Papa
Wolf, is what my kids and grandson call me, as well as many of my friends.
I guess I’ve gotten a reputation for taking in wounded people and
rescuing animals from uncertain futures. I want to thank you all for your letters and
the little surprise packages I get in the mail . Knowing that you have the support of the people out there
makes the journey worth the while when you hit those rough spots in life, and
there have been several. Yet as they say in the west, "it ain't
sundown yet." By the tone of the many, many e-mails I have been getting I would
guess a lot of you are wondering what Papa Wolf is up to these days… 
The Wolf Lodge was started as a Medicine Lodge, quite awhile ago,
it was back in those olden days
when I traveled with the likes of Rolling Thunder, Mad Bear Anderson, then
there was my friend Sun Bear who
always knew where the coffee was hid in my house. Grandfather Wallace Black Elk and
Brooke Medicine Eagle, Nester Night Owl, Martin High Bear, Wolf Moondance, Pathweaver, and yes my
Grandmother Kitty. It is not to name drop, it is to identify, I have
been on this road a long time, and some people think of me as Jesse James you
know. Well now you have an idea who I have stood with, and by, we are all
renegades who broke from the herd.
All of these glorious renegades are can be found on those
ludicrous internet racial hate sites as well, by the way, it seems ignorance
has always run ramped
on the free range. Grandpa used to tell us "you're not anybody if you are
not on the list." After a while you sort of come to expect it as part of
the job.
One
can easily get lost if they: One,
if we start believing our own myth and media hype, and Two, if we lose contact
with the essence of who we really are… I had to remind myself that there was a
Ghost Wolf before the Art Bell Radio Show, the Miami Circle, The Ghost Dance and
all the things that sprang out of the public becoming interested and aware of what I was doing out here in the wilderness….
It’s
good to remember that one spent more years being unknown and just learning, than
they did experiencing the fame and noise of the public being in our life all the
time… Besides, planting corn, working with my horses, hiking the back
mountains and writing takes up a lot of time. Then there is the Archaeological work I do in which it takes a lifetime
to realize the fruit of our efforts... I
am even beginning to feel grounded again. And realizing truly, … what a long strange trip it’s been.
When
I first started to talk on the radio shows, things really happened fast,
for the most part many never got to know who I was, or what I was truly about.
Most of the hosts on those shows I was on, as well as producers of the
television specials don’t usually run into my kind of person, I guess they
think we only exist in books. I was an enigma that cold not be
placed upon a shelf.
I
have grown much wiser and more prudent about radio and television shows over the
years, and realize what they can mean in helping or hurting peoples, as so many
at this time seek to awaken the potential they all hold inside. Many are as naïve as I was and just as vulnerable.
It’s called innocence and not to be misconstrued with ignorance.
These days most Radio Talk shows are controlled by the Reston Virginia
Gang who really are the ones who call the shots around
D.C.
"Free
Talk Radio." is an endangered species like me and those wild
horses. The big media dogs, support sensationalism and
tabloid events… freak shows, with instructions to squash anyone who starts to
draw a crowd. Keep the entertainment up, and the content low, all of them…contributing to the
numbing out of America, and the
world for that matter. Build then up tear them down.. It is like watching
'Roller Ball', remember the movie? If you are going to stay in the
game, you learn not to take it personal...The internet and the illusions can
often allow for those "Walk'n Weasel" types to look
pretty big, for awhile... But like all puppets the strings show after awhile.
Public life
has its costs, and it is often especially
painful when you were not pursuing that path to begin with… But you learn just
as quickly that when you have the grit to speak your piece, some are not going
to like that. I was also not afraid
to tell some people where to get off, and I guess that brought about some
expected reactions.
It takes a lot of inner strength to keep loving people when you see
and experience them from the other side of the bright lights…Not all that
shines is made from silver and gold… and the art of mask making is still very
popular, it would seem, as I have witnessed many icons fall from grace over the
years.
So
one day I just stopped and re-examined my own being and my own path, realizing I needed to
make a new commitment to the Spirit Walk I was walking. People who know the Wolf know he doesn’t play at Shaman, he lives
it. I am Metis, and that is a
Path to be proud of, and one that leaves little place to hide... " I
am not a tree lost in the forest, I am the Lone pine that stretches up from the prairie
to touch the sky." I am a committed author and and that brings me
into the public eye often. People want to know who I am, why is there a
group surrounding me at the cafe, And to those who won't understand that,
" If you can't take the heat. then step back out of the kitchen.".
Writing,
and really spending quality time researching and committing to paper your work is an
all-consuming occupation.
In
the 1980’s I was an
artist who painted and made ritual art pieces and traveled a circuit
bringing m work to many galleries
in the North West, Minnesota, a few
galleries in BC, Canada and down through Colorado, Santa Fe, Scottsdale, and even had a some pieces
used in a few movies. I kept
developing my skills a a writer, for quite awhile I wrote a lot of songs for
people, I played country music for 18 years on the circuit, but one day had to
choose between the lifestyle, and my true calling.
Along the way, I worked
pretty long and hard and earned those two
PhD’s, one in Christian Theology and Native American Studies, and a the other in
Biblical Archaeology. I was actually
ordained a as an Apostolic Christian Minister, and I didn't buy that right by
Federal Express. So I guess we can now say that I legally
qualify as a 'Rogue Scholar'. Fact of the matter is you can be anything
you want to be in this life, don't ever let anyone tell you differently. You
just have to develop the courage to get out in front of the crowd.
