Parable of the Wolf and the Dog
There once was a wolf who lived deep in the woods. One day she decided she was going
to leave the company of other wolves for awhile because she was interested in the
lives of the dogs who lived among men. She was curious about dogs. She noticed that
the dog looked very much like herself, so she concluded that they may be kin.
So she approached the edge of the forest and there she found a dog who seemed very
happy. The wolf, being curious but cautious of men, watched the dog from a distance.
She listened to the dogs barks, she saw that the dog was fed and seemed happy, yet
what disturbed her most was how lowly and grovelling the dog was towards her master
and about herself.
One day the dog noticed the wolf watching her. "Sister, wolf!" cried the dog, "come
spend some time with me! Let me tell you about this good thing I have found!"
So being the curious type, the wolf approached the dog, and being respectful of the
dog, even though she didn’t understand why Dog served a master, she listened. "I get
all the food and water I want without hunting for it. I have a warm place to sleep at
night. I live with my Master and he loves me. Yes, I have found a great thing, why
don’t you join me and you too will be happy!" smiled the dog, tail wagging.
The wolf pondered the question. "What is it that you have to do in order to live
like you do?" said the wolf. "The only thing I have to do is give up my wildish
ways and obey my master."
The wolf gasped. "I will have to watch your master and see how he treats you dog, for
I cannot understand why anyone would want to give up the wild life, howling at the moon,
hunting for your own meat. That is life! How could anything be better than that?"
So the wolf retreated into the dark. She watched the dog and she paid close attention
to other dogs who served the master. She also paid close attention to the master.
Wolf noticed three things. First, that before Master, Dog was wretched, grovelling
and lowly, this made wolf angry. Why should the dog have to serve this Master in such
a disgraceful way? Second, the wolf noticed that the Master wasn’t always so loving.
Often he punished the dog and other dogs in wicked and cruel ways, and when they showed
any signs of rebellion he visited upon them such torment and torrents of abuse and
threats that it made Wolf shudder. But the third most horrible thing the wolf realized
was that all of the dogs were chained. They couldn’t or wouldn’t run away from their
master because he kept them tied to him on pain of death, for they were surely slaves.
It wasn’t soon before the dog again asked wolf. "Why don’t you join us, why don’t
serve our master as we do? Then you will be happy?"
The wolf replied, "Because your master is mean, he isn’t all the loving master you
portray him to be, and why must you serve him in such a miserable state of slavery?"
The dog shook her head. "My master is more like a loving parent that you desire to
please."
"If he is like a parent, he should then let his children be free," argued the wolf.
"What kind of parent gives birth to a cub and forces that cub to serve him? Isn’t life
given freely?" The wolf began to growl. "And the thought of being chained, of wearing
a collar and a yoke, that I cannot do!" growled the wolf, "That would be against my
nature! The nature of a wolf is to be free and wild. I would rather your Master hunted
me and killed me dead than place me in a cage with a yoke around my throat!"
"But," cried the Dog, "He said my yoke is light. The reason it is light is because
I am yoked with Master and believe me, he does more than 50% of the work." protested
the dog.
"Hah!" barked the wolf, "a yoke is a yoke and slavery is slavery." and she began to
show her teeth.
Dog was nervous. Dog did not like to see Wolf angry, "It grieves me that you are so
hostile and angry. My intent is not to inspire anger..."
At this point other dogs also joined in, they realized that the Wolf was angry,
they saw that Wolf was growling, one little dog piped up, "...relax some Wolf,
you're uncertainty and insecurity are showing..."
"Good!" yelled, the Wolf, "It makes ME happy to see that you are grieving, sister
dog. "Not because I wanted to hurt you, but because it shows me that you still have
feelings. That even in your yoke of servitude you have empathy. I can see why anger
upsets you dogs, because your master doesn’t like it when you bark and howl. He would
rather you be quiet, and because you serve him even when he is a tyrant -- even when
you have a RIGHT to be angry and bark, you all fall down and grovel before him so.
But I am not a dog, I am a wolf, and wolves howl! When we are threatened by those
who would cage us and enslave us and kill us, we use our growl to scare them away.
But there is nothing wrong with anger, Dog! I have a right to use whatever emotion
helps me save myself."
"Wolf, I am not responsible for all this anger. It seems to be bubbling up from deep
down and I suspect it has been there quite sometime..." protested the Dog.
"There you go again, Dog. Selling yourself short. I ask you this: If you had succeeded
in bringing me to your master would you have taken joy in that?" asked wolf. "Because
it is indeed YOU who has shown me that the nature of dogs is to serve a fickle Master.
