Quest Magazine

VOLUME 108, NUMBER 4

CONTENTS

Channeling the Waters of Wisdom: Ancient Lineage and the Transmissin of Knowledge
Cherry Gilchrist

Original Vision: On the Choice of a New Life
Janet Macrae

Ancient Wisdom for a New Age: Theosophical Translations of Hindu Scriptures
Michael Gomes

How do We Teach about the Root Races?
Andre Clewell

The Tragic Consciousness in Literature and Tradition
Zane Johnson

From the Editor's Desk
Richard Smoley

Members' Forum: Therapeutic Touch Camp Continues via Zoom
Sally Blumenthal-McGannon

Viewpoint: Change and Our Response to It
Barbara Hebert

Printed in the  Summer 2020  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Smoley, Richard, "From the Editor’s Desk" Quest 108:3, pg 2

by Richard Smoley

At New Year’s, I told my wife, “Next New Year’s, we will no longer recognize the world.”

So it has proved, as I write this less than three months later. The world has been convulsed by a virus that came seemingly out of nowhere.

My remark hardly makes me a prophet. As a matter of fact, I don’t believe in prophecies, since very few of them came true, even those in the Bible. (For my views on this subject, see the chapter “Nostradamus and the Uses of Prophecy” in my book The Essential Nostradamus.)

Where, then, did I get this idea? From astrology. On January 12, there was an exact conjunction of Pluto and Saturn in Capricorn, which pointed to some convulsive event that would occur around that time. Nineteen years ago, a similar though less intense aspect—an opposition between Pluto in Sagittarius and Saturn in Gemini—presaged the 9/11 debacle.

I was by no means the only one to have seen something like this from the positions of the planets; it was a common topic of discussion among astrologers (and I am very far from the most proficient person I know in this subject). They did not predict either disaster specifically, but in both cases they knew that something was coming.

In the case of 9/11, the astrological picture was especially striking. Pluto, the wrecking ball of the planets (and the planet of fanaticism), was in Sagittarius, the sign governing religion. Saturn, the planet of established structure, was in Gemini. Hence destruction wrought by religious fanatics upon the structure of the World Trade Center. Because Gemini is the sign of the twins, it was uncannily fitting that the destruction should have been visited upon the Twin Towers.

As for the January 2020 conjunction, which took place just as the coronavirus crisis was beginning to emerge worldwide, here is a quote from the website astrotwins.com: “The ‘rip it down to the studs’ renovations that a Saturn-Pluto conjunction demands is rarely gentle. Pluto, the galactic Grim Reaper, has no problem destroying anything that comes into its path. The dwarf planet demands total transformation, and that means getting rid of whatever is keeping us stuck in an old groove” (https://astrostyle.com/the-saturn-pluto-conjunction-busts-the-status-quo).

This prediction, made last year, has proved true. Nothing specifically was foreseen, but as we learn from the tale of the appointment in Samarra, specific foreknowledge would very likely have done no good: often you hasten most furiously toward your destination when you are fleeing from it. This event is simply something the world has to go through. Each of us will learn our own lessons from it as we need to.

Although much of this year will consist of processing the shock of this conjunction, the story isn’t over (it never is). The year will end with an equally momentous astrological event: the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn on December 21. This event takes place every twenty years, and introduces huge transformations of its own. (A great conjunction in 7–6 BC, involving Mars as well, is sometimes correlated with the birth of Christ.) The last great conjunction, which took place in May 2000, coincided with the burst of the dot-com bubble, followed by serious dislocations in the politics of the United States.

The 2000 conjunction took place in Taurus, an earth sign, which dashed many foolish expectations. The one to occur in December is different: it will be in Aquarius, an air sign.

This fact is even more momentous. The great conjunctions occur in signs of the same element for roughly two hundred years. With one exception (in early 1981), ever since the conjunction of 1802, they have taken place in earth signs.

 From now on, great conjunctions will take place in air signs for a couple of centuries. The one to come in December will be coupled with a square (a harsh aspect) to Uranus, the planet of upheaval. This event will mark a convulsive turning of the age.

For better or worse? We don’t know. It is risky to say more. I myself suspect that this shift of the great conjunctions from earth to air signs will correspond to a definitive break with the materialism that has dominated Western thought for the past 200 years. We have long since seen hints that this will occur, but even up to this moment, materialism maintains its hold.

