Mans Best Friend or Worst Enemy? Wolves.

One on the submissions in my suggestion box (see it does work) was about wolves and what they mean in shamanism. Scribe4U wanted to know what wolves mean to shamanism because she had an interesting experience with wolves around Sept. 11th.

Wolves are extremity intelligent and social animals. They live in family packs and look after their young well into adulthood. They are also shy, around humans, naturally. This only changes when unnatural circumstances are forced onto them, such as deforestation, urban growth, and humans hunting the food sources of wolves almost to extinction. It is only after these occur that wolves begin to encroach on humans and the get the evil name of "big bad wolf". And really humans encroached first.

To natives of North America wolves are considered to be strong and intelligent, although elusive with their knowledge. Fierce in a fight, they are also fiercely loving and devoted to their young ones. Qualities sought after by many humans.

What would an experience or dream about wolves around Sept. 11th mean? That all depends on the context of the wolves in the dream and more importantly what the dreamer believes wolves to represent.

Most of us grew up with "Little Red Ridinghood" and "The Three Little Pigs" where the wolf is the bad guy, the evil one. If that is how the dreamer perceives wolves, as scary and evil, then wolves in the dream may symbolism fear, perhaps fear of the unknown, or unknown evil. Perhaps a need and desire for safety.

Yet if the dreamer perceives wolves as being social and family devoted animals, then the wolves in the dream may be protective and symbolize safety itself.

Lets not forget "The Jungle Book" by Rudyard Kipling where young Mowgli is raised by wolves. Or the older story of the twins Romulus and Remus, the founders of ancient Rome, who were thrown into the river Tiber by their uncle who wanted no successors to his captured throne. Mars, their father, saved them by sending his sacred animal, a she wolf, to protect and raise them. Later the wolf became the symbol of nationhood for Rome.

In the "Dictionary of Symbolism" a rather European-ly biased book; much of the wolves' symbolism is that of bad omens and evil, even the devil. Again most likely from a very ancient misunderstanding. However Jung saw "the wolf (in a dream symbol) as prowling the landscapes of the psyche, representing untamed external energies, intelligent and uncompromising", he goes one to suggest the dreamer "Channel this onslaught, which entails the resolution of great conflicts." (Dictionary of Symbolism", by Hans Biedermann, trans. By James Hubert. Page 388)

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