Who is the Beast

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Who is the Beast?

by Gernot Dick

Dear Friend, the following is written from my heart, but it's not about the wolves or me. It's about all two-leggeds and four-leggeds and every tree and blade of grass and that we must learn to live life by giving integrity to all things.

"Who is the Beast"

"Write about it", they say, or it's phone calls I get from friends and strangers wanting to know what happened.

It's difficult to put the story of my life into words - especially since English is my second language - and besides, since my school years, I'm allergic to writing. Once I attempted to write because I accidentally hugged a Black bear, or accidentally, he hugged me, taking part of my nose off. I wrote about it, and reading it was nearly as killing as the act itself.

It's difficult to make something believable in words, when the doubtful mind, even by the camp fire, can't warm up to a story, a drama, which just about took one's life. Perhaps it just doesn't move people any more if you aren't at least dead. (As an artist/art educator for many years, I know making vital art is also an act of laying your life down, and there too, the skeptics often can't see it 'til one is dead). The bear incident happened years ago - too long ago to tell it. The emotions have already digested the experience; - and if it doesn't come from the heart anymore, to tell it by memory is too exhausting.

But the attack by the wolves happened just a few weeks back. I still wake up with a fury in me as if I have to fight the devil himself. And if I tell it, it feels to me as if I step into the skin of another being - have never felt that way, such raw power coming alive in me - scary! Who am I? What creature am I? And how can I write about it, if I preach for years, that a Wolf will never attack a human, as long as one keeps vertical with body and mind.

It is the seventh winter that I have skied annually around Teresa Island, the highest fresh water island on earth with a circumference of 75 km. Teresa Island sits in Atlin Lake in the most northern tip of British Columbia near the Alaska/Yukon border. Its peak, Birch Mountain rises some 1540m from the lake. The island has its own cariboo herd living on the higher plateaus and one of the densest grizzly populations known. Of the 16 grizzlies I have met, most of those encounters I had on Teresa Island. The Island is in the midst of a magical wilderness landscape. During the summer I have the base camp for the Atlin Quest wilderness adventures on its shore.

It's a 75-km ski into nowhere, a mountain wilderness visited by few, especially in the winter. But, as the lake freezes over by January, groups of snowmobilers, never one machine alone in case of breakdown, venture far into that solitude. No road. No hut. No people. You are alone. In part, that is the fascination for me - how far can I go? Whatever - sunny or blizzard or overflow - just with body and mind - and still come back!

The challenge is that I ski the 75 km in one sweep, with the minimum possible. No stops. I drink from the water bottle if not frozen, eat the apple and one sandwich as I ski. It's like taking temperature once each year, where my body and mind is at, checking if I'm still connected to the SELF and the universal force. It's good to know that stuff, as I take people on 10-day trips into the wilderness. But the biggest challenge of all is challenging myself teaching art, which to me is the most adventurous of all that I do. Fifteen human beasts searching for self-expression and higher consciousness, finding original concepts, and testing their beliefs, living and life. Such tasks test me equally on all levels - and it's exhilarating, dramatic, and scary, with crying and laughter. The commitment to this process turns me inside out, because as humans we have lost our sense of direction; we sure know it all, but we don't know who or what we are and where we are going. We are still pushing ahead with high speed. In spite of the fact that we now know, that we are hiding in the wrong direction and that the wheels are coming off. The "beast" in the wild out there could tell us the answers, but we are not listening.

It is 7am. I ski off from town; slowly the houses behind me fade into the winter landscape. The biting air feels cold in the early morning - its needle-like teeth bite into my joints, not yet warmed up. The snow conditions on the frozen lake are good. The 6km to the first channel, took 20 minutes - "whauuu" am I fast! 75-km through 6 is 12 or so, times 20, is around 240, divided by 60 - good god, I would be back in 4 hours! I'm too fast! I will never make it around. But, - it's addictive, feeling the speed as I glide along in skating style - each shift of the body-weight onto the other ski pulls me forward, using that rhythm - and fine tuned, using the muscles to the minimal possible, planting the poles inches from the binding, swinging the arms all the way through - just like they talk about on the Golf channel when I click accidentally the wrong button. I must slow down if I want to finish strong. It always matters to me more how I finish a task and less how I start it.

