You wake, roll over and sit, eyes still adjusting to your surroundings. As you rub your eyes and clear your mind there is something familiar about this place. Instinct brings about recognition of where you are and you peer at the shapes before you in the darkness.
No longer sleeping in your bed the realisation dawns. You lay on cushions, comfortably reclined, a rug on the floor beneath you, the stars showing in the velvet sky above. A distant fire burns low; the vast room bathed in its faint glow, shadows barely playing on the far walls and ceiling. Your attention is momentarily caught by the mesmerising flames, licking upwards – hot, golden hues of red, white, orange – then your gaze captured by the sillouette of a woman to one side. She sits on a chair of simple design; carved armrests but without a back. Her awareness is taken by her work as it is obvious to you that she writes. Discerning the shape of a small oil lamp to your left you reach down and turn up the flame. Withdrawing your hand the space around you is now gently illuminated. You blink.
Approaching her silently she appears not to notice your presence and the only sound to be heard is the scratch of the quill as she writes in graceful yet strong handwriting. Writing with her right hand, the left holds a book; aging paper bound in what appears to be leather. You attempt to read what is already written but any title is obscured by her delicate grasp. The lamp in your hand throws light on the scene as you read words being committed to that page of the book in her hand…
“…I know the wolf that resides in you. It once ran free, was allowed its desires, it wants – its needs satisfied almost indiscriminately, because back then it served a purpose and served it well. The wolf and you were almost indistinguishable from each other because the synergy was so very fine; you were the wolf and the wolf was you. No need for control, no need for reflection because it was almost if you were one. And you both fed off the power, the challenge, the adrenaline, the intellect, the desire… and the discipline.
Then one day you realised things had changed.. oh, you knew they’d changed on a conscious level but you forgot about the wolf; its needs, its wants, and you’d pushed it back into your psyche without much thought – after all it was YOU. So the wolf existed, locked away, waiting, believing perhaps being sequestered to the darkness was a transitionary thing, believing perhaps this was time to await the next foray. Eventually your thoughts drifted away, captured by the dance of life and then the wolf was all but forgotten.
The wolf was patient, but in no way understanding, because that is the nature of the predator; it serves and its desires are bloodied and unreasoned. But inattention had brought out its wildish nature. It quietly craved what had been put aside. It bided its time. The instincts of the beast are its keenest tool and because it was YOU, it listened… an ear on your world almost as if it awaited a trigger and it knew you were still at one.
Circumstance triggers an awakening, a need for the wolf once again because your human heart is pained. The wolf’s return is courted and in the foray it glimpses a female energy as it’s not seen before. Your needs are paramount and the beast returns but it is not the beast of old…
The wolf craves something now, and it’s not what you expected.
The wolf is clever… instinctive… intuitive… it knows you better than you think. It’s had time to learn, time to think, to observe, to reason and it’s changed but… it is still caged.
It needs to stand behind you like your shadow, to be part of you – and as such controlled, not as you would have it in the confines of the cage to lash out with its claws whenever emotions arise. But for this to happen it needs to have the gentle grasp around its throat, to be looked in the eye, to be shown that not all fear it. It is not for you to do this.
So I look into the future now, and know until that happens you are a slave. A slave to your emotions, a slave to the predator inside, and deep down you do not like that thought do you? Knowing full well it is true, you still allow the wolf to serve you in this way… and you serve him as a slave serves his master. Look at the blood on your arm… the wolf licks at it with its rasping tongue, it solicits more to sate its appetite, and unless an understanding is reached it will become all-consuming. And you will become its slave, totally. And what is a slave? A slave favours a limited existence; making the best of a bad situation, serves to ease existence for those who suffer: self pity is honoured, weakness is a virtue — for these are the most useful qualities to slaves and almost the only means for enduring the pressure of existence.
I ask myself will you remind yourself what you value? Will you remember that in expressing the will to power, you once embodied absolute natural mastery of your surroundings; you lived the most completely actualised life, and as such, experienced happiness, energy, optimism and mastery; all that with a whole heart, all that with the wolf, because the wolf and you were one.
I wonder if you will test your limits. You will discover them in doing so. There is always someone who fears neither person or beast.
The story is not ended, the page is not filled.”
Your attention is quickly pulled back to the author as she releases the quill to the table beside her and closes the book. The cover is now revealed; ancient leather upon which you are just able to discern fading letters. You know it is hers. She stretches gracefully then pauses as if listening for a presence. You douse the flame of the lamp and retreat into the shadows. She turns and smiles, book in hand. Throwing it at your feet it lands heavily on the flagstone floor, falling open as it does. A slight breeze momentarily catching the pages you look down to see her writings laying before you. And at the top of the page a single word, one that had been hidden from view by her hand on the page as she wrote… it’s your name. You look up, she is gone… and as your gaze returns to the floor you realise the book is too.
As you squat to the floor to seek the truth of what your eyes have seen you wonder if, indeed, all this were a dream. You rub your eyes once more, sinking into the cushions next to you. As your vision adjusts to the darkness recognition of shapes in the darkness decends. You are in your own bed, your own familiar surroundings. The smell of the fire, of her… vanished…
