The Way of the Wolf: The Guardian Way to Awareness By Tamarack Song, (Edited by RedWolfReturns) These are troubled times. Our Mother Earth is being assailed like never before. The few remaining Native People are being consumed by missionaries and merchants. Our senses are being assaulted by commercial drivel, our minds are being spoon-fed flimsy propaganda, and our souls are being serenaded by countless sweet-talking gurus. What is left? For many of us it is time to take a stand and join in striving for change. And so we are inspired by the traditional Warrior-the man and woman who dedicate their lives to honorably fighting for a just cause. We admire their clarity of vision & purpose, their sacrifice in the name of service, and their dedication to training & discipline. So we create a Warrior image to fit our consciousness & desires. But is this Warrior compatible with the realization of Primal Harmony? Is it compatible with the Wisdom of Foraging-Hunting peoples? My awareness is that we are basing our image upon civilized culture's romanticized version of the Warrior of classical/medieval times. This Warrior of our myths is actually more akin to an idealized soldier, and the myth itself has its origins firmly imbedded within the mentality of civilization. Many clichés in our contemporary culture depict a popular belief that life is a brutal struggle and then you die - "It's a Dog-eat-Dog-world." "Only the strongest survive." "Kill or be killed." - Our culture believes that these ideas apply not only to Humans, but to all of life. Competition is the rule, and it's "the law of the Jungle - eat or be eaten." Is it any wonder that the young Warrior who feels the call to serve relates that call to fighting? But is that really our legacy? Is that truly our only option? While it is a prevalent civilized attitude that one must be a fighter, not only to survive, but also to effect change in the world, I believe instead that this 'Dog-eat-Dog', 'push and pull' approach to life is ultimately based on our disconnection from life. The reason civilized People fight with each other is merely because that is their approach to all of life. They have pulled themselves out of Balance with life, so they feel at odds with it. In other words, they have made life their enemy. Civilized people have essentially drawn a line between themselves and the rest of life, and they must defend and protect that line. In order to get what they want or need, they perceive that they must make dangerous excursions over that line into the "frontier", the "wilderness", or the "foreign land". And in order to not feel so alone on this hostile planet, they are driven to either convince or force others to join them on their side of the line. This psychology then pervades nearly every aspect of their perspective on life, and so becomes the legacy today's young Warrior inherits. So, it is no wonder then that many young People who answer the call to the Warrior Way desire to be, or already are, fighters. And it is also no wonder that many of their spirits become consumed by struggle on the inside even as their lives are consumed by struggle on the outside. When we return to the Native Awareness that all of life is our Kin, then the need and compulsion to fight evaporates. It is all a matter of perspective. When we see ourselves as being with Kin, rather than adversaries, doorways open. We usually find ways to work things out other than fighting. We find it easier to accept that people often live in separate realities and it does not cross our mind to impose our reality upon someone else. The first step in this process is Awareness. I would like to contribute to that Awareness by talking about fighting in the natural realm, because this is the Awareness that helped me in my own healing to Balance. In the natural realm there's actually very little fighting. That does not mean there is not conflict, but the "law of the Jungle" is merely the illusion of People who no longer know the Balance of the Jungle. In the same way that they see the warrior primarily as a fighter they see wild Animals primarily as prey and predator in an endless struggle for survival. But with all the seeming potential for fighting in nature there's actually very little. If fighting were an efficient way to resolve differences, it would be commonly resorted to in the natural realm, but it isn't. Fighting is debilitating. Physical exhaustion and wounds leave fighters vulnerable - not a good position for either taking care of yourself or serving your People. It is more than a coincidence that both Civilized Animals and People are quick to resort to fighting when it is only Civilized Animals and People who can afford the luxury of lying around to recuperate. In the natural realm the expenditure of time and energy in taking such risk makes no sense when there are more efficient and effective ways of resolving conflict. Take the Wolf, an animal who is both finely equipped and gifted as a fighter. Does that mean that Wolves fight much? In the years that I lived with Wolves I was aware of only two fights - one was with a Human who entered their enclosure without following proper protocol and the other was with an outside Wolf who I attempted to introduce into the pack. Two fights is really no reflection on the potential that existed for fighting. The amount of conflict and potential conflict that existed in the pack over food, social order and mating, and between them and Dogs, Humans and other Wolves, created the potential for lots of fights. Yet, even with their fighting accouterments and their obvious advantage in many instances, they avoided fighting at all costs. What I witnessed over and over again was, rather than displaying their fantastic fighting ability, they displayed the fantastic ability to perceive and communicate. Wolves are unquestionably amongst the most efficient of predators and the fiercest of fighters, and yet they are the gentlest creatures. They are extremely sensitive. They listen and feel and care, and they have exceptional abilities of Awareness and Attunement. They