How, then, are we supposed to behave in this transitional moment? In the most important sense, nothing has changed. If you are committed to esoteric work (however you understand that), your standing orders remain: you have to be a stabilizing force in the world. You have to keep your center even though everyone else is losing theirs. The present crisis does not change the task, although it may make it more difficult.

Hard times or good times, the message is always the same: we have to do our inner work.

Richard Smoley

Printed in the  Summer 2020  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Brooks, Mark Hunter, "A Multidimensional Explanation for Magnetism" Quest 108:3, pg 34-38

By Mark Hunter Brooks

Don’t let the title of the book Occult Chemistry scare you. The Theosophical Publishing House first released this important work over 100 years ago, and its concepts have never left the world’s psyche. By its third edition, published in 1951, it had grown to over 400 pages with over 200 charts and detailed drawings that described the physical structure of all the atomic elements known at that time.

How did the authors, Theosophical Society leaders Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater, do this? They practiced a yogic technique that enabled them to visually observe objects on the subatomic scale (Besant, 1. This ability is also mentioned by Theosophical author A.E. Powell, who wrote that this ability could be used to either magnify very small objects or to shrink the immensely large: Powell, 110–11). In contrast, scientists today use particle accelerators, like CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (See “Definitions”), to smash atoms into each other at a speed close to that of light so they can observe the debris from the collision.

Figure 1. The drawing of the hydrogen atom in Occult Chemistry. Arrows and terms are my additions.

 A third claim the book makes concerns the existence of anu (the term is the same in both the singular and plural). These entities are smaller than quarks, which are the smallest subatomic particle that science currently recognizes. The book’s drawing of the hydrogen atom (figure 1) shows three anu inside each of the three quarks that make up the hydrogen atom’s proton and neutron. The book states that anu come in two mirror-image types: male and female (figure 2). Male anu move energy from the astral to the etheric dimension, which is the dimension next to our physical dimension, and female anu move energy in the opposite direction. (Besant et al., Occult Chemistry, 13–14. Leadbeater separately describes the mirror-image reversal of numbers in his description of the astral plane: Leadbeater, 7–8).

This article adds yet another claim to the list, that the book’s drawing of the iron atom can be used to explain how magnetism works. Scientists have written about the properties of magnets, but they have yet to explain how or why the magnetic force originates in nature. This article asserts that it is the anu’s movement of energy between the etheric and astral dimensions that creates the magnetic force. Support for this claim comes from the observation in Occult Chemistry that anu simultaneously spin and exhibit a pumping action (Besant et al., 14). The name for this type of movement, which was unknown at the time, is a Clifford displacement. It occurs when an object in the fourth dimension simultaneously spins in two orthogonal, or opposing ninety-degree, planes (figure 3. See the YouTube video Visualizing 4D Geometry: A Journey into the Fourth Dimension [Part 2], starting at 12:58 into the video, for a representation of the movement. Sourced from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4URVJ3D8e8k&t).

Figure 2. Images of male and female anu.

Using this definition, I propose that male and female anu are actually the same entity, but that they are distinguished by the dimension in which the anu’s head is situated. If the head of the anu lies in the astral dimension, it is a male anu, which moves energy from the astral into the etheric dimension. Conversely, if the head of the anu lies in the etheric dimension, it is a female anu, which moves energy from the etheric into the astral dimension. The astral dimension is fourth-dimensional, which aligns with the assertion that the anu’s motion is a Clifford displacement.

Figure 3. An illustration showing how an anu's simultaneous spinning and pumping action can be characterized as a Clifford displacement, giving rise to an explanation of the difference between male and female anu.

The physical structure of the iron atom is unique. According to Occult Chemistry diagrams, it resembles a multiarmed jack from the children’s game Ball and Jacks (figure 4). At the tip of each arm is a point-shaped funnel that is covered with anu (figure 5). It is the only atomic element in Occult Chemistry drawn with a funnel at the tip of multiple arms. In nonmagnetic iron samples, the distribution of male and female anu would be balanced throughout the piece. When an iron sample is magnetized, however, this article proposes that the top and bottom halves of each iron atom become polarized, meaning that half of the iron atom consists of only male anu, while the opposite half is composed of only female anu.

Figure 4: An illustration of an iron (Fe) atom.

