I said, “Well, I would appreciate it if you would answer a few questions.”  The wolf said, “Yes.  Of course.  Be happy to.” So I said, “O.k., well, let’s just start off with the big one.  Is it true that you are the devil?  The devil himself, walking on the earth?”  The wolf sighed.  Took a big drag on the cigarette, let it drop to the ground, quietly twisted it into the dirt with his paw.  The wolf said, “No.  Next question.”  I said, “No offense, but, you know, some of these … I just gotta ask.  For my readers.” The wolf didn’t say anything, shook his tail, shrugged, “Yes.  Right.  Of course.  What else?”

“Well, do you have super-human strength?”

“Mostly we have wolf-strength.  Normal wolf-strength.”

“Can you see through plates of steel?”

“No.”

“Can you sense the approach of distant storms?”

“Maybe.”

“Do you love your puppies?”  With this question the wolf visibly brightened. “Yes.  Definitely.”  “So you would consider yourself a family man?”  “Absolutely.  Matter of fact, if there was a defining, uh, you know phrase or name – whatever you wanna call it – it would be ‘family man.’ Probably be more accurate for it to be ‘family wolf.’”  He laughed.  I laughed.  It was funny.

“Do you shit where you eat?”

“Well, see, interesting question.  Now let’s take pissing, you know, before we get to shitting.  With pissing there’s more to pissing for a wolf than for you guys.  Actually, beg pardon, but maybe you humans haven’t really copped to the fact that pissing is kind of a big deal for you too.  But anything going on in your – christ, I’ll do it for you – your ‘nether regions’ is all spooky.  You got this taboo on it.  For us?  Well, different story I guess.  It’s just part of living.  No shame involved.  Pissing is a form of speech for us.  It’s like a whisper that lingers.  You can tell what a piss mark says for days.  If the weather’s right, might last for weeks.”

If everybody in Idaho is terrified of the PACKS OF GIANT WOLVES – PACKS OF 40 WOLVES, EVERY WOLF OVER 230 POUNDS … well, instead of shooting them, maybe we could just serenade them?  Here’s the tale of the Norwegian boy who frightened away 4 wolves by playing Creed’s “Overcome” on his phone.  And here is the “Wolves and Music” section from a 1937 dissertation, Greek Wolf-Lore:

“Aelian is the only author who gives the legend that Pythochares the flute-player repelled an attack of wolves by playing a subtle and harmonious melody on his flute.  Horace alludes to a similar in the familiar lines of Integer vitae:

Namque me silva lupus in Sabina

Dum meam canto Lalegan, et ultra

Terminum curis vagor expedites,

Fugit inermem.

Conrad Gesner, the great Swiss naturalist of the Reformation period tells of a drummer who was traveling through a forest near Basel.  A wolf appeared behind him, dogging his tracks.  In vain did the traveler try to put the wolf to flight by throwing stones at him; then, suddenly, he lost his footing and fell in his path.  As he fell, his drum clattered, and off scurried the wolf in terror.  Reassured the traveler continued on his way, making merry music all the while.  James Howell, Historiographer Royal to Charles II of England, had heard his friend, Sir Thomas Fairfax, tell of a soldier in Ireland who was confronted by wolves.  In the hope they would spare him, he fed them his lunch from his knapsack.  As they were eating his last biscuit, he picked up his bagpipes and puffed a skirl; much to his surprise, the wolves went skyting.  “A pox take you all,” said he, “if I had known ye had lov’d Musick so well, you should have had it before dinner.” During the last century, a story was widely current in both Europe and the United States, the only constant feature of which was that wolves were put to flight by the snap of a violin string.  C.J. Cornish, in the course of experiments on the effect of music on different animals, put the matter to the proof.  When a violin string was snapped near the wolf den at the zoo, the wolf set up his back and, with his tail between his legs, drew back in a hideous sneer and slunk into a corner.  It was inferred that the old story was based on fact.  More recently, an Associated Press dispatch from Fort William, Ontario, solemnly related that some workmen had put a wolf to flight by whistling ‘God Save the King.’”

As I turned my back to the wolf I imagined that I felt her eyes on me. I imagined that her eyes fell on my neck, how open it was to her teeth, how close to the skin’s surface the vertebrae were. I imagined her jaws, the teeth driving towards each other, clamping down with the force of a semi-trailer 16-wheeler dropped from a four-story building – the force of that truck slamming into the pavement. I told myself, “Move very slowly.” If you are going to get a cup of sugar for a wolf, you must not run. You must not appear to be prey. You must not excite the “hunt image” in the wolf’s brain, because, if you do, surely you will die.

Well. No. That’s not entirely true. Although wolves are very good hunters, their prey are often very good runners. They have evolved with each other – a tit-for-tat in evolutionary time. All kinds of soft tears falling into the biological pool, wavelets and ripples echoing out from each genetic tear drop merging, building, erasing – all of it together, nothing separate, nothing solo.

