Feral Bio

Geomantic connection

5/5/2026

i walked and walked

Pegi Eyers at Stone Circle Farm, Otonabee Watershed

I walked and walked until I was "me" no longer.
The runoff sluice glistening and tinkling through farmer’s fields
became my right arm,
the sprouts on dead branches my fingers,
the abandoned field – slowly rewilding – my face,
the vultures overhead tracing the cloud lines – my hair,
the faded straw bale my spine,
the circle in front of the grandfather tree delineated by tractors
– my belly,
the mandala of ferns my breasts,
the maple buds flung half-way down the clay driveway my
buoyant left leg,
the dancing sky my ice-blue eyes,
the dog on the leash – my scars from surgeries long gone,
the layers of birdsong my teeth for sweet grinding,
the fallen spruce boughs – still green – my splintered right leg,
the catnip in luscious clusters my toes in the sand,
the blackbird swooping in circles my lungs,
the deer track winding through bracken my left arm,
and the bones of the land, once living flowers and trees
– my heart.

Pegi Eyers, Otonabee Watershed

THE SERPENT MOUNDS

In southern Ontario, Hiawartha First Nation on Rice Lake are the stewards of The Serpent Mounds an ancient Indigenous landform special to my own personal mythology, re-landing process and recovery of ancestral mind. The liminality of this incredible place can be felt with each visit - a sacred environ where time stands still, and waves of sound, light and energy exist in an ecotone that is separate from the modern world.

With deep gratitude to the Mississaugii of Rice Lake, the Keepers of Serpent Mounds Park.

The sacred Serpent Mound is an Aboriginal historic site with evidence of occupation and use spanning more than 2000 years. It is here that Archeologists discovered evidence that ancient Native people gathered in large settlements around the lake to camp, hunt, fish, collect freshwater mussels and harvest the abundant wild rice cops which once occupied Rice Lake. Evidence found throughout the site, identified occupation dating back to 58 B.C., and the assemblage of artifacts provides extensive information on the habitation, rituals and culture of this ancient site and represents the most complete picture of Point Peninsula life. The site clearly illustrates the long-term cultural processes and represents cultural records of early habitation closely integrated with the natural environment.

It is also here, on a high point of land overlooking Rice Lake that the nine earthen burial mounds which enclose the graves of the Point Peninsula Native people can be found. The largest mound, shaped like a serpent, is approximately 60 meters long and 8 meters wide, and the only one of its kind in Canada. It is from this mound that the site and Park derives its name. Surrounding the serpentine mound are eight oval or round mounds, often described as the “serpent’s eggs.” Aboriginal people who lived in nearby settlements built these mounds to bury their dead and revere their ancestors. This sacred place continues to hold deep cultural, historical and spiritual meaning to the Mississaugii people of this area and to First Nation people across North America.

www.hiawathafirstnation.com/business-tourism/serpent-mounds-park

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WOLF CLAN

5/1/2026

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when the wolves disappeared

We have learnt
what happened when the wolves
disappeared.

The rivers changed.
The forests thinned.
The willows failed to regenerate.
The land itself unravelled.

I wonder if we have ever asked the same question of the wild women.
Not only
what happened to them.

But what landscapes did we inherit
when the witches who understood the living world as kin were silenced?

****

WORDS Brigit Anna McNeill
ART Ami Thiompson

Eldrvak - Heart Of The Wolf

A track from the "Rebirth" album, this song pays tribute to our more-than-human kin, and what we can learn by observing how they live their lives.
The power of the pack, is the wolf
The power of the wolf, is the pack

HOWL WITH THE WOLF MOON

The Full Moon in January carries the ancient echo of wolves venturing from their dens in the heart of winter, driven by a primal hunger. In the depths of midwinter, beneath a blanket of snow and ice, these apex creatures howl into the cold night, their calls reverberating through the forests and mountains. Their stored reserves from the previous season have dwindled, and their hunger propels them into the wild, seeking sustenance through the strength of the pack. Together, they will track and trail their prey, moving with a shared purpose through the harsh landscape.

As we emerge from the midwinter holy-days season, where feasts and gatherings may have filled our tables but not always our hearts, we might resonate with the wolf’s hunger - a deep, soulful yearning that remains unmet despite the outward abundance. The cultural rituals of Christmastide often leave us feeling disoriented or disconnected, as the true nourishment we seek eludes us amidst the noise of celebration. We may find ourselves grappling with feelings of frustration, isolation, or the sense of being unseen in the gatherings with our families of origin.

The Wolf Moon beckons us to turn inward and outward simultaneously, to reconnect with the people, places, and practices that truly nourish our souls and bodies. This is a time to center yourself on your deepest desires and longings, to identify what might satiate that hunger within you. As the new year begins, let the light of the Wolf Moon illuminate your path as you set intentions that are aligned with your truest needs.