can read their surroundings, including you or me, like a book, and at the same time they can maintain a keen awareness of the subtle shift in energy and dynamic that are going on about them. Wolf has ways in which he uses a glance or the cock of an ear or the flick of a tail to communicate subtleties that voice can't. He has ways of hearing the truth in another's expression that the speaker may not even be aware of herself. He has the ability to remain naturally connected with the greater good, the greater need and the greater intendedness. This keeps his focus on serving that, rather than getting involved in a narrow conflict. He has ways of transforming fear into curiosity and conflict into opportunity. He is connected. He has the information he needs to fully understand a situation and make wise decisions regarding his role in it. Because of this he does not feel victimized, threatened, overwhelmed, outsmarted, overpowered, or cornered, which are the main reasons that a being will resort to fighting. With Awareness, Attunement, and innate wisdom to draw upon, options present themselves. I believe this is why Wolf fights so little - he just plain seldom needs to fight. If he did, he would be denying and short-circuiting all of the growth and beauty that conflict is intended to bring. He is far too intelligent to short-circuit that and cause hurt and misery instead. We Civilized Humans are far too ignorant to see the beauty in conflict. Instead we act like Dogs who are too dense to do anything else but raise our hackles and bear our teeth. Dog is descended from Wolf, and yet his approach to fighting is quite different than that of Wolf. I have lived with Dogs for a considerable time also, and they were involved in so many fights that I couldn't begin to remember them. Why such a difference between Dog and Wolf when they are comprised of the same genetic material? Actually Dogs only possess some of the genetic material of Wolf. Think of Dog as an incomplete Wolf. She has been bred for specific features or abilities, like running abilities, sight or smell. So Dog does not have the full complement of facilities that Wolf has and thus Dog feels more out of synch with her surroundings, and is more easily threatened. She has less information to draw upon, and so fewer options present themselves to her. This is why she easily falls into a fight when faced with conflict. We Civilized Humans are similar to Dogs in that we are also prone to fighting because we are not very Aware or Attuned. However, unlike Dog, who is an incomplete Wolf, we are not the incomplete Native we are descended from. Our full capacities have not been bred out of us. They have only atrophied. That means the choice is ours - we can be like Dog and remain half numb to our surroundings and go on fighting, or we can realize our full potential and live like Wolf, knowing what each situation asks of us rather than trying to force the situation. The 'law of the Jungle' is an illusion. It looks as though the Wildlings live by fear and violence and mistrust only because we look at them through our filters of fear, violence and mistrust. In actuality, our Kin of the natural realm coexists quite peacefully, very much as in the fabled Garden of Eden. Virtually all of our Relations have ways of working out conflict that create win-win situations rather than resorting to fighting which usually results in a win-lose situation. Win-win contributes to life: win-lose hurts life. So, how can we get in touch with this decidedly uncivilized awareness of our Mother Earth? Over my years as a Wilderness Guide one of the more commonly voiced concerns I hear is over how much people feel they are missing. When someone else points something out they'll say something like, "I completely missed that, I must have been sleeping. How did you see it?' To Native People and animals noticing or not-noticing something might determine whether they eat, or whether or not they get a comfortable nights rest, or in some cases, whether they live or die. So I stress to my students the utter importance of being "awake" as it is the cornerstone of their success or failure at living in Balance. Without it the Mother will spit them out, with it She will embrace them as one of Her own. Simbut, my favorite of the Wolves I lived with many years ago, would sometimes steal off from the pack to a place a short distance away that was quiet and offered a good overview. There she would lay with her head up and her eyes half-closed as though she was deeply relaxed and drifting off to sleep. I saw it as a great opportunity to stalk up on her and surprise her, a game that we played a lot. Being much keener than I she usually had the advantage; I saw her drowsiness as my opportunity to help even the score. She seemed oblivious to the world around her. There was no sign that she noticed anything through her fog of drowsiness - except one, as I got closer to her I noticed one ear turned as though to catch a sound. It couldn't be me I thought, perhaps it was a fly causing her ear to twitch. Then just as I was about to lean over to touch her tail and count coup she took off in a flash with her hindquarters low and her tail tucked between her legs. Did I jump! She not only counted coup on me - again - but she left me utterly baffled as to how she could be so completely awake and yet so totally relaxed. Awareness is perspective, Attunement is focus. Awareness is the ability to be simultaneously sensitized to all that is occurring within one's Circle of Life. This includes what is going on both beyond and within an individual, it involves functioning not from one's ego, but from the heart of hearts - that center where senses, intuition, feelings, ancestral voices, the ego, and the ethereal all meet and dwell in symbiotic Balance. There they function as organs within an organism - like heart and lungs and liver, each is vitally & equally important to the functioning of the being, since no one, two, or three organs can exist without the full cooperation of all. So as we choose to function from just our ego or