WOLF – did this on March 9th, about 15 minutes long

In the dark, with utility lamp and microphone, army-crawl up to the stump, peer around stump. Sound has “Just” going on sruti-box iPhone app.

“February in Minnesota, the onset of wolf mating season. From a blind in an experimental enclosure, I observed a female curled up asleep on a snow-covered hillside. The breeding male of the pack appeared at the edge of the clearing and walked over to the female. The two sniffed noses. No sound was made, no tails were wagged, and no hair was ruffled, yet the male walked quickly away. Any other observer would be left with a variety of hypotheses to explain this behavior, but I had an inside clue. Both of these wolves were equipped with internal radio transmitters that allowed me to monitor their heart rates. I saw that the female’s heart rate was normal, whereas the male’s was exceedingly high. I believe that the male was testing the sexual receptivity of the female and was anticipating success, whereas the female flatly wasn’t interested. Thus, we can see that what goes on inside a wolf can tell us a great deal about what we observe on the outside.” (text from Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation, edited by David Mech and Luigi Boitani)

Crawl back from stump, around lowered screen, raise screen, raise mic stand, talk into mic on stand as new character – slow-guy with stuffy/runny nose – turn down sruti box drone.

This got me thinking about Whitley Streiber’s Communion which I haven’t read. You might not remember Communion. Aliens abduct a human, takes the human up into the spaceship, and anally rapes the human. For information. Most human beings never remember it – this anal … rape … information thing – they just lose track of some time. But some begin to remember what happened to them. Betsy’s read Communion and seems to swear by it. I don’t understand how you could swear by something that seems utterly terrifying. It’s like wildlife management and we’re the wildlife – dart, tranquilize, capture, trap, and trick them out with all kinds of devices – radio collars, transmitters, drugs, blood tests, all kinds of stuff – so we can GATHER DATA. They talk about how hard it is to catch a wolf in a plane or helicopter. Once they realize what’s happening, the wolf won’t ever let it happen again.

They are drugged. Their eyes remain open – do they retain this event? This horrifying ENCOUNTER … is this the 3rd or the 4th kind? I think there are 5 kinds of encounters. No. Wait. There are 7. The 7th kind is a union between a alien being and a human being to produce a “Star Child.” Of course there’s CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE 3rd KIND – famous movie from the 70’s.  Spielberg. What a thing to be watched and maintained all the time. You don’t need to be in a cage, because there’s nowhere you can go to escape. The whole world is a cage and you are in it. The people watching me are hiding so I will be able to act as if I were in a natural setting. As if I were living in the wild. As if I were completely free. (start high-pitched “Harmonium” sruti box sound) As if free will reigned supreme. They are studying me to examine my habits so they can provide sufficient habitats, where I will continue my habits in the habitat.

Video-projection starts – white screen slowly fades up.  Text below in Computer voice comes layered over Harmonium, while I move stump and astro-turf to stage-right.

So there’s this guy. He’s like a door to door salesman. He’s selling trees. The person’s not interested, but still, somehow, asks him what he’s doing and why he’s doing it. And this salesman, this kid, says how everything he’s doing is basically too late. He says, “There’s the moment where the building is hovering, slightly swaying, just before it collapses.” Then he says, “We’re in that moment.”

That’s what it feels like. I think a lot of people feel like this.

Out of white screen, video fades up of wolf tugging at dead-deer, ravens fluttering, fades back to white.  More Harmonium sound, then altered Black Keys’ “Howling For You” beat starts, Computer-voice continues over beat while I put on boots, cartoon hands, mustache, lumberjack gear, grab ax and set myself poised over stage-right stump. Video continues with drawings of wolf-facial features in various degrees of fear and aggressiveness fading up and out of the white screen

He’s got this girlfriend. He doesn’t know it, but they’ve got problems. She explains away her fucking the other guy because she’s “wild.” She says, “I’ve got this wildness in me.” I guess that’s one way to define that feeling. The other way to describe it isn’t about wildness at all – it’s the opposite: it’s desperation. Desperate to escape boredom and Existential Ennui. Bored to death with no prospects.

And what about this – the tree seller: if he really does have the ability to stop time – oh man, what the hell are they doing? What the hell are they doing being all mopey in their shitty little apartment? What the hell is she doing working out her pathetic daddy-issues fucking some lame ass sign maker? Well, o.k., maybe, as a filmmaker, THIS is her point: why are we fucking around when we could actually make the tides work again? Why are we so myopic and belly-button gazing and convinced of how bored we are, when in fact we have RICH and EXOTIC SUPER POWERS!? Maybe this is her point? I thought about her dad. He’s a publisher in Berkeley printing books written by … well … the one I red is very badly written and it basically feels crazy. Written about everybody traveling in a giant spaceship flying through Venus or Jupiter – some giant planet – the space ship PASSING THROUGH the planet and all the dimensional fuss and bother that has to happen for everybody on the ship to come through intact. And this all seemed to be coming through in this movie. All of it. She wasn’t holding any of it back, it was all on the table.

