Dances With Wolves Quotes

A man might befriend a wolf, even break a wolf, but no man could truly tame a wolf.

Buy a gift for a dog, and you'll be amazed at the way it will dance and swerve its tail, but if don't have anything to offer to it, it won't even recognize your arrival; such are the attributes of fake friends.

To love means to embrace and at the same time to withstand many endings, and many many beginnings—all in the same relationship.

She had no time for sleep, with the weight of the world upon her shoulders. And she feared to dream. Sleep is a little death, dreams the whisperings of the Other, who would drag us all into his eternal night.

He had fallen in love with this wild, beautiful country and everything it contained. It was the kind of love people dream of having with other people: selfless and free of doubt, reverent and everlasting.

And then there are the cravings.. Oh, la! A woman may crave to be near water, or be belly down, her face in the earth, smelling the wild smell. She might have to drive into the wind. She may have to plant something, pull things out of the ground or put them into the ground. She may have to knead and bake, rapt in dough up to her elbows. She may have to trek into the hills, leaping from rock to rock trying out her voice against the mountain. She may need hours of starry nights where the stars are like face powder spilt on a black marble floor. She may feel she will die if she doesn’t dance naked in a thunderstorm, sit in perfect silence, return home ink-stained, paint-stained, tear-stained, moon-stained.

He started to dance. And all at once, because Cole was dancing, I was dancing. And this Cole was even more persuasive than the last one. This was everything about Cole's smile made into a real thing, a physical object made out of his hands looped around me, and his long body pushed up against mine. I loved to dance, but I'd always been aware that I was dancing, aware of what my body was doing. Now, with this music thumping and Cole dancing with me, everything became invisible but the music. I was invisible. My hips were the booming bass. My hands on Cole were the wails of the synthesizer. My body was nothing but the hard, pulsing beat of the track. My thoughts were flashes in between the downbeats. beat: my hand pressed on Cole's stomach beat: our hips crushed together beat: Cole's laugh beat: we were one person Even knowing that Cole was good at this because it was what he did didn't make it any less of an amazing thing. Plus, he wasn't trying to be amazing without me--every move of his body was to make us move together. There was no ego, just the music and our bodies. When the track ended, Cole stepped back, out of breath, half a smile on his face. I couldn't see how he could stop. I wanted to dance until I couldn't stand up. I wanted to crush our bodies against each other until there was no pulling them apart. "You're an addiction," I told him. "You should know.

Each woman has potential access to Rio Abajo Rio, this river beneath the river. She arrives there through deep meditation, dance, writing, painting, prayermaking, singing, drumming, active imagination, or any activity which requires an intense altered consciousness. A woman arrives in this world-between-worlds through yearning and by seeking something she can see just out of the corner of her eye. She arrives there by deeply creative acts, through intentional solitude, and by practice of any of the arts.

She is often the broken-winged one, who does everything all wrong until people realize she's been doing it... pretty right all along. She's the poor girl who never dressed right, who had torn hose, and they were all baggy around her ankles. She's the Raggedy Ann of the sophisticated world, who pulls it out at the last minute, flies by the seat of her pants, cackling all the way home. She is the late bloomer, the late start, the autumn bush, the winter holly. She is Baubo, all the classical Greek goddesses. She is the old girl who still blushes, and laughs, and dances. She's the truth teller, maybe that people hate to hear, but they learn to listen to. She is not dumb and in some ways is not shrewd. She works on passion, and the doll in her pocket, and the intuition that leads her into and through all the world.

Why did you make your people lambs, when the world is full of wolves.

Call it inevitable, call it the doomed fate of love. Call it karmic, fucked up, the dance of the wolves. Live it, love it, call it life. Call it Led Zeppelin. Yeah, yeah. Really, I don’t really, really don’t fucking care.

I will howl with the wolves, soar above the eagles and roam wild with the Mustang. I will breathe life into the sunrise atop a mountain, bathe naked in the streams, dance in the sunset and love beneath the stars, travelling far and wide, seeking new experiences with those who dare to run with the wind, dare to touch the storm that is me...

Let me tell you something about wolves, child. When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.

From her very flesh and blood and from the constant cycles of filling and emptying the red vase in her belly, a woman understands physically, emotionally, and spiritually that zeniths fade and expire, and what is left is reborn in unexpected ways and by inspired means, only to fall back to nothing, and yet be reconceived again in full glory.

He did not belong to the Indians. He did not belong to the whites. And it was not time for him to belong to the stars. He belonged right where he was. He belonged nowhere.

Jen watched as Sally and Jacque's eyes got wider and wider. "Damn," Jen muttered under her breath just as strong arms came around her and she felt warm breath against her neck. "I believe this is our song," Decebel purred in her ear. Jen swore at any moment she was going to be a puddle on the floor and Jacque would have to sop her up with some Bounty paper towels. Why she thought specifically of Bounty paper towels, she had no idea. She was trying really hard to focus on anything but Decebel's warmth against her. To her complete mortification he began to move…with the beat. Sally and Jacque's jaws dropped. Jen mouthed, "Save me," to her two best friends, but evil traitors that they were, they both started dancing and completely ignored her plea. Oh, those two heifers are going down, she promised herself. After a few moments, Jen decided she could either look goofy standing stiff while Decebel danced or she could throw caution to the wind and bring it.

Mac draws up short to keep from slamming into Barrons and her blonde hair swings back over her shoulder, brushing his face as it goes and my hearing is so good I catch the rasp of it chafing the shadow stubble on his jaw, then one of his hands grazes her breast and his eyes narrow when he looks at what he touched in a hungry way I want a man to look at me like one day and, as they continue to recover from the near-collision, their bodies move in a graceful dance of impeccable awareness of precisely where the other is at all times that is unity, symbiosis, partnership I only dream of, wolves that chose to pack up and hunt together, soldiers who will always have each other’s back no matter what, no sin, no transgression too great, ‘cause don’t we all transgress sometimes and it fecking slays me, because once I got a little taste of what that was like and it was heaven and they’re so beautiful standing there, the best of the best, the strongest of the strong that they practically glow to me, on fire with all I ever wanted in my life—a place to belong and someone to belong there with.

The courier of wolves the daughter the dance. Hopeless. Betrayal. Forbidden. Departure.

There are times when a person wants something so badly that price or condition cease to be obstacles.

My own mother warned me I would have no life with a Suli, that she and my father would turn their backs on us. But I didn’t care. I was in love. We met by moonlight. We danced to the music his brothers played. I thought love would be our armor, wings to fly with, a shield against the world.

