Week 4: Wolf Nights Listening
Fullness in Winter
Reflection
Hearing the wolf howl
Hairs standing at attention
Cleaves the cold night air
Evidence & Ecology
The cold, long nights of January. Even on the wet west coast they often get below zero….cold enough to freeze the hummingbird feeder.
With the full January moon just behind us, often referred to as the “wolf moon”, the nights seem vast and unending. Wolves can be heard for miles through the cold air, their howls a chilling reminder of this season of scarcity.
When our lives were heavily weighted in the seasonal cycles, when our survival was intimately tied with weather patterns, animal behaviour and crop cycles, we began to mark the rhythms of the moon….it’s lunar patterns.
The dark cold nights of long ago, when food was beginning to get scarce, and villages would come together to mark the never ending darkness in ceremony. Wolves would also come together, to pack up, to hunt as a unit to better their chances of a kill….of sustenance.
While they may not have been howling due to the vast lunar orb overhead, the light provided by its abundance offered them a perfect opportunity to hunt as one in an effort to satiate their hunger. Wolves have, surprisingly, poor eyesight in the dark and the extra light aided them in their pursuit, and in these lean times they relied on the support of community to survive.
Where are you leaning into your “pack” during these long cold nights of mid-winter?
How is your animal body expressing it’s remembrance of those days, long ago, when food was scarce? Are you searching for extra warmth? Are you allowing yourself the time to hibernate? To slow down, honour the darkness and become entwined in its rhythm?
The Practices
Embodied Nature Meditation
Lean into your animal body.
Allow yourself to feel your heaving breath as you become acutely aware of every sinew of your being.
For a moment, take the posture of a wolf - your hands as paws, your knees anchored to the earth as hind feet, feeling your connection to the earth as one of its own.
Give yourself permission to inhabit yourself as if lupine spirit has embraced you.
Draw in the fullness of breath as you raise your snout to the sky, and allow your belly to draw closer to the earth…
Somatic Witnessing
Go out after dark, or sit near a window where the night is visible.
Bring nothing with you except warmth.
Before you begin, pause and silently acknowledge that the night exists wholly as its own. Without intervention. You are only a witness.
Let your body become still enough that the smallest sounds can reach you.
The land speaks differently in winter. Snow carries sound. Cold sharpens clarity. Distance becomes audible. Allow your senses to expand, to widen….
Story of Place
A Conversation with the Season
We are in the depths of winter. The time of year when “Blue Monday” has become a known phenomenon. The third Monday in January when the festivities of the holiday season are long past, the weather may be at its worst here in the Northern Hemisphere, and the interminable nights mean very little light exposure for our bodies. It is also tied to holiday debt and the failure to keep New Year’s resolutions.
What if we began to remember the cadence of the earthly seasonal cycles? Not trying to fight against them. How might we feel then?
Yes, the nights are long. Yes, it’s cold…..brutally so at times. Yes, spring seems so long away. This is all necessary. Take a moment to look around you. What is happening in nature at this moment. The earth is quiet. A pause between what has happened and what is yet to be. Many of the earth’s creatures are hibernating or their activity levels have diminished to preserve energy and calories when food sources are low. The air is permeated with a palpable quiet. A time of rest. Of drawing inwards - pulling the sap to the roots - to preserve, maintain and pause.
The Invitation
Nature Kinship
Weekly nature connection practices aligned seasonally to engage with your locale. Encouraging immersion, appreciation and spiritual attunement with the more than human world around you.
Always remember to enjoy these practices within the bounds of your physical and ecological limits (do not sit outside when it’s -40, or walk on slippery surfaces), practice “leave no trace” and mindful reciprocity (take only what you need, ask permission from the earth, and only leave what is naturally biodegradable)
Moonlight Contact
Begin after dark, or at the edge of night. Dress warmly and find yourself on a moonlit walk. Avoid streetlights. Only attempt this practice if safely accessible to you. Hold your camera as if an extension of your hands. Allow for a few deep breaths of connection before you turn it on - invoking the practice of becoming one.
If moonlight is visible, allow it to touch your skin. If it is hidden, remember it’s existence behind the clouds.
Notice how light rests on objects. The angle of the moonlight. The shadows cast.
A Final Note
Closing Invocation
“At night the stars throw down their postcards of light. Who are they that love me so much? Strangers in the darkness - imagine! ”
Singing the Earth
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Nature. Connected.
