The Way of the Wolves
My family recently experienced a setback in our daily rhythm and routine that has abruptly sidelined our momentum for the next few months. It has been a deeply vulnerable and tender time as we regroup and reorient ourselves onto an unexpected path for the new year.
This situation is temporary, and despite the course correction we had to make on the fly, I trust that the resiliency we’ve honed and perfected during the last few years of global trying times will carry us through.
In addition, immediately upon impact, heartwarming silver linings also started revealing themselves.
Neighbors came to our prompt aid and called in reinforcements. Friends started delivering meals and picked up our kids from school. Supplies were dropped off at our door. Calls came in from far and wide, checking on us, offering assistance, and expressing love.
Our wolf pack encircled us, howled for us, protected us and cared for us.
You see, wolves are inherently social creatures, providing security to one another within the pack, expressing their needs with body language and often communicating through howling, which is said to create intimacy between pack members and to assist them in tracking through tough terrain and toward needed resources.
And much the like wolves in the wild, our howls were responded to by the closeness of our chosen community — our very own wolf pack — illustrating the connections and bonds we’ve built over time that, in turn, fortuitously forged a new awareness of home and a renewed commitment to the importance of both conveying need and showing up.
This kind of communication…the one where making benevolent and expectation-less deposits into the banks of others over time ends up paying dividends when you least expect it…is at the heart of healthy relating.
Relationships that are built on the spirit of reciprocity, where offering our medicine is emoted, met, shared, trusted and returned, again and again, is one of the deepest expressions of our common humanity, our innate interconnectedness.
The wolves have always known the way. And with their guidance, we are practicing, too…