I am a wolf. I am free. If I were to give up my howling, my freedom, my woods and my
moon and take up your yoke, I would go against my own nature. I would no longer be a
wolf, I would be a dog. This master of yours, these ideas that it is necessary for
all people to serve him, they don’t make much sense to me. If I were you I wouldn’t
trust this Master of yours so much. Let me tell you a story, Dog" and Wolf began a
story about a woman:
"If you don’t go out in the woods, nothing will ever happen and your life will never
begin."
"Don’t go out in the woods, don’t go out," they said.
"Why not? Why should I not go out in the woods tonight?" she asked.
"A big wolf lives there who eats humans such as you. Don’t go out in the woods,
don’t go out. We mean it."
Naturally, she went out. She went out in the woods, anyway, and of course she met
the wolf, just as they had warned her.
"See, what we told you," they crowed.
"This is my life, not a fairy tale, you dolts," she said. "I have to go to the woods,
and I have to meet the wolf, or else my life will never begin."
But the wolf she encountered was in a trap, in a trap this wolf’s leg was in.
"Help me, oh help me, oh help me!" he cried, "and I shall reward you justly!"
For this is the way of wolves in tales of this kind.
How do you I know you won’t harm me?" she asked "it was her job to ask questions.
"How do I know you will not kill me and leave me lying in my bones?"
"Wrong question," said this wolf. "You’ll just have to take my word for it."
And the wolf began to cry and wail once again and more.
"Oh, aieee! Aieeeee! Aieeeee! There’s only one question worth asking fair maiden,
wooooor aieeeeeeeee th’ sooooooooooooul?"
"Oh you wolf, I will take a chance. Alright, here!" And she sprang the trap and the
wolf drew out its paw and this she bound with herbs and grasses.
"Ah, thank you kind maiden, thank you," sighed the wolf. And because she had read
too many of the wrong kind of tales, she cried, "Go ahead and kill me now then, wolf!
Let us get this over with."
But no, this did not come to pass. Instead this wolf put his paw upon her arm.
"I’m a wolf from another time and place," said he. And plucking a lash from his eye,
gave it to her and said, "Use this, and be wise. from now on you will know who is good
and not so good; just look through my eyes and you will see clearly.
"For letting me live, I bid YOU live, in a manner as never before. Remember there is
only one question worth asking fair maiden, wooooor aeieeeee th’ soooooooool?"
And so she went back to her village, happy to still have her life. And this time as
they said, "Just stay here and be my bride," or,
"Do as I tell you."
or "Say as I want you to say, and remain as unwritten upon as the day you came."
She held up the wolf’s eyelash and peered through and saw their motives as she had
not seen them before.
And the next time the butcher weighed the meat, she looked through her wolf’s eyelash
and saw that he weighed his thumb too. And she looked at her suitor who said, "I am
so good for you," and she saw that her suitor was good for exactly nothing. And in
this way and more, she was saved, from not ALL, but from many misfortunes.
But more so, in this new seeing, not only did she see the sly and the cruel, she
began to grow immense in heart. For she looked at each person and weighed them
anew through this gift from the wolf she had rescued.
And she saw those who were truly kind, and she went near them. She found her mate,
and stayed all the days of her life. She discerned the brave and she came close to
them. She apprehended the faithful and joined with them. She saw bewilderment under
anger and hastened to soothe it, she saw love in the eyes of the shy and reached out
to them. She saw suffering in the stiff-lipped and courted their laughter. She saw
need in the man with no words and spoke for him. She saw faith deep in the woman
who said she had none and rekindled hers from her own.
She saw all these things with her lash of wolf, all things true and all things false.
All things turning against life and all things turning towards life, all things seen
only through the eyes of that which weights the heart with heart and not with mind alone.
This is how she learned that it is true what they say, that the wolf is wisest of all.
If you listen closely, the wolf in its howling is always asking the most important
question not 'where is the next food,' or 'where is the next fight,' or 'where is the
next dance' but the most important question, in order to see into and behind, to weigh
the value of all that lives,
'Woooooooooor aeieeeeee th’ sooooooool?
woooooooooor aeieeeeee th’ sooooooool?
woooooooooor aeieeeeee th’ sooooooool?
Where is the soul? Where is the soul?'.......
[this story is an exerpt from the novel "Women Who Run with the Wolves",
written by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. :-) ]
"So sister dog, remember the words of my people, the words of the wolves who refuse to
serve any Master as this is against our nature. To be a wolf, one can never be a dog."
And with these words, wolf returned to her people, without anger, without pity for
dog, because dog wanted to live that way.
"Go out in the woods, go out! Go out in the woods, go out!"