Reflection and Inquiry with the Wolf Moon~
Hunger and Longing
What desires within you are urging you beyond the comfort of your familiar spaces? Where in your life do you feel a deep, gnawing hunger that calls you to explore new terrain?
Tracking and Trailing
What are you sensing that you are tracking and trailing in your life right now? What elusive truth or need are you pursuing? Consider how this pursuit might guide your steps in the coming weeks.
Community and Collaboration
Who are the kindred spirits you can call upon to join you in your quest? Reflect on the strength that comes from community and how the support of others can help you meet your needs and fulfill your desires.

In the Celtic tradition, the wolf is revered as a guide through liminal spaces—the thresholds between the known and the unknown, the seen and the unseen. As you contemplate your hunger under this Full Moon, consider the wolf as a symbol of both fierce independence and the necessity of community. The wolf’s journey through the winter landscape is not one of solitary survival but of shared endeavor, where each member of the pack plays a crucial role in the hunt.

Eco-spirituality invites us to see our desires and longings as natural, wild, and worthy of pursuit. The earth itself is a living organism that responds to our deep hunger, just as we respond to the cycles of nature. The Wolf Moon, with its cold, clear light, offers a moment to attune yourself to these rhythms, to listen to the quiet stirrings of your soul, and to honor the primal, earthy desires that connect you to the Sacred within and around you.

This January, let the Wolf Moon guide you as you seek out the nourishment that truly sustains. May you embrace your hunger as a sacred call, a reminder that within the cold and quiet of winter lies the potential for profound transformation and fulfillment.

WAYMARKERS: Guidance & Wisdom from the Sacred Wild >LINK<

the wolf moon rises

On January 3rd, 2026, the Wolf Moon rose into her fullest brilliance - bright, near, and howling across the winter sky. That same day, Earth reached perihelion, drawing closest to the Sun all year. We were nearer to warmth and light than at any other point in 2026, and yet it may not  feel   like comfort. Winter will still bite. The trees will still be bare. But wolves teach us that life is sustained not by ease, but by attunement.

This Wolf   Moon invites that kind of deep noticing.   Even if our bodies still register cold, the deeper truth is already unfolding: the light is  returning, the Sun is climbing higher, and Earth is slowly tilting toward warmth again. Transformation often arrives before it feels like relief.

The Wolf Moon won’t warm us - but she will help us see. She illuminates tracks, contours, and quiet truths that were hidden in shadow. Fullness doesn’t erase hardship; it does help us move through it with more clarity. Perihelion doesn’t end winter, but it does mark a holy turning - a reminder that closeness and illumination matter, even when comfort hasn’t yet arrived.

The Wolf Moon whispers its silvery wisdom: trust what is becoming real, even before it feels easy. Stay attentive. Stay attuned. Stay companioned. Stay in belonging with this living, turning and wild world.

WAYMARKERS:    Guidance & Wisdom from the Sacred Wild  >LINK<

The Judgment of the Living and the Dead
or “The Wolf Who Taught Us to Pray”

sofia batalha

So then, let the fire be lit and the world be silent, because this story comes from long ago, from the days when man and beast still prayed together. The elders of Gerês say that there are stories that are not told,  they happen every time someone lights the fire.   This is one of them.

It was on a dull moonlit night, when the mountains breathed deeply and the wind remembered ancient names. A group of walkers, neither hunters nor men of faith, but pilgrims from the in-between world of ancient devotion, climbed silently through the woods.

They were not looking for anything, they were being sought. In the middle of the clearing they found a dead wolf, its body still warm, stretched out as if sleeping between worlds, its tongue hanging out and its gaze turned inward toward time. The oldest knelt down and said:

Do not touch it.
Before every flesh there is a spirit,
and before the spirit there is a duty to listen.

The boy with the clear gaze and river steps, the one who still listened to the ground, knelt down, placed his hand on the fur, and murmured:

Brother of fur and teeth, the worst day of your life was the day you died. May the earth eat you with the same tenderness with which you ate the fear of men.

It was then that the Wolf opened one eye, an eye of moonlight, without blood or anger, only vigilance. From deep within the forest came the Old Man of the Oak, the guardian of forgotten pacts between beasts and men. His shoulders were covered with lichen and he had the look of one who had seen time grow and rot many times. They say he spoke the language of animals and that the smell of resin announced his arrival before he got there. The old man heard the verses and murmured:

Those who sing to possess dry up their own voices.
Those who sing to honor give back to the Earth what they owe it.

