We Howl
With the wolf pack
To bring us back into balance
Beyond the broken places
Realigning all ages and races
To what’s real
To what we can feel
In that stillness
Between breath and beauty.”

--excerpt from the poem by Christopher Henriksen, as it appears in The Wolf Connection, by Teo Alfero. Pen and ink sketch by Jessie Howe.

Winter: a season of darkness, a season of dreams.

Across the world, this deeply evocative time of year is ubiquitously enchanting. Spirits flood the ancient stories of every culture in an abundance of legend and lore, reviving a colorful spectacle of tradition into modernity. Many of the rituals and beliefs longest held revolve around the Winter Solstice on December 21st, and extend through early January. Tales of wood folk, forest goblins, and ghostly armies originally inspired the candlelit windows now associated with Christmas decorating. Gatherings around fireside hearths, the exchange of gifts, and a multitude of superstitions are practiced to welcome good fortune for the coming year, dancing away the darkness that lurks beyond the mystery of the shadows. In a throng of midwinter characters, one archetypal figure emerges clearly in the cold light of the haunting moon, primeval in its connection to the deepest known roots of humanity: The Wolf.

Until the mid nineteenth century, wolves and the winter solstice went hand in hand. In a time when the wailing winter winds swept through pine forests and snowy alpine peaks, the barrier between supernatural and earthly realms was believed to be the thinnest. This transpicuous veil enhanced all things darkly magical, including metamorphosis. In Germanic regions, legends of werewolves peaked in the long nights of late December, fostering superstitions that made speaking the very word “wolf” foreboding. The Cheyenne named the moon of December for the time when wolves run together. A wolf song of the Cherokee nation is sung to protect against frostbite. What was it in our shared history that led to this association, between wolves and seasonal darkness? Perhaps it’s an affiliation with howling as a sound of the spirit world--the passage of souls in procession. The low, ethereal chorus of a wolf pack courts the wilderness around us, as well as within us. Their mellifluent voices stir both ancestral memory, and conditioned survivalist fear. Whatever our response, wolves maintain an intrinsic connection to us, and a powerful presence throughout cultures worldwide. The Celts, tribes of North America, and indigenous peoples of Tibet, Siberia, India, Mongolia, Central and Northern Mexico, and Northern China all revered wolves as a symbol of courage, loyalty, healing, tenacity, and transcendence. I am personally enthralled by the magnificence of wolves and our shared history. In this piece, I will explore our relationship to wolves--what we have learned from them, how they have shaped our beliefs, and what they reflect back to us in our identity as human beings.

Ancestral memory evokes remembrance of who we truly are, in essence, at our primal core. It’s the part of us that can instinctively tap in and reclaim our deepest understanding. When exploring our own evolution, there is a multitude of evidence that affirms our connection to wolves. In Eartham Quarry, England, paleolithic remains of wolves and humans have been uncovered in near proximity, suggesting that our two species lived close enough to evolve together. Wolves were our teachers, in the formative age of our societal structure. They were one of the most successful predators on the planet, and we were keen observers. From wolves, we learned the importance of community--the foundation of sharing resources and responsibility, coordinating efforts, and caring for one another. Compassion, collaboration, kinship, loyalty, communication, and protection became values we adapted to ensure our own survival, mirrored from the matrilineal structure of wolf packs. Tangible knowledge acquired from wolves in the Northern Hemisphere taught us to shelter in dens and create permanent dwellings, and we worked cohesively to evade extinction during the brutal cold of the glacial period from 15,000 to 11,000 BC. We became more effective hunters by learning to employ gaze signaling, when a wolf follows where one is looking and shifts their attention to the same direction. Gaze signaling ability relates directly to the color patterning of eyes, with the lighter eye color of wolves indicating the longest gaze duration. This is one of the reasons why a wolf’s eyes bear similarity to the expression of a human’s, which may contribute to the many stories of human and wolf transformation.