Within the body of an iron magnet, the male anu in the arms of one polarized iron atom bond to the female anu in the arms of other polarized iron atoms, creating an interlocking latticelike structure that connects them. Anu on the outer surface of the iron magnet, though, do not have oppositely polarized anu with which to bind. As a result, they bind with the polarized anu on the opposite end of the magnet, creating what scientists call magnetic field lines (figure 6). Occult Chemistry also mentions that an electric current causes anu to arrange themselves in parallel lines (figure 7), which could produce a magnetic effect in electrified wire that is similar to that of polarized anu in magnetic iron (Besant et al., 15). One has to speculate, though, regarding how groups of anu would need to be arranged to produce this effect.

Testing the Article’s Explanation

   The scientific method is the process scientists use to determine whether an explanation for a phenomenon occurring in nature is actually true. They work to prove that an explanation is true by repeatedly trying to prove that it’s false! Only after failing to prove that an explanation is false will scientists begin to believe that it is true. As a result, most scientists will not consider new explanations for how something works unless that explanation also includes a way to test how it can be proven false, hence the reason for this section.

Figure 5. The placement of anu within each arm of an Iron (FE) atom. Each dot represents an anu.		Figure 6. Magnetic field lines.

Comparing the Decomposition of Elements

Figure 8: An illustration showing how a hydrogen atom decomposes into individual anu.

The claim in this article relies on the accuracy of the information presented in Occult Chemistry, so one way to prove that the claim is false is to show that the information presented in the book is not true. Throughout the book, the authors created charts that show how each element decomposes into individual anu. Figure 8 shows the four substates, labeled E1–E4, through which hydrogen passes in its decomposition process. Substate E4 shows that the hydrogen atom first separates into a proton and a neutron, each of which contains three quarks. Within each quark are three heart-shaped anu, the positive and negative sign denoting whether they are male or female, respectively. Substates E3 and E2 show how the proton and neutron decompose, arriving at the final substate E1, which consists of only individual anu.

In the process of creating the book, the authors Besant and Leadbeater used their abilities to document how each element decomposes through its various substates. Without knowing how this occurs, we can only make a reasoned guess that elements decompose the same way, regardless of whether it was done using a mystical technique or a particle accelerator.

Therefore one way to test whether this claim is false would be to compare the decomposition of elements described in Occult Chemistry with the decomposition of the same elements as a result of collisions in CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The number-weight procedure described in the book can be used to estimate the atomic weight of each element’s substate, based on the number of anu present in each drawing. These weights can then be compared with the atomic weights of the particles ejected from Large Hadron Collider collisions to see if there are any correlations. If no correlations exist, then the information presented in Occult Chemistry, and this claim, could be false. However, if correlations are found, it implies the need for further study.

Comparing the Crystalline Structure of Diamonds

Figure 9: The structure of a diamond.

 Another test of the accuracy of Occult Chemistry would be to compare its analysis of a diamond’s crystalline structure, which was first published in 1925, with similar modern-day analyses. The book’s authors described the diamond’s structure in great detail, including the illustration shown in figure 9 (Besant, 337–38). This drawing depicts twenty-five groups of diamond crystals, shown in red and white, with each group interlinked in a Maltese cross–like pattern. Two layers of these crystals are then joined together by sixteen carbon atoms, shown in blue. A drawing from the book of a unit of diamond is shown in figure 10 (Besant et al., 337–38). If the book’s analysis aligns with modern scientific analyses, it could indicate that more study of the book’s contents, and the claim, might be warranted. Similarly, an inaccurate depiction of the diamond’s structure might make one also question the book’s description of the structure of an iron atom.

Figure 10: A unit of diamond.

Conclusion

The contents described in Occult Chemistry continue to offer relevant insights a century after its initial release. The claim outlined in this article, if validated, could add legitimacy to other claims made in this work, which could be of tremendous benefit to the scientific community.

Definitions

Astral. A name for a nonphysical dimension. In Theosophical literature, the astral dimension is located above the etheric dimension and below the mental dimension.

CERN. A French acronym for the European Center for Nuclear Research, which is an international collaboration of organizations that operate the Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator.

Etheric. A name for a nonphysical dimension. In Theosophical literature, the etheric dimension is located above the physical dimension and below the astral dimension.

Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The world’s most powerful particle accelerator. Its magnetic ring, 27 kilometers in diameter, is located 100 meters underground in a tunnel that spans the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland.

Sources

Besant, Annie, C.W. Leadbeater, Elizabeth Preston, and C. Jinarajadasa. Occult Chemistry: Investigations by Clairvoyant Magnification into the Structure of the Atoms of the Periodic Table and Some Compounds. 3d ed. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1951.

Brooks, Mark H. Christianity from a Spiritual Perspective. Charlotte N.C.: From a Different Perspective, 2019.

Leadbeater, C.W. The Astral Plane. 2d Adyar ed. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 2010  (first published in 1895).

Powell, A. E. The Etheric Double: The Health Aura. First U.S. ed. Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 1925.

Mark Hunter Brooks, author of the book Christianity from a Spiritual Perspective, has had numerous spiritual experiences since 2003 that have profoundly changed his worldview. He writes and speaks about the mechanics of the nonphysical world to demystify what has traditionally been a taboo topic.

With the exception of Figure 3 and Figure 5, all illustrations were taken from Besant et al., Occult Chemistry. Figure 3 was taken from Christianity from a Spiritual Perspective, Version 3.0, 168. Figure 5 was sourced from the Internet at the link http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/pictures/physics/ironfilings.html on November 21, 2019. 

Brooks, Mark H. Christianity from a Spiritual Perspective. Charlotte N.C.: From a Different Perspective, 2019.

Leadbeater, C.W. The Astral Plane. 2d Adyar ed. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 2010  (first published in 1895).

Powell, A. E. The Etheric Double: The Health Aura. First U.S. ed. Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 1925. 

Printed in the  Summer 2020  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Firestone, Anne, "Things I Learned from Hanging Out with Wolves" Quest 108:3, pg 26-27

By Anne Firestone

I am falling down onto the ground. My arms are turning into front legs. I cry out, “I’m running with the wolves!” I turn completely into a wolf and run off to join my pack. I am filled with such wild exhilaration that I awake with a start and sit straight up in bed. I have no idea what the dream means, but I know that it is special.

That was forty years ago. I remembered the dream from time to time with a thrill of excitement, but gradually it faded into the background.

Fast forward sixteen years. The wife of a coworker gave me a book called Women Who Run with the Wolves as a Christmas present. The author, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, is a Jungian analyst, and the book contained fairy tales and stories which she interpreted from the perspective of the Wild Woman archetype. I loved the book, and remembered my dream.

I decided I wanted to see some real wolves. I’d volunteered for a few years at the Lincoln Park Zoo (LPZ) in Chicago, which had a pair of red wolves who were so shy that they came out only at night, when no one was there. However, I was familiar with the names of a couple of wolf preserves in the area, and I called the one in southern Wisconsin. Although the preserve was open to the public only on weekends, the owner was willing to let me visit with a couple of friends during the week because we had called ahead and also, I suspect, because I said I had volunteered for the LPZ.

When we got there, we split up. My friends headed for the pens on the left side of the preserve; I went down the right side. The wolves had been hand-raised, and the owner told us that if we stood next to the fences and were still, they might come over and let us pet them. I was kneeling in the March slush watching a beautiful wolf named Angelique pretend not to see me as she ambled closer, sniffing the ground as she came. Her fur was light gray overall, with brown and black and even hints of blond and maroon. Occasionally I would get a flash of her golden eyes as she glanced at me from underneath her lids, so I knew that she knew I was there. I must have had my face pressed against the chain-link fence, because when she got close to me, she gave me a big, sloppy kiss from my chin to my forehead, then sauntered away. I was ecstatic. Being kissed by a wolf—that was even better than being kissed by Prince Charming! And unlike him, the wolf was real.

I ran over to the owner and said, “Angelique kissed me. What does that mean?” He paused a moment, then replied, “She likes you.”

Well, duh. I had already figured that out and was looking for some deep insight into wolf behavior from the expert. I later learned that even wolves who have been hand-raised are very shy when introduced to new humans; they might come close and give a tentative sniff or two, but then they usually walk away. Angelique’s behavior was unusual.

