I like wolves. They’re sophisticated pack animals with a complex society. They take care of one another—the old are respected and supplied with their needs when they can no longer hunt for themselves. The old teach the young the survival skills they will need and, when the pack has overextended its range, they help the young find new territories and establish themselves. Occasionally the old pack and the new run into one another. Their late night songfests fill the forests with ancient music—the call of the wild.
I like to think that my affinity for canis lupus goes even further and I share an animistic association with this ubiquitous, worldly predator. I would love to have that kind of connection to the natural world. It’s probably a reason I like some science fantasy and shamanistic religions. I’m not a fan of lycanthropy, however. The contortions of the werewolf are different from the more spiritual transformations, which are not cruel shape-changing but a sharing of essence, a sort of higher order connection with the natural world. Of course, that is an example of the human egoism that places the human “animal” on a higher plane than the other beasts. Animism also assumes a spiritual consciousness in the non-human animals. It’s all a complicated philosophy. If you don’t think about it too much as a religious practice, though, and merely a blending of spirits, what fantastic mental meanderings can occupy a fertile imagination!
I used to sit for hours in the woods of the river bluffs around my home and look out over the river valleys. I would imagine myself loping easily along in an effortless gait, aware of everything around me. I hear the red tail hawk floating high above as he adjusts each feather in the wind. A vole is digging furtively just beneath the surface, making his blind way through the roots of the tall grasses. My belly is full, so I don’t stop at the spasmodic hammering of the rabbit’s heart as he cowers in the brush nearby. The sun is warm. The world is mine, and I am the world’s. With involuntary joy I lift my head and sing.
It’s imagining a better world, too. The wolf’s territory is never more than can sustain the pack, and the size of the pack is adjusted to the territory and what it can sustain, changing with the foibles of nature: weather, disease, age, available game. There is no waste. Or war. Or wantonness. Even the struggle for life is peace. Some people don’t understand or have a real appreciation for the world of tooth and claw. It’s egoism again, I think. We feel more sophisticated than my shadowy gray friends because we don’t pull down our enemies with our jaws fastened around their throats. On the other hand, wolves and the other animals don’t have enemies—there is only hunter and prey—except for man.
Philosophy again. This old wolf would rather just keep it simple. Breathe deep. Listen closely. Feel the warm hope of the sun, or the life in the rain, or the cold peace of wind and snow, and the comfort of home and the “pack”…and sometimes, when the moon is full, just step outside and howl!
