The Wolf
by John Lee • Woodstock, GA

It wasn’t long after the love of my life, Laurel, left and took her beautiful porcelain body, long red hair and her midnight sighs and gave them to another man. I was alone again, but this time would be different. I began having dreams that I thought at first were very strange, even though I had been studying dream interpretation as explained by C.G. Jung and others.

In the first of a series of dreams, I dreamt I was in a dark barn where I met a small mouse and a hawk that had exactly the same color and identical markings. They spoke to me, saying that I would have to befriend them both simultaneously– the timid and the assertive, the prey and the predator. When I awoke the next morning and wrote down my dream, I felt the need for these two natures to be reconciled in a way that had never occurred to me, and wouldn’t have had these two animals not appeared and spoken to me.

Several nights later I was subtly shown the way to unite the hawk and the mouse in a dream. It came with such emotional force and clarity that I was left to consider its implications for years to come. In this dream, I was lying in bed in my home. Someone entered my bedroom and told me my father had died. I was saddened beyond words. I walked out of the house and into my back yard, threw my head back, and howled into the dark sky like a wounded wolf. But only one time. I immediately stopped for fear that I might wake up the elderly man who lived next door. I walked back into the house, repressing my remorse. I knew I had been more "mousy" than hawk-like. Once in the house, I saw that a group of men had convened to mourn the death of my father. I was unable to show emotion.

I knew finally and with great fear that after having worked in therapy for years on the issues surrounding my confused and ambivalent relationship to my mother, it was time to work on my sadness and anger towards my physically abusive, emotionally absent father. Even though I had not seen him for several years and had never really communicated with him except on a superficial level, I knew the time would soon come when I would go talk to him face to face, man to man.

My dreams were bringing me out of denial. The animals in my dreams were messengers, saying it was time I healed this relationship. It was time to feel the anger, rage, sadness and grief that I had had in my body for decades. The wolf who appeared in my dream would become what some indigenous people call my "power animal." He would show me how to travel through grief’s terrifying terrain.

A few months later I went to find my father, who was living somewhere in Florida. By the time I left the Sunshine State I had come a long way from where I’d been. My Dad and I were closer to healing our relationship and our own separate but overlapping and intertwining wounds. I also knew there was still a great deal more to be done. I had done a lot, but I still carried an enormous grief over having lost my one shot at childhood through having been forced by him to grow up hard and fast. I would have to do a good deal of grieving without him present.

Upon my return to Austin, I had a dream in which I was kneeling by a rushing stream, drinking water. When I looked up, directly across from me stood a mysterious gray wolf. We looked at each other for a few moments. Then I asked him to cross the stream and share his awesome strength, grace and energy with me. He crossed and I embraced him. We played and scuffled, enjoying each other’s company. As we wrestled, I knew I had acquired some of the wolf’s consciousness and that I would begin to see life, myself, my father and the loss of Laurel in a dramatically different way.

After that I sensed a shift in my ability to communicate, not only with my father but with others I loved as well. I was stronger, more sure of myself and generally clearer in my thinking. I was more ready to heal and get on with life.

I noticed books and articles and movies about wolves. Never Cry Wolf was one of most moving movies I’ve seen to this day. I was also led to information about the wolf’s domesticated cousins, the Siberian Husky and the Alaskan Malamute.

I was beginning to see the return of my own forfeited power, and I was doing so through my dreams of animals. During the next year and a half of change, growth and discovery, I found that I was experiencing the physical world in a way I had not done since early childhood. As I made the longest journey in a man’s life– the eighteen inches from my head to my heart– I began to see, hear, touch, taste and smell things in a heightened way.

One day during that time, a woman was walking her Husky on the trail I was on. She looked at her dog’s blue eyes and then at mine and calmly said, "If you were an animal, this is what you’d be," pointing to her dog. She walked on without saying another word. During the course of the next few months I howled into the lonely night sky for my mate, who had left a man who might have been better equipped to marry and raise a family had he been raised by wolves. They know how to play and be monogamous and faithful to their family.

The preceding was excerpted with permission from The Flying Boy, 1987.

John Lee is the author of 11 books. His Facing The Fire work with anger and grief featured by John Stossel on ABC-TV’s 20/20 established him as one of the world’s foremost authorities on anger (and grief.) He offers Facing The Fire Retreats as well as many other workshops for men, women and corporations across the continent.

John will present his last P.E.E.R. I- An Introduction to Emotional Release, on Long Island, JUNE 15-16. He and Vijay Director will also offer their annual 3-day Facing the Fire Retreat (for Men only!) April 5-7 in Asheville, NC He will also present Writing From the Body, (limited to 5 people) May 17-19 in Mentone, AL. For further information, to register for either of these workshops or to schedule a Facing The Fire Retreat or a Growing Yourself Back Up seminar for your group, corporation or vicinity; find out about private sessions and retreats with John; obtain a schedule of his 2002 workshop/speaking tour; or to obtain any of his many books, audio or video tapes, call (888) 800-2099 or see John’s website at flyingboy.com