As this computer-voice-text finishes, the music shifts, I ax the stump to the beat of the music – in the future a contact-mic will amplify the strike of the ax so each time the ax lands in the stump a huge echoing boom fills the room.  At the end of this musical chorus, I get on my knees, pick up the stump with the ax in it, and crawl slowly all the way across the stage with the stump in my arms – fade lights with sound til the only thing left is the sound of me struggling to carry the stump across the stage.

“As unexpected and elusive as the wolves and their shadows, jazz music lifts, dips, builds, trails off, and begins yet another slightly different riff – all notes coming from the hearts of jazz musicians. Wild wolves are comparable to jazz musicians. As a wolf begins to howl after a long rest, one by one, other wolves in the pack choose a different note and join together in song, celebrating their camaraderie. The crescendo of all the voices fills the crisp, dark night. Far off a distant wolf returns with its own note, just like one jazz musician playing off the cues of other musicians’ notes, styles, and riff lines.

Both wolves and jazz musicians indulge in self-expression. As you listen to the selections on Jazz Wolf, imagine a few howling wolves on one side of a stand of forest green pine trees and a couple musicians playing saxophone and guitar on the other side. The notes of the two combos talk to one another, each pushing the other to reply with more soul, with a slightly different musical outlook. The starry sky is filled with the expressive music of nature – human kind and wolf brought together again in exceptional harmony.

Jazz Wolf brings you exceptional jazz music combined with the background nature sounds of gentle waves on Agnes Lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, creaking trees, crickets, barred owls, whip-poor-wills, paddling a canoe on a remote Canadian wilderness lake, rain in the forest, rushing rivers, the wind blowing through a northern stand of quaking aspen, howling wind, timber wolf cubs, and a gently flowing trout stream all mixed with the voices of wild Canus lupus – the timber wolf.”

Here is a track from Jazz Wolf.
Ramling

If you got through that you might need a shot of courage from the Courage Wolf – submitted by Conrad Bakker.

9.23.10
Elephant is amazing! Spencer and I were talking about it all night. Thank you, thank you for making art in C-U – we’re a lucky midwestern people.

9.23.10
Elephant was Awesome! The projections, the performances… amazing. I thought I would send you a picture of my sorority sisters and I at Norma Jean, the elephant grave monument we went to all the time outside of Monmouth, the story of Hero reminded me of this.

9.23.10
congrats!!! to the whole troop. it was wonderful.

9.24.10
A monumental accomplishment, Deke, Jennifer, Cast and Crew!

9.24.10
amazing show last night! everyone should go!

9.24.10
I saw Elephant last night. I wanted to let you know that it was one of the most inspiring pieces of art I’ve seen since I moved to C-U from NYC. I was dragged through every alcove of human emotion and left the event a very different person than when I entered. That’s some kinda brilliant. Thank you. I look forward to your future work with great anticipation.

9.24.10
Yes, I’ve been beating the band for this event. Deke and Jennifer always promise to blow your mind…

9.24.10
Stayed an extra day to watch your performance. Very glad I did. Powerful stuff. My first Deke experience and I am hooked. Bravo. You deserve all the success that this is sure to bring.

9.24.10
Enjoyed the show. So beautiful.

9.24.10
now that you can take a moments rest, i wanted to write and tell you both (and of course to the entire ensemble) how truly wonderful elephant was. i’ve heard from around campus only praise. i know faculty here had entire classes go, my daughter came down from chicago to see it, and the community. the entire performance, the feeling of interactivity, the video, and of course the elephant was truly original, effective and beautifully told. thank you and all my best.

9.24.10
Martha and I didn’t catch you after the show last night, but we wanted to make sure that you both knew how much we enjoyed it. It has been a privilege to witness the ever-increasing scope of these projects since “Kip” as well as what appears to be an on-going artistic dialogue between the two of you. Thank you very much. And good luck pursuing further venues!

9.27.10
Hi Deke and Jennifer!
WOW. I loved Elephant. What a huge thought-provoking spectacular extravaganza. Huge congrats to both of you!

9.27.10
all I have to say is: WOW. really fantastic job, everyone – the entire show was endlessly engaging and powerful and seamless and quirky and really quite beautiful… a real kick in the head many congratulations, all around!

9.29.10
Just wanted to add my kudos to all the others you’re no doubt receiving for “Elephant.” It’s wonderful to see something so uniquely original appear in our own backyard. I was there on Saturday night when you had a standing-room-only crowd; hope you got those numbers for every performance.

