The Spirit of Wolf

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For many years after taking up Pagan ways, I seldom connected with animal energies, even though many of my friends had totem animals or animal guides. Two years ago, that changed. I was leading a tarot card meditation and a wolf came to me and befriended me.

The interesting thing about this is that my father had been terribly afraid of dogs, and passed that fear onto me as a young child. Even as an adult, I was frequently uncomfortable around dogs. It was one of those old internalized fears that we simply accept as part of ourselves, even when we grow into very different people.

The wolf who came in my meditation led me through undeground rivers and dark places; we emerged, as if reborn, on a Mediterranean island. After following her down into the dark and up again, my fear of dogs was gone, and I took the sacredness of animal wisdom to heart in a new way.

It was only a few months after this experience that I met Karen, the woman I was to marry. When I learned she was an animal communicator, and when I experienced her full and constant awareness of the living creatures around her, I knew that I was learning something wonderful, something that had been missing from my life and from my spiritual practice for far too long.

Wolf had helped point me toward Karen, although I had not yet met her when Wolf first came.

Those of us with European heritage often grow up with negative images of wolves from folklore and fairytales. For our ancestors, it seems, the wolf became a symbol of the dangers of the wilderness, a way to keep children behind closed doors at night.

In North America, however, native people understood Wolf to be a guide and a teacher of deep wisdom, as well as a protector of community. This touches the nature of real wolves more closely. Wolves are certainly hunters and carnivores, but they are hardly the renegade killers of European legend. The phrase "lone wolf" is a cliche of our language, yet real wolves are devoted to their mate and their family, and are highly social creatures, with sophisticated modes of communication, interdependence, and caring.

I spoke with wolf again this morning, and asked for wisdom that I could share in this article. The answers came to me in images, and I share them with you now in words.

 

I am old.

Light dances in my fur.

I have walked along the streams and along the ridges of land.

I have walked under the Sun by day, and under the Moon by night.

I am the maker of paths. I am the keeper of paths.

All who walk where I have walked will know what I have known,

If they tread softly and listen.

Earth Powers is a regular feature of Starweaver's Gems from Earth and Sky

Copyright © 2008 Tom Waters