Light Wolf, Dark Wolf
In the night, the flames of the fire were sending sparks to the dark sky.
The old tribe chief was staring at the sparks, the feathers on his head standing up to the sky in pale shadows. Young Hawk-Eye was watching him attentively, as the power of the night was rising in his chest, a mysterious wave as deep as the fresh memories of the fight that had taken place that day. He had seen blood spill on the dry lands, bodies rolling in the dust, arrows flying, knives cutting through moving warriors, heads falling off. It was a hunt, a confrontation, a clash of energies. Life was a race and the rush of the moment seemed to gather whatever it had and break it into suffering and destruction, only to mold it back again in other pieces. The fight was permanent. The pieces were temporary. Time was an illusion. Hawk-Eye knew there was a force in his soul, deeper than the night. There was also a sublime light that could overpower that darkness. And both clashed in his mind, like questions. He was capable of sliding into darkness or rising into light. Both possibilities could lead to endless variables in opposite or parallel directions.
“There are two wolves within everyone of us”, the old shaman spoke. “You can choose the good or the bad wolf. Most people live with both at the same time. How much of each you are, it depends on you. You are free to decide, but be careful: once you decide, it is done.”
The young warrior knew the inevitable dichotomy of life in the universe: it was a permanent discovery of a binary law and a multitude of variables in between. And yet, how to choose between day and night? Both could be appealing. He could have been either of the wolves. He could have been alternatively each of them.
“The light one is brighter. It is more difficult to be positive, but it is more important to be good”, the old man said. “Because ultimately, we are pieces of light, lost across the sky. And we just need to come home.”
His words dissipated in the darkness, rising with the sparks of the fire and melting in the sky.
“How do I dissociate from the shadow?” asked Hawk-Eye. “ It will follow me no matter how much I focus on the light. It's a part of everything. It can't be erased: fighting it is pointless.”
“You don't have to escape it - you only need to turn away from it. Of course it's a part of life. But you don't have to do much to get a balance. It's simple: find the energy that is missing. Feed the good wolf with light. Find him an answer.”
Then the shaman's body became a smoke contour in the night, his astral shape following the sparks from the fire. Hawk-Eye glanced up at the stars that were twinkling cold and distant. He was alone, with the camp fire. The wisdom of the universe had been a vision, an echo from the mysterious beyond. It had taken an elusive form for a moment and then it had vanished in the blink of an eye.
The young warrior knew he could choose to be kind and peaceful. He could choose to avoid the fight. He could douse the fire in him by soaking his mind in light, elevating his instincts, shifting his focus. He could awaken the vision of the great spirit. He wondered if he could have lived instead a simple but meaningful life, finding a woman to share the happiness and beauty of a miraculous world, watching children grow and learn to be more than their ancestors. He could have spent time in that way, reaching the wisdom of the rising smoke, able to travel anywhere, for eternity. But he also sensed the night calling him, from a hidden corner in his soul. It was there, waiting to grab an opportunity: the rush of the fight, the unexplained power of the metal blade, the motion that added to the energy of being ahead of the flow and the race. The shadow was there. It would forever remain a possibility. The duality was exclusive, but also implicitly inclusive.
He stirred the embers of the fire with a stick. The wolves were there. Both of them.
At first, it was like a long howl, somewhere distant.
And then, the sound of shrieking metal, loud shouts and the deafening guns surrounded the valley where Hawk-Eye was guarding the tents of his people. He knew the war wolf had attacked. The war wolf was hungry for blood, death and suffering, but mostly for the power the battlefield radiated. The dark power concentrated in the unknown of void places, in the far corners of the universe, the resonant negativity drawing everything in it, engulfing, eating down the energy of life to feed itself and become overwhelming, implacable, irreversible. The war wolf wanted to dominate and rule, moving people to taste the thirst for power and slide down the abyss of hopeless darkness.
