Wolf – Teacher Give Away
Keywords:
Teacher Give-Away. Lack of Success. Disappointment. Loss. Regular Let Downs. Perseverance. Strength. Endurance. Giving Away Energy. Connecting With All to Connect to a Few. Solitude and Socialising. Teacher. Shepherd.
General Description:
The wolf (Canis lupus, approx 32 subspecies) is considered the largest of canids, though it has a highly variable size and weight depending on geographical distribution. The wolf has been both highly vilified, hunted until its population reached dangerously low proportions, and yet has now become a celebrated aspect of eco-tourism today.
Wolves are a highly social, pack animal with very large territories which they scent-mark with urine and feces to establish boundary. Packs include an alpha male and female (a monogamous pair who are the only ones to mate), their offspring and sometimes assimilated members. The alpha male and female are the first to eat, and hierarchy is maintained through cues such as physical posturing, facial expression, mountain, crouching, chin-touching, rolling over and biting. Packs – due to their large range – will often howl to re-unite one another, to defend territory, and to increase excitement before a hunt.
Lessons:
Please remember that if this animal is contacting you, it will often be the best resource for teaching you what its lessons are. What I write is only intended to be a guide, it is not absolute, nor is it infallible.
– Wolf is perhaps one of the most common animals amongst teenage Wiccans, neopagans, eclectic pagans, otherkin, and therian communities. It is so popular, that it – like Raven – has been derided in public and private circles as being the animal people choose because it’s ‘cool’. It has even been called a ‘slut.’ Aside from the fact that slut-shaming is terrible, it’s important to address why it’s unhealthy to denigrate wolf’s popularity in this manner. When one looks at its popularity, it is easy to turn to cynicism and inappropriate, shaming words to explain its popularity. However let’s look at this phenomenon more closely. Wolf represents teacher give-away. It is the teacher that takes on all students in the hope that perhaps one out of ten will take on its wisdom. Wolf connects with all to connect with a few. Wolf challenges the ill-conceived notion that just because something is popular, it must therefore be less powerful, or have its power diluted, or somehow be ‘misused’ by the people connecting with wolf. It’s just not that simple, and it’s a truth that is currently inextricably entwined with wolf’s teachings. Even the ‘lone wolf’ is more popular than ever as a concept, and this is something to also keep in mind.
– A lot of the students that choose or are chosen by wolf, will fail. By fail, I mean they will lose their way spiritually, fall off the path, ignore lessons, and superficially celebrate their connections until they eventually fade away. This is the choice of wolf, to teach a great deal in order to break through and share the true mysteries with a few who persevere and move past the beginning stages of their path. This is where wolf becomes a truly valuable teacher.
– If wolf has come into your life, or has been a long-term guide, it encourages you to also share your knowledge to all in order to impact a few. It is important not to let ego stand in the way of this, but the chances are, with wolf, that you might. That is one of the challenges, will you fall through the gaps? Or stay true to your spiritual path?
– Wolf tells you to assess where you are in your life. Are you becoming to insular with who you give your knowledge to? Wolf tells you to cast your net wider, and don’t discriminate.
– Wolf represents lack of success and disappointment and comes into our lives to let us know that if we’re having a run of disappointments and lack of successes, it really doesn’t matter. Wolf doesn’t come to let us know our luck will change, often he comes to let us know that it will stay the same. Why? Because wolf itself is used to lack of success, and yet still finds the time to celebrate pack achievements and develop strong, communal relationships. Happiness is not in the material things that nourish us, it is in the people who surround us and nourish us spiritually and emotionally.
– There is a major theme of loss that haunts wolf, and many of the people wolf comes to visit might already be depressed or unhappy with their life. Wolf lets us know that even when we go home ‘hungry’, or spiritually malnourished, we still have people and spirits around us that support us. When we experience grief and let down, we learn that others around us love us anyway. Not for what we have achieved, but for the fact that we tried, and that we’re a loveable person.
– Wolf represents all facets of perseverance, strength and endurance. Wolf comes into our lives to let us know that we can get through anything, and grief, sadness, loss and let downs aren’t enough of an excuse to stop us from trying again and living our life to the full.