The seals are scarce and the whales are almost gone. The spirits of the animals are passing away. Amaroq, Amaroq, you are my adopted father. My feet dance because of you. My eyes see because of you. My mind thinks because of you. And it thinks, on this thundering night, That the hour of the wolf and the Eskimo is over.

Once there was a little girl who played her music for a little boy in the wood. She was small and dark, he was tall and fair, and the two of them made a fancy pair as they danced together, dancing to the music the little girl heard in her head. Her grandmother had told her to beware the wolves that prowled in the wood, but the little girl knew the little boy was not dangerous, even if he was the king of the goblins. Will you marry me, Elisabeth? the little boy asked, and the little girl did not wonder at how he knew her name. Oh, she replied, but I am too young to marry. Then I will wait, the little boy said. I will wait as long as you remember. And the little girl laughed as she danced with the Goblin King, the little boy who was always just a little older, a little out of reach. As

My queen,” said Tristifer, “here we have the walls, but if we reach the sea and find that the wolves have taken our ships or driven them away ...” “... we die,” she finished cheerfully, “but at least we’ll die with our feet wet. Ironborn fight better with salt spray in their nostrils and the sound of the waves at their backs.

They segued into a more general piece about AIDS. As usual, they started out with footage of some kind of sweaty nightclub in the city with a bunch of gay men dancing around in stupid leather outfits. I couldn't even begin to imagine Finn dancing the night away like some kind of half-dressed cowboy. It would have been nice if for once they show some guys sitting in their living rooms drinking tea and talking about art or movies or something. If they showed that, then maybe people would say, "Oh, okay, that's not so strange.

El duende is literally the goblin wind or force behind a person’s actions and creative life, including the way they walk, the sound of their voice, even the way they lift their little finger. It is a term used in flamenco dance, and is also used to describe the ability to “think” in poetic images. Among Latina curanderas who recollect story, it is understood as the ability to be filled with spirit that is more than one’s own spirit. Whether one is the artist or whether one is the watcher, listener, or reader, when el duende is present, one sees it, hears it, reads it, feels it underneath the dance, the music, the words, the art; one knows it is there. When el duende is not present, one knows that too.

The Lakota unburdened themselves of hair, of fingers, cut into their flesh to temporarily escape the grief of a loved one’s death. I saw this on A Man Called Horse and in Dances with Wolves. But as far as I knew, no one in my immediate family had ever done this. My mother was worth far more than a hank of hair. She was worth my spine. My eyes. My womb.

I have waltzed with wolves and howled at the moon. But my heart will always remember the slow-dance that ended much too soon.

when the cold winds blow the lone wolf dies and the pack survives. He had it all backwards. Arya, the lone wolf, still lived, but the wolves of the pack had been taken and slain and skinned.

It's not pretty and perfect I am feeling today. Not in the mood for soft and contained. Not light or well-behaved or sugary sweet. No. I'm not willing to round off my sharp edges or make safe the danger zones. Not for you. Not for anyone, really. There's no room in me for gentle today. It's explore at your own risk, full on howl time. Oh, I can make nice. And I do. You'll only get past the surface if I deem you worthy. But my inner landscape? It's pure wilderness, darling, and the wolves are running. The moon went dark last night, loves, and something crashed and spiraled so something else could rise. It's time for music that courts the shadows and for dancing that sheds skin. Creation is calling and my muse, she likes it rough. Are you with me? Good. Now we can begin...

When I started everything, and by everything, I mean life, suicide was a joke. If I have to ride in that car with you, I'll slash my wrists with a butter knife. It was as real as a unicorn. No, less than that. It was as real as the explosion around an animated coyote. A hundred thousand people threaten to kill themselves every day and make a hundred thousand other people laugh, because like a cartoon, it's funny and meaningless. Gone even before you turn off the TV. Then it was a disease. Something other people got, if they lived someplace dirty enough to get the infection under their nails. It was not a pleasant dinner table conversation, Cole, and like the flu, it only killed the weak. If you'd been exposed, you didn't talk about it. Wouldn't want to put other people off their feed. It wasn't until high school that it became a possibility. Not an immediate one, not like It is a possibility I will download this album because the guitar is so sick it makes me want to dance, but possibility in the way that some people said when they grew up, they might be a fireman or an astronaut or a CPA who works late every single weekend while his wife has an affair with the guy who drives the DHL truck. It became a possibility like Maybe when I grow up, I will be dead.

There are many artists who’ve not yet gotten a good foothold or who are old war-horses at developing their creative lives, and yet and still, every time they reach for the pen, the brush, the ribbons, the script, they hear, “You’re nothing but trouble, your work is marginal or completely unacceptable—because you yourself are marginal and unacceptable.” So what is the solution? Do as the duckling does. Go ahead, struggle through it. Pick up the pen already and put it to the page and stop whining. Write. Pick up the brush and be mean to yourself for a change, paint. Dancers, put on the loose chemise, tie the ribbons in your hair, at your waist, or on your ankles and tell the body to take it from there. Dance. Actress, playwright, poet, musician, or any other. Generally, just stop talking. Don’t say one more word unless you’re a singer. Shut yourself in a room with a ceiling or in a clearing under the sky. Do your art. Generally, a thing cannot freeze if it is moving. So move. Keep moving.

The body is a multilingual being. It speaks through its colour and its temperature, the flush of recognition, the glow of love, the ash of pain, the heat of arousal, the coldness of non-conviction. It speaks through its constant tiny dance, sometimes swaying, sometimes a-jitter, sometimes trembling. It speaks through the leaping of the heart, the falling of the spirit, the pit at the centre, and rising hope. The body remembers, the bones remember, the joints remember, even the little finger remembers. Memory is lodged in pictures and feelings in the cells themselves. Like a sponge filled with water, anywhere the flesh is pressed, wrung, even touched lightly, a memory may flow out in a stream.

There are many trails in this life, but the one that matters most, few men are able to walk … even Comanche men. It is the trail of a true human being. I think you are on this trail. It is a good thing for me to see. It is good for my heart.

Lieutenant Dunbar had fallen in love. He had fallen in love with this wild, beautiful country and everything it contained. It was the kind of love people dream of having with other people: selfless and free of doubt, reverent and everlasting. His

It is difficult to sneak little shreds of life this way but women do it every day. When a woman feels compelled to sneak life, she is in minimal subsistence mode. She sneaks life away from the hearing of “them,” whoever the “them” is in her life. She acts disinterested and calm on the surface, but whenever there is a crack of light, her starved self leaps out, runs for the nearest life form, lights up, kicks back, charges madly, dances herself silly, exhausts herself, then tries to creep back to the black cell before anyone notices she is gone.