9.27.10
So, we finally went to see Elephant last night, and it was fantastic! I actually tried to go Sat. night, but got there 10 minutes late, and they were at capacity. I heard them say they’ve had to turn people away every night, so there’s definitely been a great response to the show. Dillon really liked it, too (and he’s usually a curmudgeon about these things). I really love the fact that information was passed to me (as in, I’m never going to a circus with live animals again), I vividly remember the stories told, feel like I lived with elephants for an evening – and I was totally entertained. What a unique experience! Even the last words – the soft, wet, huge elephant ears gently slapping against his bare feet—have stayed with me. It’s amazing that he was able to coordinate so many different elements, for such a total experience, in such a large space. Thanks again for telling me about it! This guy Deke is *very* impressive.

9.28.10
Ginny and I really enjoyed ELEPHANT. Complex, layered, funny, informative, and somewhat exhausting. Ginny neti potted when she got home…I just picked and blew. I haven’t yet mastered the art of neti, but I am trying. Your lungs must be toast. I have seen Gary Ambler in many performances at the Station, but this was his best, most seamless performance. Thanks for getting me to hold hands w/Tim VanLaar….I think something’s going to come of it. Yeah, thanks….The ultimate scene w/the elephant was killer. I love how it was made, and it’s funny but it looked better in the performance than in a static well lit mode. It was haunting and wonderful. Many moments on the screen were also good. I couldn’t help locate Calder’s Circus in the low tech claymation scene. The choppy sillouettes of the variety of white animals progressing across the screens were also very nice. Looking across as snow fell on the screen was great but I loved the light rays of projectors projecting at the screens behind me….. So much…just scratching the surface. Congratulations…

9.28.10
Yay! You made it out alive! At least I heaven’t heard anything to the contrary. You must be absolutely exhausted. Congratulations though. You pulled off something truly magnificent. We can’t wait to see you and get the post-mortem but enjoy your chill-out period for a while..let us know when you resurface. Big hug and thanks!

9.28.10
I hope you are sleeping all day and having pizza delivered so you don’t have to even get out of bed to eat! I know how exhausted you must be physically and mentally after the performances, the tech rehearsals, and on top of it all, the tenure materials due(!!) An elephantine task! I woke up with so many images in my head today from last night’s performance—the claymation, the b and w images of all the different species trotting across the huge screens in looped cycles, the crashing sound of the metal and the elephant hook sort of tools hitting it, and of course the huge elephant “puppet” and the horrible repetitions of the narratives of killing “Hero”. Thank you for such an experience, and especially too for connecting it to the “Knowing Animals” initiative. It is so crucial that we reach people not only through scholarly words but also through images, and haunting sounds, evocative movement, and an attack straight on the heart. Rest and recover, and then celebrate!

9.28.10
Is it true that Elephant was amazing, moving, delightful, profound?
Yes. It is true. I went twice, Friday and Monday and am still thinking about the experience. Here are two of my many thoughts: About a year ago I read a novel called the Elephant Keeper by Christopher Nicholson after it caught my eye in the New Books section of the Champaign public library. I was very captivated by its musing about Enlightenment notions of the distinction between humans and animals (and humans and lesser humans) and by the treatment of the elephant as a character in the novel. Perhaps you will find it interesting. For a review go to the Washington Post Aug 19, 2009. What about the voice you create for Hero in the wonderful opening scene of the talk show? A kind of Brooklyn-inflected sound that lends both intimacy and gravitas to this empathetic, tragic character whose sufferings might make us wise and offer us hope. A world-weary victim of who never forgets and is compelled to tell his story. Hero, it occurred to me, is a Jew. Thanks for this remarkable performance. I will never forget it.

9.26.10
Hello!
I saw Elephant tonight — really freaking awesome. Question/suggestion though – Are you planning on putting out an mp3 of the wrestling an elephant song? If not, you should – I have had it stuck in my head since peka cucha night a few months ago, and now with the performance I will never get it out again. You, your actors, and your technicians all put together a wonderful performance. Thank you.

9.26.10
Dear Deke (and David),
I went on Saturday and thought it was fabulous. In thanks I send you battle elephants painted ca. 1415 to add to your collection!

