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.