Because I have a teeny, tiny amount of werewolf blood in me I have to go to what essentially amounts to a mating dance and let other unmated wolves sniff me?" Sally snorted with laughter. "Sorry, got a visual." "Nice." Jacque high fived her. Jen glared at her two best friends. "If you two are done with your little moment could we please focus on this upcoming disaster?" "Sorry, Jen. Don't mind us. By all means, continue freaking out.

One of them was Jake Eberts, a film producer whose works include Chariots of Fire, Gandhi, Dances with Wolves, Driving Miss Daisy, A River Runs through It, The Killing Fields, and Chicken Run, and whose films received sixty-six Oscar nominations and seventeen Oscar wins (he passed away in 2012).

This is a time for beasts, Jaime reflected, for lions and wolves and angry dogs, for ravens and carrion crows.

He did not belong to the Indians. He did not belong to the whites. And it was not time for him to belong to the stars. He belonged right where he was now. He belonged nowhere.

My nerves did a jitter dance, stuck between two wolves.

You know, I once had a little boy in Hiddleston come up to me and ask if I conjured up the hartsstone.” “What did you tell him?” he asked. She spoke in her scratchy, witchy voice, “Why of course I do. Every full moon, my boy. And the wolves howl. And the fairies rise from their bowers, then we dance in a round, breathing in the powerful magic of the hartstone.

When women do not speak, when not enough people speak, the voice of the Wild Woman becomes silent, and therefore the world becomes silent of the natural and wild too. Silent, eventually, of wolf and bear and raptors. Silent of singings and dancing's and creations. Silent of loving, repairing, and holding. Bereft of clear air and water and the voices of consciousness.

You shall dance in your red shoes until you become like a wraith, like a ghost, till your skin hangs from your bones, till there is nothing left of you but entrails dancing. You shall dance door to door through all the villages and you shall strike each door three times and when people peer out they will see you and fear your fate for themselves. Dance red shoes, you shall dance.

There is no bitterness in Wind In His Hair's heart," he began. "Our minds may choose different paths, but some part of every heart will always be as one. All my life I have been a warrior, and I will not change. I will not die as anything else. "The whites have taken much from me. They have taken my brothers, my wives, my children. Now they want to take me off the earth upon which I walk. Maybe they will kill me now, and if they do, so be it. I will not take their hands. I will keep my ponies' tails tied up for war." - Wind In His Hair

The first rosy streaks of dawn had broken through the darkness and he watched them in awe as he walked, oblivious to the pant legs that were already sopping with dew. Every day begins with a miracle, he thought suddenly. The streaks were growing larger, changing colors by the second.

[T]he old stories of human relationships with animals can't be discounted. They are not primitive; they are primal. They reflect insights that came from considerable and elaborate systems of knowledge, intellectual traditions and ways of living that were tried, tested, and found true over many thousands of years and on all continents. But perhaps the truest story is with the animals themselves because we have found our exemplary ways through them, both in the older world and in the present time, both physically and spiritually. According to the traditions of the Seneca animal society, there were medicine animals in ancient times that entered into relationships with people. The animals themselves taught ceremonies that were to be performed in their names, saying they would provide help for humans if this relationship was kept. We have followed them, not only in the way the early European voyagers and prenavigators did, by following the migrations of whales in order to know their location, or by releasing birds from cages on their sailing vessels and following them towards land, but in ways more subtle and even more sustaining. In a discussion of the Wolf Dance of the Northwest, artists Bill Holm and William Reid said that 'It is often done by a woman or a group of women. The dance is supposed to come from the wolves. There are different versions of its origin and different songs, but the words say something like, 'Your name is widely known among the wolves. You are honored by the wolves.' In another recent account, a Northern Cheyenne ceremonialist said that after years spent recovering from removals and genocide, indigenous peoples are learning their lost songs back from the wolves who retained them during the grief-filled times, as thought the wolves, even though threatened in their own numbers, have had compassion for the people.... It seems we have always found our way across unknown lands, physical and spiritual, with the assistance of the animals. Our cultures are shaped around them and we are judged by the ways in which we treat them. For us, the animals are understood to be our equals. They are still our teachers. They are our helpers and healers. They have been our guardians and we have been theirs. We have asked for, and sometimes been given, if we've lived well enough, carefully enough, their extraordinary powers of endurance and vision, which we have added to our own knowledge, powers and gifts when we are not strong enough for the tasks required of us. We have deep obligations to them. Without other animals, we are made less. (from her essay "First People")

Once there was a little girl who played her music for a little boy in the wood. She was small and dark, he was tall and fair, and the two of them made a fancy pair as they danced together, dancing to the music the little girl heard in her head. Her grandmother had told her to beware the wolves that prowled in the wood, but the little girl knew the little boy was not dangerous, even if he was the king of the goblins. Will you marry me, Elisabeth? the little boy asked, and the little girl did not wonder at how he knew her name. Oh, she replied, but I am too young to marry. Then I will wait, the little boy said. I will wait as long as you remember. And the little girl laughed as she danced with the Goblin King, the little boy who was always just a little older, a little out of reach. As the seasons turned and the years passed, the little girl grew older but the Goblin King remained the same. She washed the dishes, cleaned the floors, brushed her sister’s hair, yet still ran to the forest to meet her old friend in the grove. Their games were different now, truth and forfeit and challenges and dares. Will you marry me, Elisabeth? the little boy asked, and the little girl did not yet understand his question was not part of a game. Oh, she replied, but you have not yet won my hand. Then I will win, the little boy said. I will win until you surrender. And the little girl laughed as she played against the Goblin King, losing every hand and every round. Winter turned to spring, spring to summer, summer into autumn, autumn back into winter, but each turning of the year grew harder and harder as the little girl grew up while the Goblin King remained the same. She washed the dishes, cleaned the floors, brushed her sister’s hair, soothed her brother’s fears, hid her father’s purse, counted the coins, and no longer went into the woods to see her old friend. Will you marry me, Elisabeth? the Goblin King asked. But the little girl did not reply.

He tells me about human weddings, held inside or outside if the weather is mild. The couple wear clothes that are painfully uncomfortable and make their friends do the same. An officiant says a few words that neither party has really thought through—sickness and health, richer and poorer, better and worse—or at least don’t believe will be put to the test. Family and friends toast the couple, eat a little, drink too much, give vases, dance badly, and then run for the exits.