Now I have the right pace - breathing deep - even rhythm, like a pendulum shifting from one ski onto the other. I am sinking into the NOW - being one with mind and body, connected with what arms and legs are doing, my vision scaled down, from the ski tips and to about 3 meters ahead - entering fully into the experience - skiing - on and on, a rite away from all else. I dream, riding on my body's rhythm - now touched by warming sun rays dancing on frozen waves - passing Bird Mountain on the left, Section Mountain to my right. I'm entranced by the spell around me of miles of high mountain ridges glittering in light and the intensity of my focus inside of me.

After two hours breathing the cold air, my mouth and throat is dry. Sips of water with cranberry juice and sugar, to get me through - what if I put in too much? Also, did I calculate my time and km right? Often I think the secret is time. "In time" - like today, even my nose actually looks better than it did before - even my sisters say so!

And what if wind comes up or a blizzard? I might run into overflow for long stretches - still shifting my body, staying in rhythm - should I fall and the binding breaks, then I'm screwed. Would somebody come by? Not in weeks!

I'm close to the next narrows, still 40 km to ski - in the distance, to my right, I see spruce boughs which have been blown onto the ice - what else would it be, - 100 - 150 meter away? Double poling, I push over sections of blank ice; the skis have no grip. Don't fall! - if the binding breaks, I'm screwed! Suddenly, the spruce boughs are moving - coming towards me - curious as cariboos are, also in such numbers - they must be cariboos. (My god! how do you spell cariboos?) Hardly taking notice - my visual focus is in front of the ski tips - and shifting, holding the rhythm, not wasting energy - every muscle fined tuned, not using more power than what is needed to keep gliding. Now 200 feet and they still keep coming - united, not scattered like Cariboos and, suddenly, running in a trot, and, within seconds, they shape a half circle with precise distance from each other, over a spread of 200 feet - that's no cariboos -!! Wearing my sunglasses and not my corrected ones, I try to focus - Jesus, those are Wolves! A bigger pack than I have ever seen! I can't believe - they still keep coming in trot towards me - any moment they will stop, watch me, study me, 'til their curiosity is satisfied. They might trail me for a while, and honored I feel always when they do, that they take note of me - me, a human. Being trusted or respected by a wild animal is, to me, one of the greatest privileges I can ever be granted.

What's the matter with them? - Jesus, they still keep coming - 30 meters away. Don't they know that they are Wolves? Their hunting strategy, the precise half circle with precise distance from each other, threatens me most. I feel a gripping sensation coming over my body. Their heads low and necks stretched forward - don't they know that I am a human? Maybe I'm the cariboo to them? My skiing rhythm, similar to a cariboo running - what else would I be to them? No human is ever back here alone without a noise of a motor from a snowmobile. Left and right, the circle is closing around me! I start shouting at them - they must stop - I take my skis off to be able to fight - I have one more minute - instinctively, I reach for my rucksack, which is at home. And why should I bring pencil flares or the knife; the bears are sleeping.

