Reply #7: No one here at this wake has spoken a more apt invocation than Niyad,

[newswolf56]

and anything I might add to that and the bright blessing of your eulogy is merely a footnote. Nevertheless...

Our aboriginal kindred -- and genetics proves that whether Kawkiut or Nooksack or Lakota or Iroquois or Cherokee they truly were our kin -- all honored Wolf as guide and teacher, the ultimate incarnation of whom is the great healer invoked by thrice chanting:

Medicine Wolf
walks with him
Medicine Wolf
is his brother
Medicine Wolf
is one with him
Medicine Wolf
is his healer.

The words -- or so I am told by the woman from whom I learned them -- are an exact translation from the language of the Cheyenne, a translation so accurate it preserves even the original drum-kept meter. The pronouns and kinship -- brother or sister -- vary in accordance with the gender of the shaman and the patient.

But sometimes the only healing possible is the exit from an old form into the new.

Which is yet another lesson Wolf teaches us -- we who so desperately need to restore our ancient connection to wild and wildness and Great Holy Mystery: "the haunting spiritual wisdom they carry... never an end, or even a beginning."

Thank you so much, you and Shadow Hawk and Bliss.