Hawk-Eye jumped to grab the bow and arrows. He had no choice but plunge into the agitation and danger. The war wolf had awakened in his soul too. His mind was full of the howling of battle, the adrenaline of the fight, the need to respond and react. It was an inevitable call to movement and intensity. The desire to win, to remain alive and powerful made his feet move faster.
He joined the chaos of battle. He saw slashed throats, pierced chests, struck skulls and people falling like trees suddenly cut down. He knew it was an endless cycle of retribution: from the dawn of time, life was a clash of energy, a boomerang of aggression, a greed to consume or destroy. He could see the centuries of fights and killings as an endless path of doom. There was no escaping it. There were no good or bad sides: everyone was guilty and involved in it from birth to death. It was printed in the stars, in the atoms, in the cells. It was chained to the tumult and struggle of existence.
And yet, there had been a choice, a harmony, a balance at some point. There could be - had to be another way to feed the peaceful, strong and bright wolf. There had to be a way to break the chain of suffering and anger. There had to be another way of being alive, far from bloody confrontation and destruction. He remembered the simple yet eternal sense of belonging, of bliss, of certainty. He remembered Ray-of Sunlight. She had been his girlfriend for a year. That year had been different. It was filled with joy, fields of flowers, happiness, beauty and clarity of mountain rivers, floating white clouds in a blue immemorial sky. Life had been that way in her presence. She had made the world seem heavenly. She knew how to bring the bright wolf to light.
At that time, the bright wolf was getting stronger and giving meaning to the entire universe. But it ended when she was taken away in a similar attack as the one on this night. Hawk-Eye had not seen her since. He had no idea where she could be. Seasons passed the same in her absence. Time didn't matter anymore. It never did.
He jumped in the fight, sending arrows left, right, ahead and behind. He had to move fast and use his sharp senses: listen to noises, predict danger, avoid bullets. He heard a long distant howl and looked up at the glowing moon above. And then, a blow to his head made him fall in the scorched grass. When he fell, he also felt himself rising above the battlefield, like a contour of smoke. His lifeless eyes could still see the stars, spread across the dark sky, glistening in cold indifference. It was the end of his people and the story of that land. In the night, the moon was watching, pale and silent. The moon had witnessed the end of so many stories. The moon had seen the apocalypse of too many civilizations, the crumbling of so many empires. It had watched the depth of darkness from the beginning of time.
Hawk-Eye saw the inevitability of the abyss the war wolf had brought. From above the fighting grounds, he saw everything: the useless agitation, the scale of diminished significance of worries, anger, struggle and years of desolate loneliness. It had all dissipated into mere detail. His consciousness was expanding higher, above the earth. He could see the centuries of a troubled planet coexisting with the beauty of blue and green, with the rainbows over the water, with the harmony and elevation of good intentions. It was as if there were two or more levels of existence that were parallel and immersed in each other simultaneously. The war wolf was trying to rule out the bright wolf. The bright wolf was trying to overcome and erase darkness. Both were taking turns and gaining strength. Throughout the centuries, none could prevail completely over the other.
And yet, Ray-of-Sun had shown the power to tame the war wolf. Hawk- Eye had seen her do it: she could help the bright wolf to stabilize the world. She could heal, calm, enlighten and release a soul to freedom and serenity. She was more than a simple girl from a lost tribe: she was a part of the universe that could balance the never-ending clash and dichotomy. And yet, like the night and day, her apparition alternated with her absence.
Hawk-Eye was rising above the planet, connecting to the immense power that was drawing him nearer like a magnet. There was so much to be revealed - so much that he knew he was. “My name... my name is one with the eternity beyond” he thought and the truth resonated in his rising awareness.
He was already detached from the planet and he remembered so many other worlds, so many other planets, galaxies, levels and shapes of existence. It was an infinite diversity. And yet, it was reduced to one vision in that timeless moment. The shaman had been a reflection of that great, higher eternity, an echo of his own knowledge that spread across the universe.
He turned to fly through dimensions, with one question still following him from the existence he had left as a tiny thread in a huge tapestry: who was she and what was her name?
Only one answer came from the infinite awareness, opening his eyes to why and because: “she is love.”