Lone wolf...

The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man...only five hundred.

-Meredith Willson

Why does a wolf howl at the moon?

Have you ever wondered why?

In the eternal search for ourselves we wander, aimlessly at times. Throughout the dank, dark forests of our lives we sometimes see roads that seem to lead to our final destination. Occasionally, and sometimes more than we want it, the road ends on a broken bridge, on a sabotaged dam. We, with our ignorance, have been the perpetrators of such sabotage.

There are times when we must choose a small, forgotten winding trail through the dense woods. It may be the scariest place we’ve been, but only because we have chosen to see these difficulties as such, for we have seen a forest as a place people get lost, not as a great natural source of wood with which to build a campfire, or even a cabin to protect us from the impious weather.

Wolves howl not at the moon, the howl upwards so that the sound can be transmitted in 360 degrees from its howling point. It howls so that others like him can hear him in the distance when he has gotten lost. All sense of pride is abandoned, for a wolf is not foolish, it would rather announce he’s lost than risk never finding his way. They do it atop a rock, on bright nights mostly because amidst the darkness his way will be more visible.

Now other envious wolves can also hear the howl, and may search for him to kill the wanderer. Everything in life involves a risk.

Will you be brave and howl in the middle of your darkest hour? Or will you try to find the way on you own, in your foolish independence?

Lesson learned: ‘I will howl, and I will live’