The wind rose, whipping at Gregori's solid form, lashing his body,ripping at the waves of black hair so that it streamed around his face. His expression was impassive, the pale silver eyes cold and merciless, unblinking and fixed on his prey. The attack came from sky and ground simultaneously; slivers of sharpened wood shot through the air on the wild winds,aimed directly at Gregori. The wolves leapt for him,eyes glowing hotly in the night. The army of the dead moved relentlessly forward, pressing toward Gregori's lone figure. His hands moved, a complicated pattern drected at the approaching army;then he was whirling, a flowing wind of motion beautiful to the eye,so fast that he blurred. Yelps and howls accompanied bodies flying through the air. Wolves landed to lie motionless at his feet. His expression never changed. There was no hint of anger or emotion,no sign of fear,no break in concentration. He simply acted as the need arose. The skeletons were mowed down by a wall of flame, an orange-red conflagration that rose in the night sky and danced furiously for a brief moment. The army withered into ashes, leaving only a pile of blackened dust that spewed across the street in the ferocious onslaught of the wind. Savannah felt Gregori wince, the pain that sliced though him just before he shut out all sensation.She whirled to face him and saw a sharpened stake portruding from his right shoulder. Even as she saw it, Gregori jerked it free.Blood gushed,spraying the area around him.Just as quickly it stopped,as if cut off midstream. The winds rose to a thunderous pitch, a whirling gale of debris above their heads like the funnel cloud of a tornado. The black cloud spun faster and paster,threatening to suck everything and everyone up into its center where the malevolent red eye stared at them with hatred. The tourists screamed in fear,and even the guide grabbed for a lamppost to hang on grimly.Gregori stood alone,the winds assaulting him,tearing at him, reaching for him.As the whirling column threatened him from above, sounding like the roar of a freight train, he merely clapped his hands, then waved to send a backdraft slamming into the dark entity.The vampire screamed his rage. The thick black cloud sucked in on itself with an audible soumd, hovering in the air, waiting, watching, silent. Evil.No one moved.No one dared to breathe. Suddenly the churning black entity gathered itself and streamed across the night sky,racing away from the hunter over the French Quarter and toward the swamp.Gregori launched himself into the air,shape-shifting as he did so,ducking the bolts of white-hot energy and slashing stakes flying in the turbulant air.

People do meditation to find psychic alignment. That’s why people do psychotherapy and analysis. That’s why people analyze their dreams and make art. That is why some contemplate tarot cards, cast I Ching, dance, drum, make theater, pry out the poem, and fire up their prayers. That’s why we do all the things we do. It is the work of gathering all the bones together. Then we must sit at the fire and think about which song we will use to sing over the bones, which creation hymn, which re-creation hymn. And the truths we tell will make the song.

What evil?” He laughed. “What gods?” “The gods who made us all.” “All?” he mocked. “Tell me, little bird, what kind of god makes a monster like the Imp, or a halfwit like Lady Tanda’s daughter? If there are gods, they made sheep so wolves could eat mutton, and they made the weak for the strong to play with.” “True knights protect the weak.” He snorted. “There are no true knights, no more than there are gods. If you can’t protect yourself, die and get out of the way of those who can. Sharp steel and strong arms rule this world, don’t ever believe any different.

Hush, child,” said Lady Leona. “You heard your lord grandfather. Hush! You know nothing.” “I know about the promise,” insisted the girl. “Maester Theomore, tell them! A thousand years before the Conquest, a promise was made, and oaths were sworn in the Wolf’s Den before the old gods and the new. When we were sore beset and friendless, hounded from our homes and in peril of our lives, the wolves took us in and nourished us and protected us against our enemies. The city is built upon the land they gave us. In return we swore that we should always be their men. Stark men!

Well, she would marry a man who didn't need or want her fortune. Mr. Pinter didn't fall into that category. And given how blank his expression became as his gaze met hers, she'd been right to be skeptical. he would never be interested in her in that way. He confirmed it by saying, with his usual formality, "I doubt any man would consider your ladyship unacceptable as a wife." Oh, when he turned all hoity-toity, she could just murder him. "Then we agree that the gentlemen in question would find me satisfactory," she said, matching his cold tone. "So I don't see why you assume they'd be unfaithful." "Some men are unfaithful no matter how beautiful their wives are," Mr. Pinter growled. He thought her beautiful? There she went again, reading too much into his words. He was only making a point. "But you have no reason to believe that these gentleman would be. Unless there's some dark secret you already know about them that I do not?" Glancing away, he muttered a curse under his breath. "No." "Then here's your chance to find out the truth about their characters. Because I prefer facts to opinions. And I was under the impression that you do, too." Take that, Mr. Pinter! Hoist by your own petard. The man always insisted on sticking to the facts. And he was well aware that she'd caught him out, for he scowled, then crossed his arms over his chest. His rather impressive chest, from what she could tell beneath his black coat and plain buff waistcoat. "I can't believe I'm the only person who would object to these gentlemen," he said. "What about your grandmother? Have you consulted her?" She lifted her eyes heavenward. He was being surprisingly resistant to her plans. "I don't need to. Every time one of them asks to dance with me, she beams. She's forever urging me to smile at them or attempt flirtation. And if they so much as press my hand or take my for a stroll, she quizzes me with great glee on what was said and done." "She's been letting you go out on private strolls with these scoundrels?" Mr. Pinter said in sheer outrage. "They aren't scoundrels." "I swear to God, you're a lamb among the wolves," he muttered. That image of her, so unlike how she saw herself, made her laugh. "I've spent half my life in the company of my brothers. Every time Gabe went to shoot, I went with him. At every house party that involved his friends, I was urged to show off my abilities with a rifle. I think I know how to handle a man, Mr. Pinter." His glittering gaze bored into her. "There's a vast difference between gamboling about in your brother's company with a group of his friends and letting a rakehell like Devonmont or a devilish foreigner like Basto stroll alone with you down some dark garden path." A blush heated her cheeks. "I didn't mean strolls of that sort, sir. I meant daytime walks about our gardens and such, with servants in plain view. All perfectly innocent." He snorted. "I doubt it will stay that way." "Oh, for heaven's sake, why are you being so stubborn? You know I must marry. Why do you even care whom I choose?" "I don't care," he protested. "I'm merely thinking of how much of my time will be wasted investigating suitors I already know are unacceptable." She let out an exasperated breath. Of course. With him, it was always about money. Heaven forbid he should waste his time helping her.

