Playing with the Wolf

My friend Sherry and I once wrote poems about the proverbial "wolf at the door". You have to survive first, even if it means hunting like the wolf. My poem was about basically ignoring the wolf and Sherry's was about inviting it inside and playing with the wolf. Playing with the wolf would never have crossed my mind, the horrible things that happen to us when we don't know what we are going to do; when we lose our job, when our family throws us out the door or when an illness threatens to leave you homeless or your car breaks down and you are thinking about walking to work. This, to me, represents the wolf and it did to Sherry too, it's just the way she thinks. When faced with horrible people she often found herself working with as a waitress she played with them, I ignore the low class people I work with. Two different styles of living.

In astrology Mercury rules the tongue and it is a rule that Mercury is inclined to be negative. Mercury itself is neutral, it belongs to neither the day or the night and is neither male nor female. In our interactions with one another we are inclined therefore to be negative, to gripe when we are having a bad day, and like the wolf the bully tends to go for the one who is weakest, just as the wolf goes for the baby elk or the wounded elk to chase and tire down for the kill. These people often remind me of David Letterman, these people often have no talent or abilities of their own, (in fact, Letterman offers scholarships to "C" students as that was what grades he made in school himself), this super criticalness and making fun and being ready with a joke when anyone slips up, this mocking. I knew someone very much like Letterman and he spends evenings reading encyclopedias, alone. When younger I thought him so clever, so cool. Now I see him and wonder how I ever let his lashing comments burn, why did I become so hypervigilant whenever he was around to be extra "cool"? I, once I realized how much this old friend was like Letterman, was never able to think of him without this comparison in mind. He is like a wolf. We need people who nurture us, who are not wolves.

Then there is the question of why we need wolves at all.

Why did God make it where we come to these dead ends, where we end up hungry or cold or at the end of our rope? How can you think of God's grace or of beautiful things or what is possible when you haven't even had anything to eat or are freezing cold? Why must we have these experiences? I've accepted reincarnation but even so, it doesn't explain this.

It is said the real world is an illusion and our job is see past that.

For me, I just don't talk when I really feel bad, though complaining is something I do as a sort of pastime with others. When it comes to close to the heart, complaining just makes my heart bleed more. I've learned to be careful about what I say, the sayer forgets them but the target may never forget. I remember things people said to me from years ago. The wolf makes people like animals, they don't care they are so focused on themselves. We should try to remember the wolf isn't the people we live with, the wolf is at their door as much as he is at ours.