– Wolf comes into our lives to let us know that on some level we are giving away energy, and that it’s not a bad thing, and it’s not wrong. You don’t always need to keep your energy tightly locked up in your body, sometimes we experience more of life when we open up. Wolf lets us know that yes, we might be feeling tired or drained or different to how we normally feel because we are more open on an etheric level. Wolf will also let us know – if we ask politely – why we are more open, and what purpose it serves.
– Wolf teaches us the balance between solitude and socialising. Too much time by ourselves helps no one, and can lead to us becoming preoccupied with ourselves so much that we forget to grow. Likewise too much socialising, and we stop nourishing our spirit because we never have any time to focus on what we’re learning. Wolf advises that we balance between the two, and that we accept that both habits are normal as long as they’re balanced with each other.
If you have Wolf as your primary guide:
People with this animal as a primary guide will often manifest traits similar to the animal itself. I work on the philosophy that we only have one primary guide, and it teaches us lessons as well as representing the core aspects of our personality. Therefore –
– Wolf people have an imperative to open their teachings and knowledge up for all students who are willing to learn from them. It is not the place of wolf people to pick and choose students, and a healthily developed person with wolf energy will keep their hearts open and willingly give away energy knowing that amongst the let downs and disappointments, there is enough nourishment and growth amongst others to keep them going. Wolf people are teachers, they are often at the forefront of pagan and practical animism teachings, can be found in all walks of life, and carry many mysteries which tend to be individually catered for individual students.
– People with wolf guides field more disappointment than many other people. One of their major life lessons is to learn a balance between not feeling too sorry for one’s self, but also not writing off every disappointment and forgetting to experience the emotion. A wolf person is a strong asset to any community, because in time of darkness, they keep a community going.
– Wolf people are both social and anti-social. They are not extroverts, but nor do they genuinely enjoy spending every waking moment alone. They need a close circle of friends, a loving partner, and they need to know where they fit in in a community. For this reason they often maintain community rules and protocol, and will be among the first to let another know when they have let the group down. Wolf people need time to themselves, or they suffocate. They also need time with other people, or again, they suffocate. Wolf people are masters of striking up balance between the two, though may go through teething problems with this lesson as children / adolescents.
There will be other ways your energy manifests, and you will recognise them with awareness and communion.
As shadow guide/guide/energy:
The shadow guide is the animal we often fear irrationally, that teaches us things about ourselves that are profound and difficult to confront. Often the traits we fear most within the shadow guide, are the traits that we dislike in ourselves. We must scrutinise why this is, and learn how to work with them.
– People who dislike, hate or fear wolves, tend to fear things that look scarier on the outside than they are on the inside. Those who fear wolf tend to succumb to propaganda and negative media depictions quicker than most people, and one of their biggest lessons in life will be learning how to see through the surface, to the truths the lie beneath.
– Those who dislike or hate wolf often tend to have contempt for neopagans, eclectic pagans and the ‘mainstream.’ This might seem like a niche shadow guide lesson, but it’s actually far more common in paganism now than you might think. These people who dislike an animal simply because it is common and popular, need to learn that just because something is mainstream, doesn’t mean that it isn’t unique or loses its ability to be meaningful. Those who dislike wolf tend to be highly disillusioned with whatever communities they are a part of, and look for scapegoats to ease their own feeling of loss and let down. They have valuable lessons to learn from wolf if they overcome their bias.
Contacting Wolf:
Like all animal helpers, this animal will only appear when right and appropriate, and cannot be forced to visit you, commune with you, or share messages with you.
Many people have very personal ways they like to contact wolf, and wolf will have personal ways to contact you. Many people just look down while healing or meditating one day, and see a great big wolf next to them as a guide. Some people get overcome by urges to howl like wolves, and yet others will become practiced in woodwind instruments and flutes to mimic the sound in this manner and so become attuned to wolf energy.
Other ways to access wolf include rattling and drumming, endurance walking and running to induce trance state, buteyko breathing, meditation, visualisation and other methods. Experiment and find the one that is most suited to you. Wolf is excellent for beginners who want to contact any animal, as wolf is one of the more forthcoming. Wolf is one of the many animals who is not particularly comfortable in supporting you on Underworld journeys. And tends to be more of a long-term rather than short-term guide that forms a close relationship with its student, often resulting in its misinterpretation as guide.