I raise my voice to the fullest; in one minute it will be over - It can't be! A fury, a force, which I have never experienced, comes alive in me, Years back, by some mountain climbs or in white-water, I had close calls, but my instinct responded with calm and heightened focus - now it feels as if a lightning bolt surged through me tearing the Wolves or the whole universe apart. I swing one ski over my head, shout with everything I have in me, which triggers another force in me - now they are 5 meters away, in a half circle around me - two black Wolves in the middle of the attack-line are the closest - their heads ducked low, their hair straight up on their backs - they must snap out of the attack - I am human. I am no moose, no cariboo - they will have me to pieces in minutes. As a last resort, hoping they will stop, I run towards the two black Wolves, with leaps not anything near what a caribou could manage, swinging my ski just feet in front of their noses - they stop - but left and right the rest of the pack keeps closing in. I leap and hop left and right, swinging the ski at them, and now - they all stop - the circle nearly closed around me. None is moving; all necks stretched low and looking ugly. No motion. Some snarl their teeth; their eyes focused on me! If they don't run off now, if just one gets me, the rest will be all over me in seconds. They must run off now, otherwise it's over! I focus on the two black ones in front of me, swinging and slamming the ski on the ice in front of them. Now they turn and run - faster than they came, and the pack follows them, scattering over the ice in all directions. I come back to myself, not able to comprehend what has happened - "not possible", I keep saying, putting on my skis. "Not possible", and I start skiing. "This could have been the end! Not possible!?"

Skiing too fast, I run out of strength and breath. Exhausted, I stop leaning on my poles. I look back - there they are again in a pack of twelve. I ski on and they follow. I stop. They stop, in normal, civilized Wolf behavior.

"What was wrong with you guys? I'm a human. What took you so long to snap out of it?" My mind carried on questioning, not focused any more on my rhythm or distance covered. Why did they attack and why did they not take me? They were lying on the ice waiting for me. What stopped them? Perhaps it was, when, as a last resort, I ran against them? Wolves came close to me before, but not in trot and not in this half circle attack strategy which threatened me to my very bones.

Now, 20 minutes later, I ski and they follow; I stop, they stop. That's familiar, that's what they do because they are Wolves. With tears running down my cheeks, I turn once more, overcome with emotions - lifting my arm, waving, as a group of trees swallows them. Again I stop, emotions overcoming me with deep sadness as I realize the integrity and truth of a Wolf and the sadness of what is human. I am reflecting on what I have been speaking about for many years; living my life with 3 metaphors: The Mountain, the Tree and the Wolf. Those are inspirational mentors, which help me to become a better human, as I try to live truer and closer to what the universal truth holds. Five billion years of evolution hold a lot of wisdom - the Wolf, if we would follow him, could show us the way!

Perhaps I am too nostalgic about mother earth, in regard to what happened out there, but I must say that the meeting with the Wolves teaches me. There is a more essential, a more transcending way the "beast" can teach us humans. We have not learned to define the line of when to kill and when not to kill. The wolf has integrity and does not deviate from his truth, even in hunger and despair. How did they finally "see" me that caused them to back off, or did they realize, "hey, we are wolves he's not and we don't do that! A pack of 12 needs a big kill in the winter - it would have been no effort to tear me to pieces, especially when psyched into the hunt. Still, they didn't take me; they stepped back; they listened to the higher truth within the clockwork of evolution.

I was beyond the halfway point skiing past Cariboo Island, when I saw again a dark spot on the ice. I skied towards it - it was butchered meat, bait laid out to shoot the Wolfs. I could not stop the tears - they had just given me my life - and we take theirs just because we like to kill.

We kill for many reasons - for hunger, greed, race, power, religion, and some of us even kill because we like it. And, even further, it shows our arrogance when we curse our own kind, "You are like an animal!"; "You are like a beast!". What an insult to every creature in the wild, that we use the animal as a metaphor for inhumanity. If anything, it is our civilization which is the dangerous wilderness.

For thousand of years, we slaughter each other, always intelligently developing just reasons to whitewash the bloodbath. And then the arrogance in the belief that we are the chosen, even that we are the chosen to live beyond death, or even to return under another mask. We just can't face, that we will be as dead as a mosquito and why should we deserve better?!

If there should be reincarnation, I would feel honoured to return to a higher calling, by living in the wild as a Wolf.

Gernot Dick, © Atlin Art Centre, Phone:1-800-651-8882
www.atlinart.com
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