He took a handful of salt from his pocket, threw it over the wolf’s body, and prayed words that only the wind remembers. The Wolf then rose, neither alive nor dead, made of smoke and moonlight. And he spoke with a voice like a cave and a womb:

I have not come to ask for justice,
I have come to remind you of the pacts.
I was a hunter and I was hunted,
as you will be.
My skin is a border, my tooth is a prayer.
Whoever wears it does not dominate, but passes through.

The old man bowed and taught them the rite of the ancients, the one that united the wolf and human tribes in reciprocity:

When you find a fallen body,
light a tallow candle and put salt in its eyes.
Say three times:
‘Go and return to the dust that begot you,
because everything you eat will be eaten.’
Then give thanks.
Because death is also food, and food is always communion.

The pilgrims understood. They say that the youngest became a keeper of rivers and that on their banks he taught children the wind prayers. And they also say that on frosty nights, a howl can be heard among the hills that does not frighten, but blesses and awakens, reminding the living that there is only continuity when there is reverence. It is the ancient Wolf, the Totemic, the one who connects the living to the dead, the one who reminds the flesh of the soul's path. And that is why, say the old women by the hearth, anyone who finds a dead animal should stop and bow their head. Because it may not be just a body, but the echo of an ancient cult, where wound and fertility, human and animal, life and death   intertwine to keep the world standing. Because the dead are not absence, they are the mouth of the earth.

Those who speak well of the Wolf, the wind protects.
Those who forget him, the wind takes away.

****

SOFIA BATALHA

REFERENCES

What if the walkers were pilgrims in devotion to the landscape?

Story based on story type 1626*A (Cardigos) The Best Rhyme about a Dead Wolf, widely known throughout the peninsula. In it, some hunters (walkers, students, etc.) find a dead wolf and agree that the prey will go to whoever recites the most appropriate verses. Sometimes, the winner is the one who recognizes that the animal’s worst day was the day of its death, but on other occasions, they must resort to a fourth character who acts as a judge to decide the matter; this character may behave fairly or take advantage of the situation to get their share of the spoils.

What if this tale is an ancient echo of cults that dignify death and the Wolf? Of the totemic power of his body-legacy, in skin and fangs; of the power to use his skins between worlds.

What if the best rhyme, the best song, is not a competition to dominate and take advantage of the Wolf’s body, but a memory of devotion and sacralization of the Wolf and its teachings?

What if this peninsular tale is an echo of initiation rites from the depths of time, ceremonies of intertwining and reciprocity between the Lupine and Human communities?

**********

Cycle of tales of >Eco-Mythical Activism< The idea for this cycle of stories is an old one for me. It is another attempt, without cultural appropriation of stories that do not belong to us, to try to convey concepts, in a popular and folkloric syntax, that the modern mind has real difficulty inhabiting. Fabulating traditional stories told from other paradigms of kinship and care, which can be cultivated in the humus of our collective psyche.

These tales were woven from articles I have written over the years, texts that contain fundamental references to the concepts and paradigms that anchor each tale. And from traditional tales, cooking them up with other paradigms.

A pulsating re-fabulation of Portuguese folklore, refuting hierarchical ontologies in favor of relational webs, challenging linear notions of time and progress; and repositioning knowledge as a communal and embodied practice, rather than an individual and abstract acquisition. We recall the cyclical principle of life, death, and regeneration that modernity has tried to forget. This project is part of the multiple network of experiments of   >Eco-Mythical Activism<

>Cosmic-Chthonic Cartographies / Sofia Batalha<

grimfrost ~ Werewolves and Indo-European warrior-bands

Werewolves and Indo-European Warrior-Bands
Werewolves are common creatures in European folklore, not least in Scandinavia. Although the historic version of these mythical beings developed in a Christian context, the belief in werewolves goes far back in time. In terms of werewolf myths, as evident in the Old Norse material, Scandinavia has one of the richest traditions in Europe, possible to trace back to a common Indo-European mythology. In this, lycanthropy – the mythical transformation of a person into a wolf – is an aspect of the initiation into a warrior class, its members believed to transform into wolves upon their initiation. Even if traditions about werewolves are present in most European regions and many other parts of the world, Scandinavian legends have remained particularly strong. A fascinating perspective is that the werewolves of folklore may actually have a real background. To find the explanation for that, we have to go way back in time, to the time when people speaking Indo-European languages first came to dominate Europe.

What is Indo-European?
So what do we mean by Indo-European? At its core, it is a linguistic concept, referring to the language group that includes the majority of European languages, as well as several Asian ones. However, since the 19th century, the term has also come to refer to commonalities in culture and religion among the speakers of these languages, but also the physical people themselves. Ever since the subject was first discussed by scientists more than 200 years ago, it has been disputed whether Indo-European language and culture spread between peoples or through migrations. Breakthroughs in ancient DNA research in recent decades may now have provided a clear answer to this question for the first time.

