Wolf

I saw a huge black wolf stand in the road, staring at me. She just stood there- and I slowed the car down- and she just stood there. I was almost at a crawl and she sauntered off, into the ditch and beyond. For a moment, I was stunned as I was certain she spoke to me. This is what she said...

“I am a wolf, so what?” She said as she padded across the cold November pavement. She stopped in the tall grass sticking out of the snow, turned her head to me, and said again, “So what?” I sped by. But the look and the moment remained.

“I crossed the road, but I have my own path.” It leads deep into the lonely wood. She longs for something.

“I find prey, I gorge myself. So what?” Fine predator, she is. And scavenger. And thief. Nature is cruel in its circle, ritualistic in its rhythm. She eats and hungers for more, and she sleeps.

In her eye I saw that cool acceptance of her life, that cool acceptance of her hunger. I saw the longing that drives her to her own. Loyal to her instinct, loyal to her pack, she runs along the path hungry.

“I howl at the moon, so what?” A cry of union, a vocal tear dropping into the air, a song of calling. I do not run from emptiness, I fill it with my own tears. I surrender to its mystery.

I am a wolf, so what? I would rather shed a million tears, than have nothing to cry about. I’d rather feel the absence of you, than never know I was alone. I’d rather celebrate my hunger, driven to feed, than blindly starve.

I am a wolf, I say, so what? I will not run from her magic. I surrender to her power, cease fighting for control. It is the life that flows through me, silent and intuitive. I will obey its rules. I am It.

As in all life, I saw her message: Accept. Surrender. Live. And now, be hungry. The hunger moves me along the path.

Turning to the deep longing, rather than away, I discover its echo. I think we see ourselves and god in the bottomless eyes, windows to the soul, of the ones we love. I think this is the magic of connection; we taste and we know we belong, and if we must leave we will someday return. It's a taste of who we really are. It's no perversion of something holy. It is holy.