This past weekend was the monthly gathering of Wolves and our guests, done the first Saturday of every month, for what will be 20 years in November. I am proud to say from the group’s inception, I have never missed one attendance.
This is a continued thought from last week’s podcast about starting over vs. maintaining and preserving.
Preservation is often done in “layers,” where each time you engage with something, another nearly imperceptible layer occurs, and eventually, like a tree, you can almost measure your experience with whatever it is in “rings,” which are the representation of layers over time.
With some things we might only ever be “saplings.”
With others, we may tower over the rest of the canopy like forest giants. It all depends on time, consistency, and the unwillingness to quit.
8.5.26
Intake:
One of these “layer” types can be seen on myself and many of my friends in the form of tattoos. However you might personally feel about them, I’ve always been fascinated with their ability to express ideas, taboos, cultural statements, and outlaw codes.
I hadn’t had one in a long time, but got a new one this weekend that has one of these “hidden” symbols of allegiance in it.
Last week, I built a stick-and-poke rig from pencil, athletic tape, and clipped tattoo needle to finish a project I’ve been working on for many years, capping my brother Red’s 15 year forearm and hand/fingers tattoo, all of which has been done by me with a needle and stick.
This, then is not just about what the pictures and images of the tattoos mean by themselves, but what the giving and receiving of them have meant over such a long time, and the testament they are to our enduring friendship throughout the years.
Someone may look and see primitive artwork of wolves chasing the sun, ravens, and a hanged man in a tree, among others, and be able to grasp their meaning from a mythological standpoint.
Others might put together the “count and tally” of the hashmarks down his fingers and the associated runic formulas.
But only a few know why 11/42 is an important number, and what it means to us, as it is a hidden thing that came about organically within the culture of the Wolves that has also been built over many years, layer by layer by layer.
Output:
This week I’m hoping to finish a new Operation Werewolf zine that, together with some artwork and engravings from my wife, will form a release set dedicated to ideas established by the RTACTN project.
The lead-off introductory essay is titled “Order of the Death Wolf.”
I thought you all might like a first look at a few lines:
”We are still in the new dark ages.
Let us be honest with ourselves, at the very least:
We are all of us flawed and damaged from our existence in this grim era, and fallen in state from those golden years when the blood was like pure fire and oaths were as unyielding as the men who spoke them around council fires and storied tables.
The horrors of these times are in some ways much changed from that of our ancestors and heroes, and yet…
It is heroes that are still required.
Our cause is no less righteous than theirs, our times no less desperate nor filled with the highest of stakes.
Those stakes are the life or death of our way of being. Of our noble lines. Of the very existence of our people and their accomplishments and the ongoing story that we are still telling today with our every action…”
Takeaway:
I’m still doing my best to build layers where I believe they’re the most important. Time with my family, with my extended family in the Wolves, time spent training and developing new and old skills…the list goes on.
Sometimes in the moment things don’t feel as rewarding as we hope they will, and it often takes looking back over our accomplishments to get the heft of their scope and weight.
We can’t look back over things we’ve abandoned with much of a feeling of pride or ongoing meaning.
It’s what we do that matters, and especially what we keep doing with our whole heart.
Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance to any and all who share this, forward it, and so on. I appreciate your help.
- Paul W.
PS: I hope you liked the inclusion of a few photos in this one, which I plan on doing from time to time.
I re-read this one the other day, and a lot of what was in there resonated really strongly and helped set my mental state for the weekend in a positive direction. All of the 30 brief essays in it were part of a targeted writing project designed to have that function.
If you haven’t read it, check it out.
Great article, Thanks for writing.
Thanks for sharing