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Author
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Comment
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lalunesafir
Registered User
(8/12/03 8:52 am)
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addendum
As a small favor, I request permission to post one more message. As an addendum to my initial swan post, I wish to relay the message that the swans I was seeing for a time were symbolic not of beauty but of the grace of God. And that is the closest I have come to him. It seemed like for the longest time I was being rained down upon with love letters. Animal myths are now truly some of the most spiritually profound pieces of writing I have had the chance to encounter.
My hope in posting was simply to find someone who had a similar experience with a specific animal. I hope I have not discouraged anyone whose experiences are similar to mine from doing so.
For a time that these swans embodied to me the feminine experience so potently embodied in fairytales, but I now beleive that women and men are of many types of spirit, one no more less or more important than the other. Opinions are welcome and sought after on this comment in particular.
Thank you all once again.
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gormghlaith
Registered User
(8/12/03 1:48 pm)
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Re: addendum
where is the swan post?
Edited by: gormghlaith at: 8/13/03 3:22 pm
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Blackwolf
Unregistered User
(8/12/03 6:57 pm)
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Firebirds and wolves.
For me, it's the phoenix.
And of course, wolves.
To me, these animals or animal archetypes bring me closer to Mother Earth and reveal to me the interconnectedness of Life.
I always wonder about animal myths and tales and how, throughout the years, that animals - like wolves, for example - have been depicted as the 'bad guys'. I always like to read tales where animal and man work together, as partners and companions.
Have anyone encountered tales or myths, say, pertaining to wolf wives?
Blackwolf
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gormghlaith
Registered User
(8/13/03 3:38 pm)
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Re: Firebirds and wolves.
...mine is the crow, dandelions and autumn.
In my library we have a book of Catskill folktales, Old Eagle Nester: The Lost Legends of the Catskills, by Doris West Brooks. I took it to read on a car ride to a family reunion a few years ago. In it there is a story about two boys and a white hawk; although hawks were not usually seen in the season of the story, and white hawks in fact do not exist, the boys see one swooping over the Hudson valley. At story's end one of the boys is cured of an illness by a white feather from the mysterious bird. At the reunion that day, which was also a picnic, my father and I stood and watched the younger cousins playing softball. Suddenly he pointed above my head; I got a secondfull of white feathers coasting over the treetops. Then he told me, puzzled, that it had looked like a white hawk which, for the same reasons given above, didn’t seem to make sense...you know, one of those moments no one but yourself can swallow whole. The fairytale is all around, breathing. Daily, Nightly.
Crows have an illustrious past- their kin sat on Odin's shoulders, gods sent them as messengers, they 'feature in' just about everywhere that they are found, fair and foul- and are very intelligent, belying the old adage that you are what you eat! I've loved them since I was little, their cawing ominous and deliciously other-ish. Dandelions are sweet and cheerfully everywhere, edible and make excellent rings and crowns- who cares if they are weeds? And being raised in the Adirondacks, no time is more magical, to me, then the Fall.
as for wolf wives...I can't think of any off the top of my head... but good luck finding honor for you wolf!
Caw Caw Caw
Edited by: gormghlaith at: 8/13/03 3:39 pm
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chirons
daughter
Registered User
(8/13/03 6:06 pm)
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wolf wife
I can only think of one wolf wife story, and like much else about wolves, it's a bad rap: it's called "The Griesly Wife", by J.S. Manifold (a New Zealander, I think), based on an older Border Scot ballad or legend. I've heard Jean Redpath sing it. You can find the full text on line under the title of the poem.
The bird: Gulls (great northern blackback gulls first, but all gulls). Once I saw one pick up a crab the size of your face, carry it up thirty feet and drop it on a granite jetty, then defend his crab dinner from all the rest while he ate the whole thing. Once I had one stall ten feet over my head accepting chunk after chunk of bread that I threw straight up to it -- those yellow eyes looking straight back at me. Once I saw a big blackback miscalculate when the wind went out from under him too suddenly, and dive headfirst into a rock and break his neck. Once I found a pair of wings in the sand, just the wings, and enough back flesh to hold them together, with no blood and not a feather broken (a santeria sacrifice, is my best guess), and I folded them together and hid them under a jetty, and I wept because I couldn't rightly bring them home.
