I live in a dry land that once was under water, a seabed now 5000 feet above sea level. Sunrise is held at bay by a granite ridge 5000 feet higher, which at sunset glows as pink as coral. Looking west, the eye is drawn to the sliver of green flanking the Rio Grande, life’s blood trickling through a parched land that rises to five volcanoes close at hand, which in turn are dwarfed by a volcano 80 miles away. All under a sky of limitless blue.

This vista fills me with joy.

Driving into town from any direction, you can take in the largest city in the state with a glance. Stand under the cottonwoods along the river and you forget where you are. Here the land has not been subdued by man. We are surrounded by reminders that we are all recent arrivals and none will outlast the land itself.

The land appears still until you view it at 10,000 years per second, when it shakes and buckles, rises and falls, like a coffee cup on the hood of a truck at rough idle. The land appears flat until you cross it to find the surface cracked and broken by ravines scoured by wind and rain. The land seems silent until the wind howls like an injured animal lashing out in pain.

The land seems dry until a year’s worth of rain falls in a few days. We live for these days and relive them in conversations. We smell the rain before we hear it, we feel the temperature change, listen for the first drops. We sit on our porches, big grins on our faces with the look of wonder like children at a fair.

The Navajo advise each other to walk in beauty, to appreciate our surroundings and be part of that beauty.

This month, I complete my 34th year in New Mexico — more than half my life. This land leaves me speechless.

“Even a man who is pure of heart and says his prayers by night
can become a wolf, when the wolfbane blooms
and the autumn moon is bright.” (from the first Wolfman movie)

I can’t remember when I became a werewolf. Looking back, I see a few staggered steps, like tracks in the snow, lurching from man to wolf and back again. There is no cause and effect, merely history, which can be told so many different ways.

When I was a child, I had a dream. It began with me willing myself to fly. I soared over my neighborhood with delight. Soon, the force of will necessary to fly drained me and I began to descend, despite my will. In the slow descent, I flew lower into a dark woods and, at the moment of greatest fear of what lurked within, I awoke. This dream recurred many times until I was past 10 years of age. I think the dream portended changes to come.

In my teens, I found my pack. We stalked the streets and parks of Northern Virginia. To varying degrees, we found and created ourselves, as the pack and as individuals. They must have been the first to see my wolf nature emerge. I watched werewolf movies. I read Steppenwolf – auf deutsch sogar. I identified with the man uneasily on the edge of his society. At times, I lost my hold on humanity, which was a terrible sight, I know, and yet, my friends kept me in the pack, for which I’m grateful still. Eventually, the notion that “Mark is a werewolf” didn’t seem the least bit absurd – simply a statement of fact known to those who needed to know.

It was the pack that brought home my eventual mate the night before Halloween, 1981. Merri Rudd stepped into our den with wise shyness. She sniffed the air and told me she had been a dog in a former life. (I don’t recall when I first told her I’d been a wolf in the current one.) I followed her into uncharted territory, a land with its own wolves. In a few days, we’ll howl at the full moon for what could be the 364th time – a year of full moons.

At times, I think the wolf within crawled out from under my skin to become my totem, my animus, my daemon, if you will. The old man still snaps but his teeth are loose and dull. As much as ever, I linger on the doorstep of a large community, not sure I dare step over into the firelight, no matter how welcome I would be. But, from the edge, it looks lovely.

[reposted from 10/31/2015]

Friday night, Halloween weekend, 1981, Robert Coontz brought someone new home for dinner. I stood in the living room to meet her and she walked around the far side of the coffee table, nose in the air. She wasn’t avoiding me (she said), just sniffing her surroundings, having been a dog in a former life. That was my introduction to Merri Rudd, my belovéd-to-be.

[photo: mjh & MR in Landmark Shopping Center photo machine, Alexandria, VA, January 1984.]

Today, two billionaires pit teams of millionaires against each other in a stately pleasure dome built at taxpayer expense. Tomorrow, whether you’re grinning or crying about “your” team, a few people will be even richer and their surrogates will be hard at work opposing raising the minimum wage, arguing against the estate tax and regulations, while praising the non-existent free market. Hey, at least it’s more fun the original feudal system, right? Right? Go team!

[originally published Feb 2, 2014 @ 07:47 ]