White Wolf

Mother of wolves
Hunter of hearts
You are the antidote
To the wolf in man

Never tame
You gentle our wildness
You help us turn packs
Into families.

Killer of fear
Cleanser of souls
You shear away
What is dead, or meant to die

You bring light from dark.
On the night your scary twin
Eats the moon,
You give us white fire.

On your bicycling legs
With your flawless compass
You take us into the shining heart
Of the Peacemaker.

Over the black rubble
Of our guilt and shame
You spread a clean mantle
Of fresh-fallen snow.

Your clear eyes read
What belongs to us and what does not.
You know better than we do
What it takes to be human.


This poem is in my collection Here, Everything Is Dreaming, published by Excelsior Editions.

Lying down with Lion: Of energy doubles and animal messengers

When I lie down for an evening nap, I become aware of the full-formed energy presence of a maned lion on the bed with me. He settles down, nose to nose, like a friendly dog. He is all lion, except that his breath seems sweet; I am fully aware of his strength and killing power. But he is my very dear friend. I drift off into a delicious nap. And dream:

I give an impromptu speech to a large audience. It's all about how to get to the Place of the Lion. This requires you to speak and act, always, from the heart. I talk about Aslan, how "he is terrible but he is good". My voice rises to a roar, then drops to a far-carrying purr when I remind my audience, "When the lion speaks, everyone listens."

Feelings: delight

Reality: Yes.

This sweet encounter got me thinking about the many ways in which energy doubles and visitors have turned up in my field of perception in animal form. I started to make a mental inventory of bedroom encounters in that drifty hypnagogic zone prior to sleep, or to hyper-awakeness.

     While I can see the lion in my bed as my own energy double, the jaguar who turned up in the night many years before in my bedroom was definitely something else. He startled me, though he did not scare me. When he made me understand that he was a messenger, I agreed to travel with him, and sped through the astral to come down among lush tropical vegetation at the home of a Maya shaman in Belize, who proceeded to instruct me in songs of healing and rituals of divination.

     Then there was the white wolf who showed up in my bedroom another night. Though I knew him and loved him, he was not a part of myself. I let him lead me out the window and across the night sky, to the far North, to an encounter with a radiant being who seemed to be entirely covered with glowing white shells. Deeply moved, I felt I had been blessed to encounter a form of the Peacemaker.

This is an unedited excerpt from my journals from January 24, 2011. I write about the

Place of the Lion in my book Active Dreaming. 

Graphic: I took the photo of the lion in the Egyptian rooms at the Louvre in December 2013. He is an appropriate presence here, since he once guarded a doorway to the Serapeion in Memphis. Dreaming and dream incubation were highly encouraged in the cult of Serapis, a composite god whose first image was a statue carried to Alexandria from the Black Sea because of a dream of one of the Ptolemies.

Song of the mountain dreamers

On top of this sacred land
my heart sings a new song of remembrance.
White birches in the moonlit woods
hold me and seed me.

Fueled by the garnet fire of the mountain
born in the heart of Deer
protected by Bear
guided by White Wolf
sighted by Hawk and Raven
we lift the veil of the impossible

I see my fears skitter on the skin of the flame
and then fall through, consumed.
I discover my true name
I return to myself
I become the direction I wish to honor
My wishes ride to the sky on a cloud of tobacco.

I find meaning in a stranger’s dream
and let it become my own. We are both healed
and are strangers no more. We are family.
Among these dreamers: support, love, community.
We are wrapped in angels’ wings, protected and guided,
until we find our own wings. Together we fly.

A new family of souls comes together
a family stronger than blood.
Deeper weddings take place here
I lift the veil and kiss the beloved of my soul
I dance with those I love through life and death .
celebrating, mourning, admonishing, loving.

The mountain wind breathes animal spirits
through me, and Wolf Mother enters my heart.
I remember who I am.

In the closing session of our gathering of active dreamers on Gore Mountain last weekend, I asked members of the circle to contribute phrases evoking our shared adventures in healing and transformation, to be woven into a community poem. This is the first version of this group creation.

Lying down with lion: energy doubles and animal messengers

When I lie down for an evening nap (I keep very erratic hours) I become aware of the full-formed energy presence of a maned lion on the bed with me. He settles down, nose to nose, like a friendly dog. He is all lion, except that his breath seems sweet; I am fully aware of his strength and killing power. But he is my very dear friend. I drift off into a delicious nap. And dream:

I give an impromptu speech to a large audience. It's all about how to get to the Place of the Lion. This requires you to speak and act, always, from the heart. I talk about Aslan, how "he is terrible but he is good". My voice rises to a roar, then drops to a far-carrying purr when I remind my audience, "When the lion speaks, everyone listens."

Feelings: delight

Reality: Yes.

This sweet encounter got me thinking about the many ways in which energy doubles and visitors have turned up in my field of perception in animal form. I started to make a mental inventory of bedroom encounters in that drifty hypnagogic zone prior to sleep, or to hyper-awakeness.

While the lion in my bed might be seen as my own energy double, the jaguar who turned up in the night many years ago in my bedroom was definitely something else. He startled me, though he did not scare me. When he made me understand that he was a messenger, I agreed to travel with him, and sped through the astral to come down among lush tropical vegetation at the home of a Maya shaman in Belize, who proceeded to instruct me in songs of healing and rituals of divination.

Then there was the white wolf who showed up in my bedroom another night. Though I knew him and loved him, he was not a part of myself. I let him lead me out the window and across the night sky, to the far North, to an encounter with a radiant being who seemed to be entirely covered with glowing white shells. Deeply moved, I felt I had been blessed to encounter a form of the Peacemaker.

Serengeti Lion from Flickr