In any case, I decided that I wanted to volunteer at the preserve. I started the following Saturday, and every Saturday and Sunday for the next few years I got up before 5 a.m. and drove from Chicago to just south of Milwaukee. When I look back on it now, I think being kissed by Angelique was an invitation. If she hadn’t kissed me, I would never have given up sleeping late on the weekends to drive 150 miles round trip each day just to volunteer at a wolf preserve. It would never even have occurred to me.

Gradually I got to know all the wolves. Some of them liked me more than others did, and I liked some of them more than I liked others. Some were very shy and never came close, and some became my special friends.

One Saturday I arrived late, after the preserve opened. We volunteers—there were three or four of us who were regulars—always arrived early so that we could spend some private time with the wolves and find out the latest news about them. I hated being late, so I hurried toward the senior volunteer to find out where I would be most useful. On my way over to her, I passed the enclosure where Angelique lived with her brothers, No Name, Nipper, and Shy Boy. No Name stood close to the fence watching me, smiling his toothy smile, yellow eyes gleaming, tail waving happily. A man who was standing in front of him looked at me in surprise, “He recognizes you!”

“Of course he does!” I wanted to say. “He really likes me and he wants to be scratched and petted.” Wolves, like domesticated dogs, smile and wag their tails when they see someone they like.

Then I thought of the first time I realized that even birds have preferences. I was walking my dogs in Lincoln Park along Lake Michigan, ready to go home, when they stopped to sniff something. While I waited for them, I heard some squawking up in the air. I looked up and saw a male robin pursuing a female near the crown of a nearby tree. She was protesting and finally flew down to the ground and perched on one of the tree’s roots. Looking up to find out what had happened to the male, I saw him being attacked by another male robin, who finally chased him away. After the first male had been driven off, the female, who had been watching this little drama, fluttered up to greet the second male, and I could practically see “My hero!” in a cartoon bubble over her head. They flew off together.

I don’t know what I had thought about mating habits in robins—probably that any male would do that during mating season—but it had never occurred to me that birds might have actual preferences in a mate. That was as much a revelation to me as No Name’s happy recognition of me was to the man standing in front of him.

I never worried that the wolves would bite me. Either they were too shy to approach people or they loved the attention and petting and scratching. Since the owner wouldn’t let us go in with the wolves, the other volunteers and I petted them through the chain-link fence. We all also cheated a bit and stuck our hands and arms through the right-angled gap where two sides of the fence met. That way we had more room to maneuver and to reach the wolves’ favorite spots.

One day I was petting Alpha through the gap in the fence. As the name suggests, he was the Big Brother of his little family. Contrary to what used to be believed about the concept of an alpha wolf, wolf biologists have recognized that a wolf pack is basically a family. The alpha males and females are usually the biological parents of the rest of the pack. It’s Mom, Dad, and the kids, not some kind of boss and his subordinates. As in human families, Mom is sometimes the overall top dog; sometimes Dad is. Depending on individual talent, one wolf (not necessarily Mom or Dad) might lead the hunt; another might break the trail in a heavy snow. In the wild, wolf biologists have observed members of the family pack providing food for a sick or injured wolf. Those of us who think of our dogs as members of the family are closer to the mark than a certain famous dog trainer who insists that a dog owner must be alpha. In fact, a dog owner must be a good parent.

Anyway, Alpha was acting in loco parentis to his brothers and sister because their parents were dead, and of all the members of the family, he was the one who was a natural leader. I was petting him through the gap when he decided he wanted the sleeve of my jacket. It was a hand-sewn wool jacket from Mexico, and I loved it, so I pulled my arm back, trying to get it back through the gap and save it, when I noticed that blood was trickling down my hand. Alpha’s canine—more than an inch long—had gone through my skin like a hot knife through butter. I hadn’t even felt it. It was clear that he was not trying to hurt me. He didn’t seem to realize that under the sleeve was a part of me. He just wanted the sleeve. I decided to let him have it. He ripped the sleeve off the jacket and trotted around the enclosure with the sleeve in his mouth, displaying it like a trophy. Bob (not his real name), the man who owned the preserve, told me that later that afternoon Alpha buried the sleeve. Like a treasure. And the next time I visited, he came over to me as I was kneeling in front of the pen and pushing my face into the chain link. He stuck as much as he could of his snout through the fence and, ever so gently, held my nose and let his teeth graze it in the affectionate way a dominant wolf acknowledges a family member.