Joseph Campbell suggested that myth is a much more powerful indicator of truth than the records of history. We live myth through ancestral ritual, and there are many connected to Lycanthropy: the act of shapeshifting into a wolf. The werewolf is among the most common images in folklore and legend, with the word first appearing in English the year 1016. In early medieval Europe, wolf transformation was a common belief, with much of the lore centered around the idea of a Lupine bloodline. There were stories of families from small hamlets across modern-day Germany, characterized by long faces and wolf-like features. Danish, French, and Anglo-Saxon lore also documented legends of werewolves, though they differ in the means of transformation. In the Abruzzi region of Italy, legend has it that one may encounter a werewolf on a lonely country road. Middle Eastern lore heralded wolves as benevolent protective spirits who had the power to hunt and kill the evil Jinn. In ancient Egypt, Upuaut was a wolf-headed God venerated as “He Who Opens The Way,” who steered the sun’s boat during its journey through darkness and led the funeral procession of Osiris. Tibetans practiced wolf shamanism, and in Japan, wolves were guardians of the mountains. Romulus and Remus were nursed by a she-wolf as children and later founded the city of Rome, and the ancestors of the Mongols were a blue-gray wolf (Borte Chino) and fallow doe (Gua Maral). In Norse mythology, Odin created the wolves Geri and Freki, who accompanied him on his travels around the world. The many origin stories and extensive lore of the Indigenous Peoples of North America are brimming with incredible accounts of wolves as ancestors, relatives, teachers, and spirits of guidance. In their stories, the ability to shapeshift into a wolf is a revered, inherited gift, empowering the protection and assured continuation of the tribal community.

In traditions elevated by sacred reverence, the wolf is a pathfinder: a force by way of the moon that opens the door to the collective unconscious. Through the process of metamorphosis, the key to unlocking our innermost knowledge is turned. A lunar connection is forged in giving ourselves to the unknowable, with the act of shapeshifting into a wolf specifically connecting to the feminine and the psyche. This is a deeply metaphorical act for psychic resolution, in bravely moving through fear, trauma, and crisis to experience the complete, unified self. Perhaps this is how the full moon is specifically connected to werewolf lore, as a symbol of the whole, illuminated being. The wolf uniquely symbolizes both the self divided and the embodiment of resilience and courage. Wolves are our archetypal leaders through the dark path of transformation, and our call to inner strength. Warriors and hunters of many cultures throughout history have sought the wolf as their emblematic guide to increased awareness, fortitude, and the ability to protect and care for their people.

Though there are many reverential connections to wolves throughout our shared evolution, widespread fear and misconception turned the human population against them in the years following the 13th century. At the onset of the Little Ice Age in Europe, a series of bad crops and food shortages cast both wolves and humans into desperation. Starving wolf packs crept dangerously close to human settlements, posing the highest threat to struggling farmers in rural areas. Observation of their behavior may have led to the misconstrued fear that rabid animals were in fact demonic werewolves. The Catholic Clergy’s rise to power also led to the association of werewolves with the devil, and emboldened the fear-driven mass hunts of wolves across Europe. Those accused of being werewolves were swiftly persecuted, with thirty thousand people burned at the stake in France alone. The perception of werewolves shifted into something monstrous, with stories of curses, violence against children, ravenous appetites, and licentious behaviors overtaking the pre-Christian mythologies that had respected wolves. After the Inquisition, wolves across Europe were hunted to near extinction, and the legends of werewolves sharply declined. However, trepidation lingers in superstitions that surround the Christmas season, in the deep heart of winter, when werewolf transformation is thought to be at its optimal peak.

The story of the Winter Wolf is one of fear and fascination. Through our treatment of wolves, our true natures as human beings are revealed. Our relationship to fear and wonder, to courage in the unknown, and respect for the natural world all live through our ancient connection to these pathfinder allies. In reflecting on our shared history with wolves, I feel a great responsibility surfacing. I want to honor the lessons that have been demonstrated to us. To understand that in caring for our community and sharing the effort as a pack, we survive. To allow the lessons of history to evolve my perspective, and fully appreciate the phenomenal cultural diversity that this remarkable being unifies on a global level. Below is the painting that inspired the research and writing of this piece. It’s an image that began in a dream, where I was following the figure in the red cloak and then became it. The cloak melted away, and I walked alongside a wolf in a luminescent winter forest, beneath the most brilliant full moon I had ever seen. I could not see where we were going, but I felt absolutely fearless. I couldn’t feel the cold, and walked in awe of the snow crested beauty sheltering us. Maybe Red Riding Hood and the Wolf don’t have to be at odds. Maybe there is much to be learned across the lines of storybook villainization of the other, the shadow--the wilderness. Maybe we are our strongest, best, most complete selves when we are unified through that darkness. I believe we are.

By Jessie Howe, December 28th, 2021.

Journey of the Painting (below): “The Winter Wolf” by Jessie Howe. Oil on Canvas, 24” by 20”.