As with other childlike traits, human adults remain playful and trusting in a way that looks a lot more like Labradors than adult wolves or chimpanzees. When a grown wolf or a chimp bares its teeth, you’d better run. Humans, even adult humans, are by and large more into chasing balls than establishing dominance. The readiness with which we play with our friends and acquaintances and even strangers is remarkable, even though verbal banter or wordplay tends to gradually displace physical wrestling. When I joke with the hot dog vendor about his pathetic loyalty to the Mets, as evinced by the baseball cap he is wearing, we become very much like two dogs wrestling in a park: My verbal jabs are play-serious, not meant to genuinely wound, and the successful banter establishes an ephemeral but important trust connection in the midst of a busy metropolis. Insult a chimpanzee’s favorite baseball team, on the other hand, and you’re likely to lose an arm. The fact that humans retain into adulthood the complex and sophisticated cognitive machinery required to play, and in fact continue to enjoy playing with others, is a reflection of the profound importance of trust in human affairs.

It is difficult to sneak little shreds of life this way but women do it every day. When a woman feels compelled to sneak life, she is in minimal subsistence mode. She sneaks life away from the hearing of “them,” whoever the “them” is in her life. She acts disinterested and calm on the surface, but whenever there is a crack of light, her starved self leaps out, runs for the nearest life form, lights up, kicks back, charges madly, dances herself silly, exhausts herself, then tries to creep back to the black cell before anyone notices she is gone. Women with poor marriages do this. Women made to feel inferior do this. Women filled with shame, women fearing punishment, ridicule, or humiliation do this. Instinct-injured women do this. Sneaking is good for a captured woman only if she sneaks the right thing, only if that thing leads to her liberation. In essence, sneaking good and filling and brave pieces of life causes the soul to be even more determined that the sneaking stop, and that it be free to lead life out in the open as it sees fit. You see, there is something in the wild soul that will not let us subsist forever on piecemeal intake. Because in actuality, it is impossible for the woman who strives for consciousness to sneak little sniffs of good air and then be content with no more.

LEADING LESSONS Pounce on an opportunity--even if you think you’re not ready. Whenever I got a new partner--and I had several over the years--I’d want to rehearse for months before we competed. But Shirley would give us two weeks to get five routines down. She’d throw us out there: “You have to bite the bullet.” Ready or not, we hit the dance floor. Why? Because you’re never ready till you’re doing it. No amount of preparation in the world can prepare you for the actual experience. I tell my Dancing with the Stars partners this all the time. You can rehearse for weeks, months, years, and still never be ready. You have to just go out there and live it--that’s when it will all make sense and come together. You can’t prepare yourself for the actual in-the-moment experience. Leaders take that leap. You can’t let insecurity hold you back. The walls that protect you are also the walls that imprison you. There’s an old Cherokee story about a grandfather who tells his grandson about the two wolves that live inside us all. There’s a battle raging between them. One is evil--he represents fear, doubt, self-pity, regret. The other is good--he stands for joy, peace, confidence, truth, faith. The grandson asks, “Which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee simply replies: “The one you feed.” There may never be a right time or a right place to take a risk. The right time is right now. In the past, I used to overanalyze everything, and if something landed in my lap, some great chance to be taken, I’d often talk myself out of it. I know now that you have to have confidence in who you are and what you want. You have to seize the opportunity and feed the good wolf.

Does the prince play?" asked the lute player. "Hamish is a wee beast with all stringed things," Fergus said. "Pity those wolves didn't have strings." Immediately, the woman passed the lute to Hamish. He didn't move his arms in time to take it, so she simply plopped it down in his lap. "I'll trade you a tune for your dish of pears." Hamish sat there, a frozen little creature with big eyes. Pinned to the bench by fear and by the lute. How badly Merida wanted him to be able to play fearlessly for this group. Not for their benefit, but for his. How was it that his sense of fun had been replaced by a sense of fear? She whispered to him, "You could play 'Crosses and Squares.'" Still he was frozen. Maldouen said, "Don't you think you owe Ol' Flower a tune for saving your life?" Maldouen was being playful, but he had, without realizing, hit upon the only way Hamish perform: obligation. Hamish let fear rule him, but not at the expense of other people. Hamish whispered, "All right," and then added, to the dog, "Ma'am," which made the entire table laugh uproariously. Hamish began to play. The villagers began to clap in time with him. Hamish played faster. They clapped faster. Hamish played little riffs and twirls, and the villagers got up and danced along with the well-known tune. With the lute in his hand and the tune ringing out strongly, it was almost possible to believe Hamish wasn't afraid, but Merida knew better. This was how it always went. When Hamish played for other people, he always looked like a different person. Straighter, surer. More like Hubert or Harris. This was part of a good show, after all, and he felt obligated to give Ol' Flower a good show.

When Surkov finds out about the Night Wolves he is delighted. The country needs new patriotic stars, the great Kremlin reality show is open for auditions, and the Night Wolves are just the type that’s needed, helping the Kremlin rewrite the narrative of protesters from political injustice and corruption to one of Holy Russia versus Foreign Devils, deflecting the conversation from the economic slide and how the rate of bribes that bureaucrats demand has shot up from 15 percent to 50 percent of any deal. They will receive Kremlin support for their annual bike show and rock concert in Crimea, the one-time jewel in the Tsarist Empire that ended up as part of Ukraine during Soviet times, and where the Night Wolves use their massive shows to call for retaking the peninsula from Ukraine and restoring the lands of Greater Russia; posing with the President in photo ops in which he wears Ray-Bans and leathers and rides a three-wheel Harley (he can’t quite handle a two-wheeler); playing mega-concerts to 250,000 cheering fans celebrating the victory at Stalingrad in World War II and the eternal Holy War Russia is destined to fight against the West, with Cirque du Soleil–like trapeze acts, Spielberg-scale battle reenactments, religious icons, and holy ecstasies—in the middle of which come speeches from Stalin, read aloud to the 250,000 and announcing the holiness of the Soviet warrior—after which come more dancing girls and then the Night Wolves’ anthem, “Slavic Skies”: We are being attacked by the yoke of the infidels: But the sky of the Slavs boils in our veins . . . Russian speech rings like chain-mail in the ears of the foreigners, And the white host rises from the coppice to the stars.