The wound on my hand didn’t hurt badly, and I definitely did not want to go to an emergency room and tell them that a wolf had bitten me. This was just before Canadian wolves were released into Yellowstone. People’s attitudes toward wolves were beginning to change. Their role as the keystone predator, keeping the North American ecosystem in balance, was just beginning to be appreciated. I didn’t want to do anything that could halt that progress. Nor did I want to bring the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources down on Bob and get him and the wolves in trouble. I took care of the wound myself.

At that time I’d been a hospital social worker for almost twenty years, so I knew what to do. However, I made the mistake of telling the truth to a coworker who asked why my hand was bandaged. We were sitting at a table at the nurses’ station, charting, when a doctor who was an avid hunter came up, saw the bandage, and inquired about it. My coworker Kathy exclaimed, “She was bitten by a wolf!” He rolled his eyes, pulled his arm up into his lab coat, mimicking being one-handed, and announced, “She’d be walking around like this if she’d been bitten by a wolf.” Kathy started to protest, but I kicked her under the table and said to the doctor, “It wasn’t a wolf, just a dog who looked like a wolf.” Whew.

I’d learned the hard way that wolves do not seem to understand that what is under clothing is also us. Unfortunately, the lesson didn’t seem to take. When I was visiting the wolves a few months later on a day when it was eleven degrees below zero, I decided to keep my little mittens on while I gave Bravo, Alpha’s brother, a very sweet wolf, some treats. He took the treats but also, very gently, peeled the mitten off my hand, taking some of the skin over my knuckles with it.

This time I knew that my hand needed to be stitched. I found out where the closest emergency room was, and worried all the way there about what kind of plausible story I could tell them. I made up something about being lost on a country road and getting out of the car (I couldn’t think of a reason for doing that) and being suddenly bitten by a dog who came out of nowhere. No, I didn’t know where this happened and I was so surprised I couldn’t remember what kind of dog it was. The story was so lame that I couldn’t bring myself to even try to sell it. I was lying, the doctor knew I was lying, I knew that he knew, and he knew that I knew that he knew. He stitched me up—a lovely job—and I went back home to Chicago.

Another thing I learned while volunteering with the wolves was not to have a mammogram when the backs of your hands are covered with bruises. Ever since I was little, I’ve bruised easily. And when I stuck my hand through the gap in the fence to pet the wolves, I would turn my hand so that the back of it was pressed against the fence. That way my fingers were free to reach down through their outer coats to their skin and find the good spots to scratch. The only drawback was that the backs of my hand got badly bruised from the pressure of the wolves’ bodies pushing my hands against the fence when I was scratching them. But I barely noticed it.

That’s why I was so surprised when, after trying to turn my breasts into pancakes with her awful machine—which hurt a lot more than the bruises on my hands—the mammogram lady got a sheet of paper from another room, presented it to me, and asked me to fill it out.

It was an abuse report. She thought I was the victim of physical abuse. I was so shocked that without thinking I blurted, “Oh, it’s just the wolves.”

She looked at me as if she were thinking “This poor woman is in deep denial,” and I suppose she was thinking something like that. It occurred to me later that the bruises on the backs of my hands might have looked to her like defensive bruises, received when I held my hands to my face trying to protect myself. Nothing could have been further from the truth, but I thanked her for her concern, grabbed my purse, and fled.

One day when I arrived early at the preserve, I noticed Akila lying on the ground breathing stertorously. I had always thought of him as the grandfather wolf because, even though he wasn’t related to the other ones, he was the oldest. Bob told us that the vet had been to see him, that nothing could be done, and that he was dying.

I went over to see his mate, Nantan, who was one of my favorite wolves. She was almost blind, but she must have liked my scent because she always came over to greet me and to get some petting. And sometimes a treat. She didn’t come up to all the volunteers, just a couple of us. I knew she liked me because once another perfectly nice volunteer came up while I was petting her and wanted to join in, and she snarled at him. She snarled until he left, and then turned back to me. Wolves, like people, have preferences.

Anyway, on that day while I was petting her, I heard Akila’s breath slow. It eventually stopped. I stood up and started to call over to Bob, “He’s gone,” but before I could get the words out, Nantan started to howl. Then all the wolves started to howl. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. They knew Akila was gone and were saying goodbye, sending him on his way, grieving his loss.

