Find your spirit animal.
Brandy sat back and listened to the bullshit.
The woman on the podium spoke of wolves and how they show the strength of women.
Only for the wolf who is the leader of the pack thought Brandy. The rest of the wolves are subservient to the lead pair.
Her mind wandered to a memory of a Sunday morning at the lodge in Grand Teton National Park. She and her boyfriend Adam were out on the massive deck watching the elk. There were adorable baby elk, following along with their mothers, with the Grand Teton mountains as a spectacular background.
A large group of Mormons, fresh from the morning church service at the lodge, had just come out to enjoy the view, and show their children the wonder of families in nature. Then all the sudden, they came. A pack of wolves surrounded the elk. The predators quickly, and violently took down a mother elk and her child. The adults gasped. Wide eyed children looked on horrified, so much so, that they did not even scream or cry. Brandy and Adam went inside to get their own breakfast.
At the seminar Brady had taken two different spirit animal quizzes. One said she was an owl. Another said she was a sea turtle.
This was the last time she’d let her friends drag her to an event to hear about spirit animals, seasonal solstice chants, and other related inner peace and empowerment topics that Brandy had no interest in. One of her friends was over excited to find that her spirit animal was a wolf. Brandy thought more than likely it was really a pug. Yes, her attitude was showing, but she was done.
At lunch her friends talked about running with wolves in the wild, free and unincumbered by the modern world, howling at the moon, and raising their cubs together.
“The next full moon is October 28. Almost Halloween,” Brandy said to her friends.
“Wolves, not werewolves,” they all said.
Brandy smiled, and the conversation went to Halloween costumes, and the usual relationship gossip. Someone asked her if she and Adam were every going to get married. She shrugged. Sure, they’d been together for about 15 years, but she wasn’t in a hurry.
“We’re already a bonded pair, like a couple of wolves,” she said with a smile. “Except we don’t have fleas, worms, or ranchers trying to shoot us.”
Her friends laughed. Wolves. They all said Adam and Brandy were more like cute little love birds, or domestic kitty cats.
Brandy skipped out on the afternoon talks. She just wasn’t up to learning any more about self-care, self-love, or finding her inner anything.
Once home she found Adam in his darkroom developing a batch of portraits he’d made of local artists. Each image showed more inner spirit than she’d seen in any of the speakers today.
“These are beautiful Adam,” she said.
He thanked her, then gave her a quick kiss. “I’ll be done here in about 20 minutes.”
She made herself some coffee and went out to the back deck of their home. As she sipped her coffee, she thought about what everyone said about being a wolf. They spoke of the wolf spirit. They were obsessed with the idea of the mother of the pack. Yes, of course wolves were beautiful, spectacular, and amazing animals. They deserve to be protected and admired. The glow in the eyes of a wolf were not that of a human, or even of a dog. They were wild. Brandy wasn’t feeling wild at all. She never felt wild.
The next full moon would be on October 28. While the ladies at the conference would be drinking wine, and talking about sisterhood, Brandy would be at the cabin in the mountains. The first snow was still weeks away so it would be beautiful, especially if the night sky was clear. She’d find her solace and peace in a view of a billion stars. They’d be back in time for Halloween, pumpkin carving, and fun seeing all of the cute trick-or-treaters.
Brandy put down her coffee cup on the deck rail and looked out over her roses. Wolves don’t grow roses. Next, she thought about how her friends would never know the feeling of hair growing out of their skin, like wires twisting around, pulling and pinching. They’d never know the pain of bones bending and reforming, claws violently growing out of her delicate fingers, and the feel of giant teeth growing in her mouth. They’d never know what it was really like to be a woman who had become a wolf. She wasn’t like a wild wolf. For a human to become a wolf was to become a monster. She and Adam were monsters. She took a deep breath and went back inside.
~ end
~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman
Vampire Maman 