I
found it interesting along this journey how many preconceived images people have
about people doing Shamanic work. There
were some who thought I was a messiah, and others who actively wanted me out of
the way. I have been called a saint, and I have been accused of
being the devil himself. You can get very tired crashing through everyone’s walls of
perception and defensive fears born of limited mind. Most people don’t think that
a Shaman can exist in the contemporary western world, never mind America, and a
Shaman who walks with Christ, Jesus ~ Sananda, really troughs
them off. And what about those who say Native Americans do not have
Shamans? Well, maybe that is with some folks, but not all, it is not the
case with Metis, or Mestizo,
or Mayan's, Azteca's, or Inca's. So I guess it is up to the individual
what they call themselves, isn't
it.
There are those who profess that Shaman means one who is out in the jungle somewhere with
their face painted blue and doing iyawaska…
I have met those types in Santa Fe. They cannot summon up their own power,
nor can they hold reality fro very long so they reach for an enhancement. You
know a false high. The high is actually their body releasing the Death
Harmone. Some High! The other problem is when the enhancement
wears off, so does their their ability to own themselves, and like the shadow on
the wal they disappear when the light comes. Smoke and mirrors.
I will say this…Yes, that element does exist in the Shamanic reality, but then
again Buddha, and Yeshua Ben Joseph were also Shamans, they are also
ascended Masters but there are other great being who influenced life as well who
were not Ascended Masters, we all have our part to play, There was Merlyn of Camelot,
Grandfather Fools Crow, Pete Catches Many Horses... don Juan Mateuse, No Eyes,
Mother Terressa, Rolling Thunder, they were all healers as well as messengers. There are
levels to everything in life; the road to self-mastery is a very long journey.
Know before you embark upon the path that, the path of the initiate is beyond question a separate reality.
They
do not give out degrees in Shamanism, and yet it takes a lifetime to master the
knowledge, literally a lifetime...Much longer than it takes for someone to
acquire a PhD. This I can say from
experience. It takes a lifetime to reach a point of understanding
where one can practice
shamanism, a life time. So walk a mile in my shoes, then come sit
and talk with me.
So
what have I been up to? Many
things, many things indeed! Learning
to live my life, and fulfilling my own personal destiny, which after all is said
and done what I have been sharing with people all these years, is it not?
I have been taking the time to touch all the things that I missed along
the way, healing my own pain, and paying back to the account of man for the
gifts I have been given. I have
been watching the wheels go round and round, and along the way allowing myself
to open the heart once again.
When
you are on this path I have chosen to walk, and you stop hearing the Earth
Mother and the Spirits talk to you through your dreams, then you need to stop
and Gather your power, as Grandfather once told me…Never forgetting there must
be a thousand paths up this mountain, each one is unique and holds it’s own
learning. Wisdom is achieved upon
the completion of an experience; knowledge is employed only after learning
through experience along the way…and then it can become wisdom.
I
have learned many truths from my Archeological expeditions, about our heritage
as a human species, and I have learned much in dealing with the people you
encounter along the way as well. There are a lot of snakes in rocky places, and the access to truth, hard factual evidence of a different history
than 'the powers that be' would want know us to know, scares the hell of some,
even when it supports their teachings. And then their are others who think they can achieve riches beyond belief by eliminating the competition, and
those who brought the knowledge to them.
I knew
when I departed upon this path many years ago, leaving behind me what most
thought was “The American
Dream” that it was “ The path less often traveled.”
I just didn't realize it was this long a journey.
I
have often said in my talks, that life was about ‘choice’.
Now
in my own life, I am making new choices, holding with some of the past that can
merge with the new, and letting go of that which I have outgrown through
experience. Part of me wishes that
life were really “oh bla de… oh bla da”
and part of me has touched those Strawberry Fields that are forever.
We
are all going to have to wake up fast, and our children will most definitely be walking in the
reality we leave behind us. They
will follow our footsteps and our hope or decimation of the human species. Grandfather
used to say that we are responsible for seven generations through our actions;
we all get to come back for a review… and
that cannot be altered…
I
have a beautiful grandson now, and he makes me think about that reality more
than ever before. What kind of
humanity will I leave behind me? What
possible future will he inherit? When
I communicate with him from the
otherworldly will he think of me with pride, and honor and love, or will
he ask of me… “ Why didn’t you do something to change it Grandpa?
What
have I been doing? I have been
building the fabric of the New Dream. "Everyone in this world has the right to
begin again," a wise master once told me.
“
When
one comes to the point of truly desiring to change it all, is only when
everything we thought meant something becomes illusion, it is only then that we have the
opportunity to witness our automated life to stop and fall apart. Then we
truly have the chance to reconstruct our reality from choice rather
than programmed enslavement… You are
not a slave because you are aware of the condition, it is that you are unaware
of it that is so amazing. We
cannot hope to change others fates, only our own, and in this way is how
we effect a change. And when it gets rough and others trespass against
you ask yourself ."..is it that God forgives, or is it that God Allows?
”
So
now you know a little about me, not just the rumors, spoken by people who do not
know me.
I wish you well pilgrim, and hope that one day
we can share stories around the campfire and bring some stones
would you!.