9.26.10
Saw the show Thursday night and loved it. Many thoughtful messages without being preachy and with plenty of humor mixed in. Suggestions: one actor firing a single gunshot (blank of course) up into the air toward the end of the historical tale…. the final shot that brought the elephant down. vendor giving-out/selling small bags of peanuts in the shell….don’t know why…add to the circus feel. I look forward to the next tale (tail) and thanks for livening up the CU art community

9.26.10
Dear Deke,
I saw your performance last night at the Stock Pavillion in Urbana. It was moving, shocking. Thank you for your efforts! You may have noticed that a lot of people came by word of mouth. One shocked person calling another. Friends urging friends to see. I wish to ask of you if the text of your performance is available for us to see and forward to others. I understand the sensitivities of sharing copyrighted materials, but you may perhaps consider publishing the narrative segments. If anything, this would be sure to generate greater interest toward your work. I, again, humbly thank you. P.S. In the unlikely event you are curious of this random person admiring your work. I am a physicist, studying biology, and moonlighting as a dancer

9.29.10
Deke Weaver’s Elephant – The Unreliable Bestiary.
I also visited Deke Weaver’s Elephant – The Unreliable Bestiary. It began with an intimate audience crowded around a semicircular arena with two huge screens at either end displaying facts about mammoths and elephants. Soon Deke Weaver showed up as an elephant long dead but called over for an interview on local TV channel. Amidst advertisements and self-glory of the host; the Deke in elephant ears and trunk and his usual light-hearted conversation manner gave out more historical facts and information about habitats and behavior of elephants in different parts of the world. Soon the screens were removed and the whole place opened up into a large larger than life space. Amidst magnificent drumming and trumpeting the audience was made to get up and walk all around the arena holding hands as they found themselves new seats – carefully done in hay. The whole place smelled of fresh hay and the whole place felt raw and crude; u put your hands down and hay would stick to your palms; I just loved that part most. Audience were sitting in two parallel rows facing each other; even as the performance happened in the long parallel space between. Huge screens behind each row of audience running the entire expanse of the arena captured our attention. Shadows of grasses; shadows of elephants, puppets, videos of old times; stories from near and far; pictures of forgotten diaries, were all collected and presented in a beautifully woven narrative – let out by Deke in his captivating voice. The story of a circus elephant who went crazy in a blizzard and had to be shot by locals; story of mahout training and stories of elephants living in families and that they remember were interspersed with the story of an ambitious queen for whom elephants were a symbol of power. The minimalist abstractions to mime a blizzard; skin of elephant zoomed in to its intricate detail to cover the expanse of the screen and the singer singing elephant trivia to a simple note. I was simply impressed by the simple narration, simple costumes, simple dances, simple abstractions to narrate a tale of extinction, struggle, survival and memory… For some reason – dunno what – to me it appeared to be a performance in the genre of a circus (if there is any such thing) though there was no such parallel; but just the simplicity and the abstractions perhaps make me think so…

9.26.10
Deke,
Congratulations – what a triumphant accomplishment. I really experienced this work in such a full way as audience , not as critical asshole. It just was so sweeping and amazing how large you made it and how much that did NOT feel gratuitous. The spectacle of it really worked. I love how it was alternately informational, anecdotal, cautionary, funny and sad. The video stuff was great and so well sewn into the total. You and the other actor are totally great. And there were so many beautiful, transitional states in it I hope Mike Ross came to see it because it make’s a great case for him collaborating with artists who work at this university!!! There was so much enthusiasm there. It was a real community affair because of the excitement of place and the otherness of the presentation style… I hope you continued to have such good audiences. Hopefully we can sit and have a proper chat about it when I get back. Happy Fall.

Here’s WEREWOLF BOY from Russia in 2007. And, just in case you’re not going to click on that link, here are the WEREWOLF BOY’s toes. Are those tasty? Yes. They are tasty. A couple of favorite quotes from the article:

“After 24 hours he had evaded security men at the clinic and escaped. He is now believed to be on the loose in Moscow region.”

“His nails on his feet were like claws.”

“He’s got typical wolf-like behavior and habits.”

Those unable to decipher the hidden meaning know nevertheless that it is there, for it is felt in all wolf country, and distinguishes that country from all other land. It tingles in the spine of all who hear wolves by night, or who scan their tracks by day. Even without sight or sound of wolf, it is implicit in a hundred small events: the midnight whinny of a pack horse, the rattle of rolling rocks, the bound of a fleeing deer, the way shadows lie under the spruces. Only the ineducable tyro can fail to sense the presence or absence of wolves, or the fact that mountains have a secret opinion about them.

My own conviction on this score dates from the day I saw a wolf die. We were eating lunch on a high rimrock, at the foot of which a turbulent river elbowed its way. We saw what we thought was a doe fording the torrent, her breast awash in white water. When she climbed the bank toward us and shook out her tail, we realized our error: it was a wolf. A half-dozen others, evidently grown pups, sprang from the willows and all joined in a welcoming melee of wagging tails and playful maulings. What was literally a pile of wolves writhed and tumbled in the center of an open flat at the foot of our rimrock.

In those days we had never heard of passing up a chance to kill a wolf. In a second we were pumping lead into the pack, but with more excitement than accuracy: how to aim a steep downhill shot is always confusing. When our rifles were empty, the old wolf was down, and a pup was dragging a leg into impassable slide-rocks.