And you won't believe it, but as many times as I've brought bread and been mobbed by them in winter, I've never once been pooped on.
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Blackwolf
Unregistered User
(8/13/03 7:04 pm)
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Wolf wives.
Oh good. Thanks for the title, Chiron's daughter.
I also remember 'The Wife's Story' by Ursula le Guin. It's a tale
of a wolf wife... with a twist. The unexpected ending shocked me
in the beginning when I read it for the first time.
Blackwolf
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chirons
daughter
Registered User
(8/14/03 11:33 am)
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reply to Blackwolf
I just remembered Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's books. I've only read one of them, Reindeer Moon: it's a paleolithic coming of age story, with a few different takes on human-wolf relations (including shamanic dream shapeshifting and animal fostering of human children) woven into the storyline. It's quite stark and unromanticized (unlike, say, Jean Auel's work), but I found it very moving, and I think it might interest you.
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RymRytr1
Registered User
(8/14/03 1:30 pm)
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Re: reply to Blackwolf
It's not a book, but here's a movie that involves a wolf. If one "reads" around the usual Hollywood freehand, there is an excellent story of child and father, here:
The Journey of Natty Gann
"A sleeper when released in 1985, The Journey of Natty Gann has since become an enduring family classic. While following a familiar Disney formula (the perilous adventures of a girl and her pet wolf), director Jeremy Paul Kagan adds something fresh at every turn, aided by a first-rate cast and beautifully scenic locations. Then-promising newcomer Meredith Salenger is perfect in the title role--a scrappy kid in Depression-era Chicago who travels cross-country to the Pacific Northwest, hoping to find her father (Ray Wise), who had been forced to leave her with an awful landlady while he took a logging job in Washington. Natty befriends the wolf and a fellow drifter (John Cusack, in an early role), and her journey is a memorable one, intense and realistic but still appropriate for kids. Although Salenger's subsequent film career has been modest (she later graduated cum laude from Harvard), Natty Gann remains a worthy claim to fame. --Jeff Shannon"
And wasn't there a Jack London story of a "half-wolf" in Alaska that was befriended by a young man and the wolf saved his life...?
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Blackwolf
Unregistered User
(8/14/03 7:03 pm)
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Synchronicities
It's interesting, because we are discussing about feral/wolf children
and animal adoptions of human children in a mailing list I am on.
This list also discusses about shamanic shape-shifting as well.
Thanks Chiron's Daughter and RymRytr for the references. Oddly enough, I just received a newsletter from the International Wolf center which I am a member of - and there is an article on owning a wolf. But this article is good in that it dispels the romance of owning a wolf as a 'pet'.
RymRytr, I think you are talking about 'White Fang', right? Jack London himself was also drawn to wolves.
For wolf fans, I think Barry Lopez's "Of Wolves and Men" is a must-read and the book contains stories, mostly Native American tales, about wolves and men as well as women. Of course, Clarissa Este Pinkola's 'Women Who Run With The Wolves' is an invaluable source too when it comes to things wolfish.
Thanks once again, gratefully,
Blackwolf
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AsheLeBeau
Registered User
(8/20/03 3:35 pm)
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The company of Wolves
Blackwolf, If you are interested in a movie that explores shapeshifting, comming of age and the Red Riding Hood story, check out "The Company of Wolves". It was made in the early eighties and has a wonderful diaphanous imagry. The plot is almost a dreamscame withthe line of reality/dream completely blurred. I HIGHLY reccomend it.
My own personal affinities are with teh Owl (specificly the Great Horned Owl) and the Raven. I don't know much about either of these birds, but they have decided to work their ways into my life.
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