CHALLENGES TO YOUNG POETS Invent a new language anyone can understand. Climb the Statue of Liberty. Reach for the unattainable. Kiss the mirror and write what you see and hear. Dance with wolves and count the stars, including the unseen. Be naïve, innocent, non-cynical, as if you had just landed on earth (as indeed you have, as indeed we all have), astonished by what you have fallen upon. Write living newspaper. Be a reporter from outer space, filing dispatches to some supreme managing editor who believes in full disclosure and has a low tolerance level for hot air. Write and endless poem about your life on earth or elsewhere. Read between the lines of human discourse. Avoid the provincial, go for the universal. Think subjectively, write objectively. Think long thoughts in short sentences. Don't attend poetry workshops, but if you do, don't go the learn "how to" but to learn "what" (What's important to write about). Don't bow down to critics who have not themselves written great masterpieces. Resist much, obey less. Secretly liberate any being you see in a cage. Write short poems in the voice of birds. Make your lyrics truly lyrical. Birdsong is not made by machines. Give your poem wings to fly to the treetops. The much-quoted dictum from William Carlos Williams, "No ideas but in things," is OK for prose, but it lays a dead hand on lyricism, since "things" are dead. Don't contemplate your navel in poetry and think the rest of the world is going to think it's important. Remember everything, forget nothing. Work on a frontier, if you can find one. Go to sea, or work near water, and paddle your own boat. Associate with thinking poets. They're hard to find. Cultivate dissidence and critical thinking. "First thought, best thought" may not make for the greatest poetry. First thought may be worst thought. What's on your mind? What do you have in mind? Open your mouth and stop mumbling. Don't be so open minded that your brains fall out. Questions everything and everyone. Be subversive, constantly questioning reality and status quo. Be a poet, not a huckster. Don't cater, don't pander, especially not to possible audiences, readers, editors, or publishers. Come out of your closet. It's dark there. Raise the blinds, throw open your shuttered windows, raise the roof, unscrew the locks from the doors, but don't throw away the screws. Be committed to something outside yourself. Be militant about it. Or ecstatic. To be a poet at sixteen is to be sixteen, to be a poet at 40 is to be a poet. Be both. Wake up and pee, the world's on fire. Have a nice day.

Desire is… " Desire is the glow of bathing lunatics. Starlight is the liquid used to power a whispering machine. Humming is the music of a forest moving in unison with your eyes. * A slip of the tongue and the hummingbird’s empty throne make the acquaintance of the word frenzy, which in turn adopts the phrase: “I am closest to you when we are furthest apart,” and together they follow the anxious doorway that leads far out of the city, where travelers always meet, alone and abandoned with only their mysteries to guide them… and when the sun bleeds out of the dampness of the earth, like pale limbs entwined and exhausted, they all pause in their own fashion to reflect not upon themselves but on the white wolves in the garden shivering like mist, in the mirror hiding your face. * The nature of movement is an image lost between the objects of an eclipse fervently scratched into the face of a sleeping woman when she approaches the liquid state of a circle, wandering aimlessly in search of lucidity and those moments of inarticulate suspicion… when the riddle is only half solved and the alphabet is still adding letters according to the human motors that have not yet arrived, as a species, scintillating in the grass, burning time. Not far from your name there is always a question mark, followed by silent paws… * It is not without the mask of the Enchanter’s dance of unreason, that joy follows the torment of seductive shapes, and sudden appearances in the whisper of long corridors. Tribal veils rising out of fingerprints on invisible entrances in the middle of the landscape, assume the form of her shoulders and the intimacy of her bones making dust, taking flight. * The axis of revolt and the nobility of a springtime stripped of its flowers, expertly balanced with a murmur of the heart on the anvil of chance. Your voice arcing between the two points of day and night, where the oracle of water spinning rapidly above, that is your city of numerology, mixes with the flux of a long voyage more stone-like and absurdly graceful then either milkweed or deadly nightshade, when it acclimatizes the elements of transparency in the host of purity. * The dream birds of a lost language are growing underground in the bed of sorcery. It is all revealed in the arms of your obsession, Arachne, (crawling to kiss) pale Ariadne, (kneeling to feed) in a pool of light that exceeds the dimensions of the loveliest crime. She turns into your evidence, gaining speed and recognition, becoming a brightness never solved, and a clarity that makes crystals. * The early morning hours share their nakedness with those who bare fruit and corset fireflies in long slender bath-like caresses. “Your serum, Sir Moor’s Head, follows the grand figures of the sea, ignites them, throws them like vessels out of fire, raising the sand upwards into oddly repetitive enchantments. Drown me in flight, daughter of wonder…

Would that lambs had teeth.” “That would make the wolves more cautious, no doubt.

The Good, the Bad, and Huckleberry Hound Kevin Costner was inspired to write Dances With Wolves after viewing this movie on television.

in this moment of orangutans, wolves, and scavengers, of high heat redesigning the north & south poles and the wanderings of new tribes in limousines, with the confirmations of liars, thieves, and get-over artists, in the wilderness of pennsylvania avenue, standing rock, misspelled executive orders on yellow paper with crooked signatures. where are the kind language makers among us? at a time of extreme climate damage, deciphering fake news, alternative truths, and me-ism you saw the twenty-first century and left us not on your own accord or permission. you have fought and fought most of the twentieth century creating an army of poets who learned and loved language and stories of complicated rivers, seas, and oceans. where is the kind green nourishment of kale and wheatgrass? you thought, wrote, and lived poetry, knew that terror is also language based on denial, first-ism, and rich cowards. you were honey and yes to us, never ran from Black as in bones, Africa, blood and questioning yesterdays and tomorrows. we never saw you dance but you had rhythm, you were a warrior before the war, creating earth language, uncommon signs and melodies, and did not sing the songs of career slaves. keenly aware of tubman, douglass, wells-barnett, du bois, and the oversized consciousness and commitment of never-quit people religiously taking note of the bloodlust enemies of kindness we hear your last words: america if you see me as your enemy you have no friends.

Enrique Mercado-Lopez knew many things. He knew about histories and languages, myths and legends. He knew how to kiss well, eat well, and dance well, and though he was uncertain about many situations at the moment, there was one thing he knew without a shadow of doubt: this was not his place.

Indian Chief dances with Wolves, for the Rain Storm.

It is our brush with the wild nature that drives us not to limit our conversations to humans, not to limit our most splendid movements to dance floors, nor our ears only to music made by human-made in­ struments, nor our eyes to “taught” beauty, nor our bodies to ap­ proved sensations, nor our minds to those things we all agree upon already. All these stories present the knife of insight, the flame of the passionate life, the breath to speak what one knows, the courage to stand what one sees without looking away, the fragrance of the wild soul.