We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes – something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.

Since then I have lived to see state after state extirpate its wolves. I have watched the face of many a newly wolfless mountain, and seen the south-facing slopes wrinkle with a maze of new deer trails. I have seen every edible bush and seedling browsed, first to anaemic desuetude, and then to death. I have seen every edible tree defoliated to the height of a saddlehorn. Such a mountain looks as if someone had given God a new pruning shears, and forbidden Him all other exercise. In the end the starved bones of the hoped-for deer herd, dead of its own too-much, bleach with the bones of the dead sage, or molder under the high-lined junipers.

I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. And perhaps with better cause, for while a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two or three years, a range pulled down by too many deer may fail of replacement in as many decades. So also with cows. The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realize that he is taking over the wolf’s job of trimming the herd to fit the range. He has not learned to think like a mountain. Hence we have dustbowls, and rivers washing the future into the sea.

We all strive for safety, prosperity, comfort, long life, and dullness. The deer strives with his supple legs, the cowman with trap and poison, the statesman with pen, the most of us with machines, votes, and dollars, but it all comes to the same thing: peace in our time. A measure of success in this is all well enough, and perhaps is a requisite to objective thinking, but too much safety seems to yield only danger in the long run. Perhaps this is behind Thoreau’s dictum: In wildness is the salvation of the world. Perhaps this is the hidden meaning in the howl of the wolf, long known among mountains, but seldom perceived among men.

Aldo Leopold, 1949

“This is so, milkshakey, dude” (quote from customers here at the coffee shop in The Dalles).

Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley in May.

I saw The Tree of Life a couple of nights ago. Pretty powerful. There are times when it felt like there was no structure – like it was a series of related images flowing by – but in the end, there was plenty of structure. Hardly any words, but definitely structure. Like dance maybe. At one point there is … well, I think it’s supposed to be a baby dinosaur, but maybe it’s just a small herbivore – like a rabbit. When we’re first introduced to the baby, it’s alone, in the woods, looking around, listening, uncertain if it’s alone. With the big wide rabbit-eyes (side of the head, like deer, antelope, ungulates – so they can see all around – better to escape) it seems innocent. Later, it’s lying flat in a bar of stones in the middle of a river. A much bigger predator dinosaur sees the baby, trots over to it, and puts one foot on its head. It holds its foot there. The camera shifts to the pov of the predator, looking down at its foot on the head. It lifts up its foot. The baby looks up and slowly starts to raise its head. The bigger animal puts its foot back on the head pushing it back to the ground. We can see the baby’s sides moving in and out, breathing. I kept waiting for the bigger dinosaur to rip into the baby and start eating. Finally, it lifted its foot off the baby’s head and trotted back through the shallows, across the river.

Because of the flow of the movie, with the family, father-son battle that’s happening (harsh, angry father who demands that he be kissed and hugged by his boys right after laying into them – very confusing and I think typical of a lot of fathers at that time – spare the rod, spoil the child), I’m not sure if this predator/prey thing was that or if it was supposed to be a parent/child situation. This confusion/conflation is probably exactly what Malick was looking for (I remember the terror of waiting for my dad to come home). This scene of the baby lying still, trying to escape detection, felt very similar to a situation we stumbled on in Yellowstone.

It was the last afternoon of our workshop. We took the bus/van out to where there was an old wolf den. On the way, we kept seeing a grizzly bear in the distance. Sometimes he would run – like he had somewhere he was going and he was certain of it. From our distant vantage point we could see antelope getting nervous, elk looking around, even bison (who usually are too big and tough and cagey for your run-of-the-mill predators) were paying attention the approaching bear. We followed the bear from one pull-out to the next, watching him with binoculars and spotting scopes. He always seemed to be sniffing something, nose up. Finally we saw him go up into the treeline, up into the treeline where the old wolf den is. The wolf den that we were going to be walking up to. We lost sight of the bear, assuming that, if he kept moving at the same speed, we’d be fine.

Watching the grizzly run – and later, watching four wolves from the Lamar pack running absolutely flat out, chasing two intruder wolves from their territory – it made me think about … damn. It’s this whole weird mix. These animals are living their lives out there, a lot of it in full view of all of the tourists on the Lamar Valley road. If the four wolves catch the two others, the two will get the shit kicked out of them and somebody will probably die. Watching the bear – why is it running? What is it feeling and sensing that makes it run now, trot later, run faster – what is it trying to catch? Time. Space. Perception. Food is there now. Food moves. Catch the food before it moves too far.

As we’re walking up towards the den (still have a lot of open ground to cover before we get to the treeline) we see a black bear running hard up a hill away from where we were. We kept watching the elk and bison and whoever else was around to see if they were alert and/or nervous. We couldn’t really tell why the black bear was so nervous and fully sprinting.

