It's a magical place--the Keweenaw Peninsula.
The air is clean. The light is limpid and lucent. The trees are fragrant and many. The people are few and warm. And the wildlife is abundant.
I first came to the Keweenaw at the end of August 2006 with my kid visiting some friends who had a little summer house in a tiny hamlet. I was smitten. The old mining villages are nothing to speak of. They are not grand. In fact the whole area looks a bit shabby and run down. The wild winters do that. And the fact that there is no economy to speak of since the last copper mines shut down in the late 1960s.
I saw a little house that I thought I might buy and so in October came back again. The trees were still scarlet and gold�the day�a friend drove me around the eastern side of the peninsula. Scarlet and gold and frosted with an early snow that melted into the white capped breakers of lake Superior's waves.
This is really pretty good, I thought.
And that was before I saw the Phoenix Wolf Pack.
Now I have seen elephants and cheetah on the East African plains. Hyena gorging on�the remains of an early morning lion kill. I've� heard coyote yip yip yipping in the� chill of a New Mexico early winter's camping trip. I've seen wild turkeys marching through the back yard of a friend in my NJ town. But never seen or heard wolves.
One afternoon, that October 2006, I took off for a drive on my own. I was still smarting from my unexpected divorce two years previously. I was rudderless and scared. And I was determined that I would find my way again in life--for my daughter and most importantly for myself. If I didn't save myself, how could I care for her?�
I had heard that there was a pack of wolves that lived around the teeeeeeensy hamlet of Pheonix preying on the local deer herd. It was late in the day and the light was golden when I� braked suddenly to let three or four white tails bound across the road and disappear into the forest. Wow! I thought that was beautiful.
Then half a minute more and around the next curve, I saw two huge shepherd-like dogs dark grey with really bushy tails leap across the road--intent, focused and lithe.� Official reports in 2003 said there were no wolves in the Keweenaw, but I can swear that by October 2006 there were at least two. Ottawa Forest Management and, Isle Royale Wolves.
It was a moment or two before I realized that those were wolves in pursuit of the deer.
The deer were NOT bounding for joy, but FLEEING for their lives.
A penultimate moment.
Some years ago, I chose totem animals. Among them were the deer Deer Totem and the wolf Wolf Totem. The gentleness of the deer is certainly part of my character--or at least I experience myself as gentle and vulnerable most of the time. My daughter might say otherwise--calling me tough as she did once comparing me to her dad's girlfriend. "If you only knew my darling", I thought at the time. But my wolf self seemed very elusive back then. Could I be so relentless, so focused, so intent?
Could I develop the forward intention to manifest a life out of the shards of the past? Could I pursue so clearly? Team up so effectively? Be so efficient in my mission? Find a way to lead and teach? Have my family life and my personal ambitions?
It is coming...much has changed in the past 2 years. I have been cultivating my wolf self with intention. I think about the Phoenix Pack a lot. Their grace. Their strength. Their cooperative partnership. And their need to catch some deer to eat and survive. They were clear about their life purpose. I certainly am clearer and getting clearer everyday. They live in Phoenix. I feel like a phoenix rising out of the ashes of my life.
This blog is one purpose....Vaboomerviosks.com coming the end of the week is another. I do feel that part of my purpose is to save lives by providing a channel for the expressive treasures of the heart to flow in to the world and the world's treasures to flow back.
What is yours?
Congratulation!
Love the new blog. Keep it coming.
Moe
Posted by: Oniem | Monday, August 11, 2008 at 10:10 AM