The list of Hollywood blockbusters that conform to the hero’s journey paradigm is almost innumerable. Just off the top of my head? The Wizard of Oz; The Matrix; Jaws; the Star Wars films; Titanic; Braveheart; the Harry Potter series; Rocky; The Lord of the Rings; The Lion King; Finding Nemo; Forrest Gump; The Incredibles; Silence of the Lambs; Mulan; Gladiator; Aladdin; Indiana Jones; Beauty and the Beast; and Dances with Wolves/Avatar (watch them back-to-back).

Perfection,” he said with a suave smile. “We’re the beauty and the beast of legend. I, of course, am the beauty.

What is taking that security guard so long?” Enrique grumbled. “He was supposed to be out by eight o’clock. It’s nearly nine.” “Maybe he doesn’t have a clock.” He stared at her. “Are you finally making a joke?” “I’m pointing out a gap in your observation.” Enrique let out a low whooshing breath. “And to think I could’ve been dancing at the Palais des Rêves tonight.” “They didn’t want you, remember? Séverin said your face was all wrong.” “Thank you.” “You are welcome.

Il tenente Dumbar non era realmente inghiottito. Ma quella fu la prima parola che gli si fissò in mente. Tutto era immenso. Quel vasto cielo azzurro senza una nube. Quell'oceano d'erba che ondeggiava al vento. Null'altro, fino a dove riusciva a spingere lo sguardo. Non una pista, non una traccia di sochi lasciati da altre ruote che il carro potesse seguire. Solo lo spazio, assoluto e vuoto

A dark gale rushed across the battlefield. With it, a destructive sonic boom slammed itself against the tank troops. The shock wave included the magical effect of the Storm of Destruction skill. Gradually, the storm grew to a tornado, a Dragonstorm of Destruction whose well-calculated movements were honed for maximum enemy casualties. That was Dance with Wolves, Gobta’s fearsome anti-army annihilator.

C. G. asked me if I knew of a place called Wallowa. I did, because nearby Joseph, Oregon, was known for fly-fishing, which I’d learned after seeing A River Runs Through It. He emailed, I don’t like artificial heat. I get the fire going, throw some blankets on the ground and imagine it’s a cold night in a teepee. I like the natural warmth of a fire, the sound of the wood burning and the smell. Remember that scene in Dances with Wolves when Kevin Costner is sitting by the fire and telling his concerns to Ten Bears? He’s told to forget his concerns and to just enjoy the fire. There’s comfort in simplicity. His emails left me breathless and burning in a way my body didn’t recognize.

There atop the mighty rock danced a small group of women, naked as the first day they lay upon their mothers’ bellies. Well, he was a lonely man, with no human friends but in memory—and he stayed and watched. The women were like beings made of moon milk, and their skin shimmered with little silver dots like those on the salmon in springtime

Ezra, some people think growth only happens in the spring. Plants grow in the spring. People grow in the spring of their lives. But growth is more than a springtime flood, it’s a dance. Dance in all your seasons, my boy, and play the music loud.

She gasps, tilting my chin, and we both look up to see what the sky does, how it dances green and purple and blue, the colors too brilliant to be in Werner's, and I am crying still but now it is for the beauty of the world, and for its gentle pull, for the mystery of it and its timing, for its deep, deep knowing, when I was so close to the edge and now I am returned, and I wonder if this is what Aggie sees each time she comes back to me.

the re-creator; all of these in cycle. Sometimes the one who is running from the Life/Death/Life nature insists on thinking of love as a boon only. Yet love in its fullest form is a series of deaths and rebirths. We let go of one phase, one aspect of love, and enter another. Passion dies and is brought back. Pain is chased away and surfaces another time. To love means to embrace and at the same time to withstand many many endings, and many many beginnings—all in the same relationship. The process is complicated by the fact that much of our overcivilized culture has a difficult time tolerating the transformative. But there are better attitudes with which to embrace the Life/Death/Life nature. Throughout the world, though it is called by different names, many see this nature as un baile con La Muerte, a dance with death; Death as a dancer, with Life as its dance partner.

A smile spreads over my face as I think about Rafael. He’s still an asshole to everyone else in this school but in the small pockets of time we happen to get alone, he’s different. Still cocky and possessive but also kind, thoughtful, and surprisingly funny. Just thinking about this past week we’ve had together is enough to make butterflies dance in my stomach.

I’m growing steadily more panicked as we follow my Cathalain guardians. It’ll be fine, it’ll be fine. I’m just going out to the gardens, where Thrain awaits me with his brothers and the Dubliners. Our pack. Then, after some dancing and drink and merriment… we will be led naturally into the claiming. That’s all. It’s going to be like a ritual ceremony. Not a mindless orgy. A ceremony.

But I must remain seated. The custom is for my closest kin to dance with her, have her enjoy the ceremony before I take her for myself. And my role is to watch. Sit and watch. No touching. What utter cruelty. Who thought of this, anyway?

We are the wolves, the hunted and the hounds. In the face of religion, we stand our ground. For too long we've been told what we should believe, But our hearts and our souls will never deceive. We reject the dogma and the fear they instill. We refuse to be bound by their holy will. We embrace our freedom, our love, and our truth. And we'll fight till the end, for the right to choose. We'll howl at the moon, and dance in the night. We'll live our lives, without fear or fright. We'll break the chains, and shatter the mold. For we are the wolves, fierce and bold. So let them come, with their crosses and their swords, We'll stand our ground, and we'll face their hoards. For we are the wolves, the hunters of our fate, and we'll never bow down, to their religious hate.

As I heard my name called over and over again---I knew--For The First Time---Who I was----DANCES WITH WOLVES.

L’Énigme was a princess exiled for falling in love with a British nobleman; a demoness let loose upon the streets of Paris. L’Énigme was a heartless temptress who danced because the snap of some poor man’s heart between her teeth was far better than any coin.

The body is a multilingual being. It speaks through its color and its temperature, the flush of recognition, the glow of love, the ash of pain, the heat of arousal, the coldness of nonconviction. It speaks through its constant tiny dance, sometimes swaying, sometimes a-jitter, sometimes trembling. It speaks through the leaping of the heart, the falling of the spirit, the pit at the center, and rising hope.

DANCES WITH WOLVES Dunbar finds a new reason to live and a new way of being a man because of his new wife and his extended Lakota Sioux family. Ironically, the Lakota way of life is almost at an end, so Dunbar’s self-revelation is both positive and negative.

Dances with Wolves follows the exploits of an army officer in the American West during the late 1800s. Gradually he is drawn to take up the life of the Sioux Indians he thought were his enemy. The hero’s central moral problem is how he treats another race and culture and how he lives with animals and the land. Each opponent and ally takes a different approach to this problem.