We get up to the den, just under the edge of the trees. As we walk under the trees the eight of us are all trying to stay close together. But after looking at the den, taking pictures of the den, posing with the den … people start feeling more relaxed. The group starts to spread out a little more. Looser. Not so concerned. While Jon had told us to stay together, I think most of us non-wolfy people were subconsciously a little anxious about going to see a CAVE. Maybe the running bear was sitting in the DEN, waiting for us in the CAVE that he had taken (by force) from the puny wolves? But once we saw the cave, well, sure – no bear. No wolves. Ah.

The den.

With the charms of the den fully absorbed, we started to drift down the hill. One of the Institute’s volunteers walked off, up the side of a small ridge/clearing in the trees. He hadn’t been with us the day before. He seemed very eager and very chatty and very much Wanting To Help and Wanting To Help The Guests (us paying folk) By Shouting Out When He Spotted Any Living Creature In The Valley (omg – the competition of SEEING in any of these trips, birding trips, etc. – I am such a sucker for the pack mentality. See, the day before there had been two older guys on our trip, in their 70’s, and a younger woman – college, there in Yellowstone to be an interpreter – me, and two other women who had just turned 40 and were there as gifts – escape the kids! – from their husbands … so, that day, I was NOT The Old Guy. But on this day, because of a mud/landslide, people had to leave early – so it was just me, the two moms-away-from-kids, our leader Jon Trapp, his wife Barbara, and two new volunteers. With the shifting of the pack, I was now The Old Guy. And the younger, fitter, louder, know-it-all who Shouted Out When He Spotted Any Living Creature In The Valley had slipped into the beta position of the pack. I was relegated to Nearly Dead… at least this is how I was feeling that day).

O.k., so SOWHSALCITV walks up the ridge. He comes back. Very fast. “There’s an elk fawn, right over that hillock – right there! It’s laying flat, completely still. It looks just like a pile of sticks. I almost stepped on it.” We have a small chat about whether we should leave. We don’t want to disturb the fawn. Or the mother, which must be around somewhere nearby. Jon, the leader, ends up saying its ok for us to go up a little higher to look down on the fawn. Now, when I say “go up a little higher” I’m not talking much – we walk up 30 yards, giving a 25 yard berth to the spot that SOWHSALCITV said held the baby elk. There are four or five of us, maybe there was six? We’re looking at the fawn. It’s 20 yards away. We’re all looking at it with our binoculars. Sure enough, you can barely see it. It’s laying completely flat, completely motionless. I wonder why it’s so still?

Then Jon is saying, with alarm, “Grizzly. Back away. Back away. Don’t run. Move quickly.” I turn. I look. And, yes, 25 yards away (Jon said 20 – but I’m doing my best to not give in to any fish-that-got-away exaggeration) was a grizzly bear eating another elk fawn. The bear looking right at us. A mouth full of leg. If the fawn that we were looking at was at 3 o’clock, the bear was at noon. If you have a minute, mark a spot, walk 20 paces – that’s how far we were from this bear.

We moved quickly down, away from the bear. Jon Trapp was excited and a little freaked out. I was too tired to be freaked out, too much of a greenhorn to know how dangerous this was. I did not feel a rush of adrenaline. I did not feel elated or euphoric. The main reason I knew I should be alarmed was because Jon has the resume of a guy who does not get freaked out (worked in Air Force intelligence, for a long time trained pilots survival skills, now works as an EMT and mountain rescue worker, last email I got from him had him fighting a wildfire in Georgia) … and Jon was freaked out. I looked once, saw the bear – just a quick snapshot – his face full of blood and sinew – then I moved, looked one more time and then moved down with everyone else, maybe 250 yards away from the bear. We all turned to watch him with our binoculars.

He buried some of the fawn, built a small hill of earth over it, lay down on it and seemed to fall asleep. All of this 40 yards from where the other fawn lay flat, stock still. The fawn that we had been looking at. Here’s some elk calf facts: when they are born they have no smell. Even so, bears eat 60% of all elk calves born in a year.

We watched the sleeping bear for a little while. And finally, we left. The bear slept. The elk fawn that still lived, lay flat, and would continue to lay flat until it’s mother came and touched it. I thought about fear. These two small elk were – at most – a day old. Not a whole lot of time to “learn” anything. The elk fawn laying flat was doing this entirely on instinct, reflex, primitive elk genetic survival hardwiring. Did it feel fear? If it did sense something that you or I might understand as “fear” – is it entirely chemical? The smell of a big stinky grizzly bear equals fear?