just our senses or just our emotions we are in effect killing the organism for the sake of the organ. No wonder we miss so much! Attunement is the ability to instantly discern and focus in on something, and react from the heart of hearts. Awareness and Attunement fit together like hand and glove: like a hand numbed by the cold Attunement is useless without the perspective, protection-giving glove of Awareness. And like a limp glove, Awareness serves no function without the fingers of Attunement to give it form and direction. So how does one stay in Awareness and at the peak of Attunement? If I told you at the beginning of this article that meditation was the answer, I know I would have lost a good share of my audience right there. Some of you would be rightfully intrigued for sure, yet some of you would have then and there written this article off as yet another piece of New Age gibberish. Actually we are not talking about meditation per se, i.e., sitting on a cushion in some darkened room with incense laced air. Rather we are talking about a form of active mediation which is naturally practiced by Native People and by many animals, such as Wolves and Cats. I call it coming to Oneness. Perhaps you have seen a cat lazing on the back of a couch looking very relaxed in her sphinx-like pose - eyes almost closed, muscles relaxed, yet you know she is awake. She is in the state Oneness, she is conserving her energy, not sending out any signals of her whereabouts or intent. She is camouflaged into her surroundings. Yet she is completely aware of everything around her and ready to respond in any instant. This skill comes naturally to us as well. It is inherent in us, just like the ability to touch and feel, but due to disuse and reconditioning it has atrophied. How often were you told as a child to quit daydreaming and pay attention? To look alert and quit staring out the window? You were being trained to pull out of your state of Oneness and devote all your attention to the little world that was placed before you - a book, a task, a TV set. When I realized this I decided I wanted to the ability back, I needed the ability. So I watched the Wolf pups to see how they grew into the skill. They were impetuous and easily distracted like me, and I was new to the natural world like them, so I reasoned I could learn with them and from them. Following is the process to Oneness that my Wolf teachers have gifted me. It is one of the first things they taught me. 1. Find a comfortable perhaps elevated place. You'll want to be fairly free of distraction, neither too hot or too cold, or too much in the wind, or distracted by other activities. Like the Cat sit down and get comfortable. A cross-legged upright sitting position works well for many. Relax. 2. Let your attention be absorbed by something minute in front of you, perhaps an ant, or a small stick, or a leaf that catches your attention. Focus all your attention on that item, let's say a maple leaf lying on the ground before you. Notice the beauty of the turning colors in the leaf, the unique shape. Before long your attention will be taken by the other leaves lying beside, then perhaps you'll notice the whole hillside covered with leaves and the hills beyond. Your Awareness has naturally expanded to encompass the whole of your Circle of Life. 3. Repeat as necessary. For most the initial difficulty is not coming into Oneness but staying there. You'll notice that a Cat, as with the Native Person, can maintain this state without interruption for long periods of time. When you were young you could too. You could seemingly "daydream" forever; to do that again would take practice. As soon as you realize you are out of Oneness just go back to step one and repeat the process to bring you back. Once you are proficient at the skill you can practice it almost anywhere and you'll be amazed at the variety of things that can work as your initial focal point. For example, a raindrop on the windshield, or a pigeon in a city park. Everything is connected so virtually anything has the potential to carry us beyond ourselves to their world - our world. There may be times, especially initially, when the process just doesn't seem to work. You are so distracted that you can't even get to square one - losing yourself in that single leaf or ant. It doesn't help to fight the distraction and try to push it out of your consciousness because it will just bubble up again. The best thing to do is to let it run its course, neither feeding it nor fighting it. Then bring your attention back to what is before you. I think you'll find that more often than not the perspective that you gain from Oneness will actually help you to get around what is troubling you. A Cat who is in Oneness doesn't seem to have a care in the world, and that's true in a sense, she has let go of the petty and day-to-day distractions that usually don't matter much in the scheme of things. But that doesn't mean that she doesn't care. Beneath her cloak of seemingly nonchalance she is caring intensely about everything that is going on about and within her, everything she is connected to and a part of. And that is the secret - the only secret - of Awareness and Attunement. To be not an observer, an observer watching a flock of geese. But to be the goose, and the sky, and the wind under wing, and the blue water below - this is Oneness. This is dwelling outside the Awareness of Self and instead dwelling within the Greater Awareness. When you can feel this and practice allows you to both call it up at will and maintain the state, you have regained your Native skill and rejoined all your natural kin in the Dance of Life. Your senses will be keened, your feelings will be clear, your intuitive voice will be sharp, and you will instinctively flow and react more in Balance with your surroundings. I believe you will be amazed at how much richer and fuller your experience of kinship with Mother Earth will become and how much more effective & discerning you will be with what She calls you to, as you walk the Path of the true Earth warrior - The Guardian.