So, in Spanish I call her Río Abajo Río, the river beneath the river; La Mujer Grande, the Great Woman; Luz del abismo, the light from the abyss; La Loba, the wolf woman; or La Huesera, the bone woman. She is called in Hungarian, Ö, Erdöben, She of the Woods, and Rozsomák, The Wolverine. In Navajo, she is Na’ashjé'ii Asdzáá, The Spider Woman, who weaves the fate of humans and animals and plants and rocks. In Guatemala, among many other names, she is Humana del Niebla, The Mist Being, the woman who has lived forever. In Japanese, she is Amaterasu Omikami, The Numina, who brings all light, all consciousness. In Tibet she is called Dakini, the dancing force which produces clear-seeing within women. And it goes on. She goes on.

Enrique recognized Salomé’s Dance of the Seven Veils, and a depiction of the Indian nymph, Urvashi, performing before the Hindu gods.

Poem - Freedom XCIII From the divine orgy The suicidal came But what gods would Be? If not ashes From a forgotten Fenix “I believed in the love Of a fallen angel And as an ashen maggot Which crawls on Christ’s Dirty wounds He stabbed me But the Devil laughed And danced by my side He showed me his helping hand So I could live another day Depression probed me On the house’s dark corners And every time The Devil slept She would come to torment me I screamed and cried in despair But no god could hear me (…) The anxiety would proclaim curses That not even Judas would dare; Bent in my knees With antidepressants in my hands I threw myself at an abysm of a Insanity overdose I crossed the same path as Christ Where he carried the human’s cross And I found him hanged In a tree of lies With a note at his feet- Dance with me And I’ll give you the strength to keep going- Believe in the beast which lives Inside the men And light in you the morning star’s light I got up Drowning in my own blood And proclaimed My scream of freedom- of love! I only want orgies! – From gods I only want the human corruption The deaf depression Which crawled in my disgusting dreams As I proclaimed In front of the mirror of life My desire to live And without noticing She put a rope around my neck… I feel my body struggling In a deep despair Today I die! But I’ll tell Christ That his sons did not honored his suicide Today! I die for myself When the pigs grunt And the wolves howl I’ll be free from life! Which I was condemned to live - Gerson De Rodrigues

Years later he had tried to find his parents, to tell them that their Lump had become the great Varamyr Sixskins, but both of them were dead and burned. Gone into the trees and streams, gone into the rocks and earth. Gone to dirt and ashes. That was what the woods witch told his mother, the day Bump died. Lump did not want to be a clod of earth. The boy had dreamed of a day when bards would sing of his deeds and pretty girls would kiss him. When I am grown I will be the King-Beyond-the-Wall, Lump had promised himself. He never had, but he had come close. Varamyr Sixskins was a name men feared. He rode to battle on the back of a snow bear thirteen feet tall, kept three wolves and a shadowcat in thrall, and sat at the right hand of Mance Rayder. It was Mance who brought me to this place. I should not have listened. I should have slipped inside my bear and torn him to pieces.

Dance

If land and religion are what people most often kill each other over, then the West is different only in that the land is the religion. As such, the basic struggle is between the West of possibility and the West of possession. On many days it looks as if the possessors have won. Over the past century and a half, it has been the same crew, whether shod in snakeskin boots or tasseled loafers, chipping away at the West. They have tried to tame it, shave it, fence it, cut it, dam it, drain it, nuke it, poison it, pave it, and subdivide it. They use a false view of history to disguise most of what they are up to. They seem to be afraid of the native West—the big, cloud-crushing, prickly place. They cannot stand it that green-eyed wolves are once again staring out from behind aspen groves in Yellowstone National Park. They cannot live with the idea that at least one of the seventeen rivers that dance out of the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada remains undammed. They are disgusted that George Armstrong Custer’s name has been removed from the name of the battlefield memorial, the range of the Sioux and Crow and Arapaho, replaced by a name that gives no special favor to either side: the Little Bighorn Battlefield. Worse, the person now in charge of the memorial is an Indian.

Let me put it this way. Kirk was human. Lawson was human. You didn’t belong to a group or a pack. Each of you was willing to join our clowder.” “Okay, and…?” “He’s an Alpha. A werewolf Alpha, like I said. Just like Dolf, Alpha Lovelock has a group of shifters he’s responsible for. He isn’t going to join our clowder.” “No, I wouldn’t,” said Carter. “So that means if they mate, Aidric would join them.” Dolf’s tone said he clearly didn’t relish the thought. Marshell raised an eyebrow. “Really?” “I’m afraid so,” I said. “Then there’s the fact he’s a cat,” Temple added, lips pursed. His gaze danced between Marshell and Dolf. I crossed my arms over my chest. “Just what exactly does that mean?” “It means cats and dogs”—Dolf paused at a low growl—“sorry. Cats and wolves go together about as well as oil and water.” Dolf pushed the plate of food away from him. “So what now, Carter?” “I… I wasn’t expecting….” Carter picked up his drink and swallowed half of it in one gulp. “We don’t worship the same goddess as you, but we do understand the importance of mates. We feel they are a gift from Fenrir

One night the ball reached out to me when I slept and took me todash to Los Zapatos, Mexico. It was a funeral. The writer’s funeral.” “Ben Mears,” Eddie said. “The Air Dance guy.” “Yes.” “Did folks see you?” Jake asked. “Because they didn’t see us.” Callahan shook his head. “No. But they sensed me. When I walked toward them, they moved away. It was as if I’d turned into a cold draft. In any case, the boy was there—Mark Petrie. Only he wasn’t a boy any longer. He was in his young manhood. From that, and from the way he spoke of Ben—‘There was a time when I would have called fifty-nine old’ is how he began his eulogy—I’d guess that this might have been the mid-1990s. In any case, I didn’t stay long . . . but long enough to decide that my young friend from all that long time ago had turned out fine. Maybe I did something right in ’Salem’s Lot, after all.” He paused a moment and then said, “In his eulogy, Mark referred to Ben as his father. That touched me very, very deeply.

It’s hard to ignore the Earth when it slowly destabilizes beneath you as you sleep, when it unlocks secrets you never asked for or wanted. On my first night, I stood outside and listened. And maybe it was my imagination, but I could have sworn I heard the soil churning, the dance of a million dead insects, early humans, and wolves.

Wolves are the shadow dance partners of humans. The pair cannot exist without the other. We are the same and opposite, yin and yang, shadow and light. Ours is an intricate relationship.