem about it, I'm calling it Call of the Wilderness, although that may change:

He looked out upon the elder lands, untouched by civilization save for their precautions to preserve its pure nature. Primeval vents scattered the land, spitting and gurgling mud, water and sulfurous steam onto the sullied sky. Their stink was abhorrent yet somehow each beckoned him to come a little closer, awakening within him a dark curiosity for what stirred in the deep pits of the steaming, crystal waters.

He looked out upon the elder lands, where grizzly bear, bison and wolves still rule the wilderness. Never before had he felt something so ancient and so alive, thriving in the midst of everlasting and simultaneous destruction and creation. The power was so great that in the act of breathing it in, he was broken: There were no more words, no comparisons that his modern world could offer him, and he knew he would never be satiated without access to this sacred alliance with primeval wilderness.

He looked out upon the elder lands, whose wild and ancient Spirit reflected within him something equally wild and ancient and he saw they recognized one another. In the flash of the moment therein, everything he thought he knew about himself; all the things he thought he was, his relationship to the world, society, community and his relationship to self, his identity, extinguished. Although it would take him days to realize, he was stunned, jolted and began to fall into the abyss of soul.

He looked out upon the elder lands, whose wild and ancient Spirit cast a deadly spell upon him: Death was summoned to deal a death-blow to his perspective, and Death is never unsuccessful: A sacrifice was made, and an ancient creature stirred deep within him. It was at once dark, ancient and familiar as the Wilderness that awakened it; it is his truest nature and he hungered to revive and honor it. It is his self, essence, power and reciprocity with the primeval wilderness he now yearned for with all his passion.

He looked out upon the elder lands, whose silent mirror-spell was the cataclysmic awakening of his grateful soul. The beast that stirred within lent him the knowledge that this was nothing more than a call to truth; the wanderer knows now what lies ahead, and this is the final choice to step forward into unanimity, or backward into decay. There is no stagnation, Death has been summoned, she can be his ally and unlock the door forward, or the door whose threshold is the precipice of abyss. All other doors shut and the lights dim.

He looked out upon the elder lands that gave him what he sought, reflecting upon his receipt of such a precious gift, never earned, merely requested. He was glad to have recognized it for what it was, and that he fell on the sacred sword of Earth’s wilderness: The sacrifice that awakened his wild soul within.

He looked out upon the elder lands, seated across from Death, stars streaming across a moonless sky: She kindly offered him drink. In one bony hand a gold cup, bejeweled with gems of light and filled with bright possibilities of social success. In the other hand, she held a dark cup of tarnished silver that appeared empty yet whose weight proved a fullness far exceeding the other. As she sat before him, cloaked in darkness and mystery, she spoke without words, softly to his mind, “Before you choose, know that both cups are poison; one is a brew of Seeds of the Yew, Yggdrasil, steeped in Eitr from the Midguard Serpent that bestows certain death. The other is a distillation of Lust, Desire and endless Craving that yields a tenacious, everlasting fever. Choose wisely, for your destiny is in one, and the other, your doom. This is the test of your soul, as only it can tell which is which.”

He looked out upon the elder lands and with the mysterious knowledge granted him by the awakening beast of his soul, he knew that he must choose death, and finish the work begun by the fateful mirror-spell, to commit his self to final sacrifice in order to fully bring to life the beast within. For he no longer feared Death and accepted her as an ally, he would place his trust in Death, and the rebirth of his Soul. He therefore chose the tarnished silver cup and as he pressed it to his lips, he heard in the distance his death knell ring aloud.

Chew on that bone for a while and let me know if it tastes familiar, I know there's more of us out there, looking for others that understand the Call of the Wilderness [or Wildness] in their own hearts where so many around us are afraid to acknowledge.

Not Yellowstone but a local lake: A little slice of wildness.