I know that I was not imagining this. A while later I read story about a man in Pennsylvania who kept wolves. He got sick, but fortunately had other people whom the wolves accepted and who could take over for him. One afternoon while the owner was in a hospital over fifteen miles away, the wolves started to howl. They howled for several minutes. Several hours later the caretakers received a call from the family of the wolves’ owner. He had died. The caretakers asked the time of his death, and the time they were told was the exact time the wolves had howled. The wolves knew.

 How did they know? I have no idea.

 Life is a mystery. In fact, the Lakota term Wakan Tanka, which is usually translated in movies as Great Spirit, actually means Great Mystery. Life is a great mystery, and the older I get, the truer this seems to me.

The experience that brought this home to me in the most vivid way occurred after I’d been volunteering at the wolf preserve for about six months. On that day when I arrived, something felt different. There was an air of excitement that I could feel but didn’t understand.

I started to make the round of the enclosures, and I saw that Peter, the brother of Alpha, Bravo, and Waterlou was visiting Bravo and Waterlou. That rarely happened, because Peter was the largest of the family and thought he ought to be in charge. He didn’t have the right stuff, though, and to keep him safe, Bob had to keep him separated from Alpha. But sometimes Peter would visit his brother and sister, and this was one of those times.

I knelt down in front of their enclosure and said, “Hey, you guys. You’re together today!”

I started to pet them, but I felt someone tap my shoulder and say my name. I turned to see who it was. There was no one there. But Nantan, in her far enclosure, had started to howl. Then all the wolves howled. And they were howling to me. I had heard the wolves howl many times before that day, and I heard them howl many times after that day, but on that day—never before and never afterward—they were howling to me.

I felt held in their howling as if it were an embrace, and I felt love all around me. I also felt shaky. I stood up and lurched over to where Angelique was standing and watching me. I knelt in front of her to pet her. Her eyes and nose were moist with excitement. As the other wolves howled, she raised her tail and misted me from her scent gland. “Oh my God, this is an initiation” were the words that went through my head.

I still don’t know exactly what I was being initiated into, but I do know that the experience was wondrous. At that time I had been meditating regularly for about fifteen years, and I had had a number of nonordinary experiences. But nothing like this.

 After Angelique misted me, the howling died down. I felt changed in some way. But instead of honoring my own experience, sitting with it for a while, I went to ask an “authority figure” what the misting meant (as if anyone but me could be an authority on my experience). I asked Bob, who told me that he’d never been misted and didn’t know.

Not satisfied with that answer and still looking for an authority figure to tell me the meaning of what I had experienced, I decided I would call both Chicago zoos after I got home.

I had not told Bob about feeling surrounded by love—big love, divine love—and I had no intention of mentioning that to either of the women who cared for the wolves at the zoos.

I had never forgotten a cartoon I’d seen years before. A man in a straitjacket was sitting at the foot of a large tree. A yogi was sitting on a branch. The yogi was saying to the man, “The difference between you and me is that I know who to talk to about things, and you don’t.”

 I wasn’t about to make that mistake.

 When I talked to the wolves’ keeper at the first zoo and told her about the misting, she said, “It sounds like the wolves have accepted you in a very deep way.”

  I thought so, too, but I still was not satisfied. When I called the second zoo, I found what I now believe I had been looking for.

  I told the woman—it has always been interesting to me that the keepers of wolves at both zoos were women—about the misting. Her response was immediate and definite. “Well,” she huffed, “it must have been bowel gas!”

  I was so surprised I almost burst out laughing.

  There was no way it could have been bowel gas. Wolves’ scent glands are about two inches down from the base of their tails. When Angelique misted me, I was at her head. Her body was parallel to the fence, so her tail and rear were about three feet to my left. When she raised her tail, the mist came toward me, to the right; bowel gas would have gone to the left.

  However, I am grateful to that woman because she taught me a valuable lesson.

  Nonordinary things happen all the time to many people. They can happen in a church, synagogue, mosque, temple, or they can happen while you’re walking in the woods. Or petting wolves.

 Life is the Great Mystery. Anything is possible. Love is all around us. But only if we’re willing to honor our experience, be with it, let it teach us.

  We can have baptism or we can have bowel gas: the choice is ours. 

Anne Firestone has been a hospital social worker, adjunct professor of English, and yoga instructor. Now retired, she is writing the first volume of an Arthurian trilogy.