Wolf Attack

Shooting wolves out of helicopters makes me crazy and I don’t seem to be able to get it out of my head. Even when I do, the universe keeps placing wolves in my path of late. Even in the big city last week, the foot specialist(!) brought up wolves during our appointment. Then the coupe de grace, I was driving to town with my daughter and her friend from the coast and I saw my first wolf in 20 years. “Coyote”, I blurted as it initially appeared in front of us, “WHOA”, I exhaled in awe, as the “larger” understanding, arose. “Yeah, coyotes don’t come up to your hip”, said my daughter as she shared her observation. “We saw a Wolf!”, I thrilled!

The significance of this level of synchronicity doesn’t escape me. It motivated me to commit to writing this. I don’t like to argue with reality anymore and I do like to speak my peace. It is a funny in-between place, in which I am open to guidance. I don’t necessarily find the repetition of a subject on facebook, in my own mind or in context meaningful, but this is something that became more irritating to me over time, then came up out of context and then finally appeared dramatically in the wild, awesome physical afore me in the space of a week.

I’d been seeing and signed the “Stop the Wolf Kill” petition on facebook. I saw and read a great article on why the wolf kill won’t work to save the caribou. I also heard about how killing the mature, alpha breeding pair, the centre around which the social system of the pack evolves, destabilizes the organization and balance of the pack and leads to less discriminate breeding and more juveniles running amuck without the structure of the pack to regulate them.

On another level, having participated in some silviculture work a few years ago, it seems only fair to quit holding the wolves responsible for the caribou numbers when we’re still logging in the caribou land reserve, ironically to save the pine trees from the pine beetle. Although it is indeed sad, to lose the caribou in this region, the efficacy of killing wolves to preserve caribou remains unsubstantiated after years of perpetrating it. It appears to me we’re throwing the wolf babies out with the caribou bathwater and just creating more imbalance and a bigger crisis. You’d think by now we’d figure out that more killing isn’t the solution to killing.

I was walking up the hayfield hill with my dogs wondering why I was so upset about it. Yes, it is upsetting and should be but it is not new or news to me. I’ve come to understand that feeling extremely emotional about something happening in the world is a symptom of some shadow in me that I’ve yet to bring to light.

I was stomping up the incline, mentally chawing on what I perceive to be the gristle of the matter. We can’t establish greater balance in an environment of imbalance by destroying what small opportunity for greater balance remains. That’s what the intact breeding pair in a pack represent to me, greater balance. There is no possibility of greater balance in the grander food chain ecosystem arising by savagely, strafing the organized pack communities of the peak predators. Shooting the leaders of a pack, social movement or political party is an effective way of destroying opposition but I think we’ve evolved beyond opposition to wolves and Nature.

For what it costs to shoot wolves out of helicopters, could we not hire a bunch of wildlife biologists to become pack custodians and at least cull wisely, based on a first hand experience of the pack and in relationship with it over time? When ranchers cull their herds they don’t just drive through them with a shotgun, firing out the window. What if we supported balance in the pack instead of disrupting it? Many other countries are spending a lot of money to re-establish and restore their wolf populations.

Byron Katie, one of my favorite living wise women has taught me to “end the war with myself”. If I don’t like what’s happening out there in the world, I can find it in myself and change it there. She doesn’t think its fair to expect of others what we’re unable to do for ourselves. So where do I knock out my last semblance of or opportunity for balance when I feel unbalanced? Where do my inner helicopter massacres happen? I can find a few places.

Especially in the hormonal havoc of menopause, I can become quite imbalanced. Start with an unhealthy amount of irregular sleep patterns, mix in a little overcommitment, a dash of crisis and then shake with some crushed expectations and you’ve got quite the crazy lady cocktail. Really, it’s “all the rage”.

So this is the condition for the existing imbalance. The violence I do to myself with my negative self judgement, blame, condemnation and self doubt as a result of finding myself enraged may not equal airborn strafing in the physical world but internally the carnage and aftermath can be quite lasting and devastating. Just a small bit of leakage can send my loved ones running for cover and and have blown less committed relationships out of the water.

So maybe, from hereon, when I’m out of balance and struggling and my 
“Inner Mean Girl” (credit to Amy Aylers a Christine Arylo of innermeangirl.com) whips out her uzi and hops in her helicopter, I’ll cancel her funding and send up a prayer for compassion instead.

This may not look to many, a likely way to end the violence against wolves. It won’t do a damn thing for the caribou, but neither does killing wolves. It is, however a movement toward less violence and greater balance and peace within me. Surely, that is worthy of some support if not a few billion dollars.