The Power of Story

The Story of the Man who lived with Wolves

For tens of thousands of years, humans have used creative imagination to open up connection with the animals and the powers of the natural world. From the painted walls of the ancient caves of Chauvet and Pech-Merle to the rock art of the Kalahari, we have portrayed wild animals as the guardians of life’s numinous dimensions.

In countless stories and myths, the animals appear as guardians of initiation – the passage from one stage of life, or level of knowledge and experience – to another. Or they come to people at times of great crisis and bring guidance, help and healing.

There is a wonderful Native American story about the Animal Council that meets in a cave beneath one particular sacred mountain. The animals are aware of the actions of humans on the earth above, and if a woman or man is in great need, the Animal Council may choose one of its members to go and find them, bring them guidance and healing, and share something of its power to help them.

There is a story, from the Lakota people, of a woman who leaves the husband who has been cruel to her, and walks off alone into the wilderness. Exhausted, hungry, close to death, she receives comfort, help and guidance from a pack of wild wolves and lives among them until she is strong enough to return to her community as a free woman, who is no longer in the power of her husband.

This beautiful myth, which is re-told in Eyes of the Wild, is mirrored by this extraordinary real-life experience of my wolf mentor, Dr Jason Badridze, a field biologist who was befriended by a wild wolf pack, and lived among them for several years in the remote Caucasus mountains.

Download Jason’s Story (PDF)

Testimonials

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Eleanor O’Hanlon is one of the most inspiring teachers I know. She has a vision of the oneness of Creation, that she has enabled me to see through her embodied, raw, visceral experience of relating to wild animals. She has this way of connecting with the animals on both a physical and a spiritual level… I can’t read her writing without tears streaming down my face because she makes so present that other reality that is moving through the visible, and she teaches you how to relate to that directly. She has been very influential for me.

At a recent retreat I lead in Yelapa, Mexico, I read passages to the group from Eyes of the Wild regarding the direct experience of Unity, the difficulty of staying with that deeper knowledge, and the spiritual guidance provided by nature and animals. I find Eyes of The Wild to be personally engaging, vividly and eloquently written, and a spiritually inspiring book.

Eleanor O’Hanlon goes to the ends of all the Earth - the Bering Strait, Siberia, the Arctic pack ice, the Caucasus mountains - and brings back writing that is full of knowledge, insight and deep emotion, telling you things you never knew, showing you things you would never have noticed, even if you’d been there with her.

Eleanor’s beautiful writing perfectly captures the sense of wonder as she gazes into the lives of the great whales. Without being religious I too recognise that sense of wonder and connectedness through immersion in the natural world where at heart we all belong.

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