Why didn’t I feel any fear? A couple of days later, I was sitting on the back porch in Champaign, Illinois. I had gone out there to write about this thing that happened in Yellowstone National Park. As I sat down, in the warm sun, I heard a loud buzzing – JESUS! CHRIST! A HUGE BUMBLE BEE! FUCK! RIGHT NEAR MY HEAD! I got bolted up, dodging, lurching, running. Because, you know, hell… it’s a bee! A huge surge of adrenaline. Fight or flight (for this situation, it was absolutely flight).

(Wolf prints. Would you please look how big those paws are?)

So. Let’s recap. I don’t think bumblebees sting. But, damn. I was scared. I DO know that grizzly bears eat meat. I could very well have been meat. But I don’t really think of myself as meat. Ever. My experience with grizzly bears has been entirely on screen or through lenses (well, once through windows of our old van up in Denali). A bee is real. A bear, well, it’s an actor, a puppet, a metaphor for The Devil fighting Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins. That thing 25 yards away that I only got two very quick glances at before I was 250 yards away, looking at it through a pair of lenses – well … c’mon.

There is a gap between domestic and wild, urban and rural, myth and science, fear and comfort – but the gap is probably all in our heads and differs with every person (the terror Woody Allen feels leaving Manhattan). A wide gulf separates The Wolf (Lions! and Tigers! and Bears! Oh my!) as symbol and the wolf as a living, breathing animal. With our escalating population, “wild” space is managed to reduce human/animal conflict. So, in many ways, we end up with artificial spaces – gardens without fences, zoos without cages. The time on the wolf-management workshop’s bus didn’t feel that far removed from a safe, controlled theme park tour. The time we spent watching these animals through binoculars and spotting scopes felt like watching a slightly disappointing Wild Kingdom or Animal Planet – disappointing because the animals were smaller, there wasn’t a soundtrack and then they would run behind a tree so you couldn’t seen them for very long.

So what do you do with something that doesn’t fit into a Narrative? Something that doesn’t fit with your idea of the world? Something that’s in The Tree of Life, only it’s in real life and the metaphors aren’t immediately apparent and the semi-crappy 3D work done with the baby dinosaur isn’t pulling your mind off screen. I imagine the adrenaline would have kicked in if the bear wasn’t so gosh darned happy with it’s delicious baby elk. I imagine if he’d chased us, I would fit it into my big fancy important Story, if I lived to tell the tale.

The female wolf appears, disappears, paces, looking towards the kill. Finally, she fords the river, gets out, shaking herself like a golden retriever just out of a lake. Someone hisses, “It’s alive!” The “kill” is still breathing. The deer lifts its head off the ground only to see the light gray female wolf trotting towards it. The dark male wolf emerges from the brush. The wolves feed on the deer. They pull out viscera. They rip off large mouthfuls of muscle. Their faces are covered in blood. We see a grizzly bear moving towards the wolves and their meal. He comes out of the brush and charges the wolves off the deer. Wolves don’t stand a chance against grizzlies. The male wolf is annoyed – he bites the bear in the rear. But in the end, there’s nothing he could do. He stood by and moaned and barked while the bear ate the deer.

Here is some of what we saw.

A week later Jen and I were eating dinner here in (I guess it’s suburban, but there isn’t really any city nearby to be “sub” to) East Central Illinois with some friends. I told them about this Yellowstone encounter. One of our friends said, “Didn’t you want to intervene?” I said, “Why?” She said, “When animals are killing each other, I want to stop them.” I wanted to say, “But that’s why wolves are here.” All the top-of-the-chain-predators on the planet eat other animals. Biologically speaking, you could argue that the whole point of being a wolf is to kill other animals.

Cattle-killing-cockroach to ranchers, powerful medicine to Native Americans, devil incarnate to medieval European farmers, spirit animal to 21st century New Age seekers – the wolf elicits strong reactions. So strong that wolves in the United States were eradicated in the 19th and early 20th centuries by a systematic poisoning campaign waged by the federal government. Environmentally, the loss of the top predator proved to be a big problem. Trophic cascade affects the entire biological pie, right down to the microbes in the creeks and rivers. In 1995 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reintroduced wolves to Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho. The wolf restoration project has stirred up the old stories and all their symbols – The Wolf, The Lamb, The Cowboy, The Wild West – the situation feels like a Jungian dream, the pot bubbling with archetypes.

We have a very old fear of being eaten (Bruce Chatwin writes about this in Songlines). Now we live in a world where the sign outside the high school says, “Have a safe and happy summer,” where “safety,” no matter how dull, banal and soul-sucking, is the main objective.

That’s probably why The Wolf and The Wild are often thought of as synonymous – it’s tapped straight into the life/death cycle of the ecosystem. I guess we’d rather call it the “life cycle,” because death isn’t safe and it isn’t known and it’s scary and it probably hurts. But have you ever had one of those “brushes with death” where it makes the sky incredibly blue and the grass startlingly green? Maybe you need a little breath of death to make life perk up? Maybe you need a little wolf in your trousers?