A revolutionary discovery was announced in 2015, when two independent genetic studies were published simultaneously in the prestigious journal Nature, both of which established a widespread and rapid migration from the steppes north of the Black and Caspian seas beginning about 5,000 years ago. The migration went westwards to Europe but also eastwards, and onwards to the Indian peninsula and Iran. These DNA analyzes – now followed by many confirmatory and in-depth studies – indicated a widespread migration, starting at a time and from a place consistent with what linguists had long predicted for the spread of Indo-European languages, and also with the picture maintained by some archaeologists. Within archaeology, however, there has generally been, for a long time, a strong skepticism towards interpreting migration as the explanation for the spread of culture, something that aDNA research has now quickly changed.

The genetics show an extensive migration, in which, at least initially, almost exclusively men were involved. These in turn had children with local women, so successfully that the male lineages in today's Europe are largely traced back to these migrant men from the steppes. This is evidenced by the DNA of the male Y chromosome, which is preserved unchanged from father to son over millennia. Mothers were more localised and came from nearby farming communities. In some cases, the newcomers may have ‘peacefully "married into" local families, but unfortunately much points to a more violent background, not least the total lack of male hereditary lines from pre-Indo-European times. It indicates a conquest, where certain Indo-European men gained a dominant position.

There are certainly alternative theories for the rapid dominance of Indo-Europeans. The Yersina pestis bacteria – the classic plague – spread to Europe through this early Indo-European expansion, possibly wreaking havoc in local population, not earlier exposed to it. Some areas, as the British Isles, saw a dramatic decrease of the older Neolithic population during the second half of the 2000s BC, when the gene pool was replaced by DNA from the steppe. This could indicate a devastating epidemic to which the arriving steppe peoples may have already been immune, a similar scenario as when Europeans arrived in America four millennia later. Still, war-like events are not to be neglected, and combination of causes is a likely scenario. War and epidemics may have worked together in a devastating way for the previous population. In any event, the Indo-Europeans seems to have brought new forms of violence, as part of a masculine ideology, focused on warfare, and increased hierarchization of society. Bands of young, fierce warriors are likely to have been a crucial part of this, as a significant feature in Indo-European cultures.

Continue reading >HERE<

THE ICE AGE WOLF THAT LOVE IS

Art by Lucy Campbell

Dogor is an 18,000-year-old pup unearthed in Siberian permafrost
whose name means ‘friend’ in the Yakut language.
SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE, 2019

The Ice Age Wolf That Love Is

You’d grown three weeks into your mouthful
of teeth, before your eyes froze shut and then

your throat, but now you are thawing, moping
again, pretending to be tongue and wet fur and

padded feet. My darling whose day has come.
From out of your mother you fell into ice, at play,

in a pocket of snow, pure love that dug deep,
as the mama and the others dissolved quickly

and the father who’d gone to the important place
did not return. It took one night for the world

to harden you into a long bewildered thought
but eighteen thousand years before the ice

like a pipe, like a vein, burst open—until I say
your full name: Dogor, small bulb that keeps

growing new wolf bodies. Dogor, don’t harden
your eyes and return to the dead. Dogor, don’t

freeze again. Don’t fight me or take flight into
a thousand motes of ice. Dogor. Don’t bite.

Remember what you are. Leap into my face. Doze
in the crook of my big-boned shoulder. Stay Dogor.

****

“The Ice Age Wolf That Love Is” from ICE: by David Keplinger
Published by Milkweed Editions, August 08, 2023
Copyright © 2023 by David Keplinger. >POETRY DAILY<

keen

Keen

No metaphors here; wolves are wolves.
A cracking twig announces the mother's presence.
Her progress parts branches. She trots out onto
the shore grass and sea asparagus,
in her mouth a black wing on its hinge or red gore.
Her fur ripples in patches of grey, black and ginger.
There is a perk in her step -
she is travelling back to her pups - successful.
She crosses the creek, enters the forest.
I can no longer see her, and I scour
every bird guide to know whose wing she carried.
Sooty grouse or raven but I'll never know, not really.
That night the whole pack troops back
over the shore rocks, pups whisper-whining
in the near-dark, their first time
back across the creek and over softer land, so much of it,
and long, long may it be so.
From a distance, the howling rises:
the pups yipping and yelping their keen
instincts and heritage, voices of family,
song of survival,
for the moment
sated and unafraid.

****

Christine Lowther, We'Moon 2025

The Lone Wolf ~ Who is creating your myth?

It simply isn’t true. The lone wolf   identity is all to common these days. People believe that they need to "figure it out on their own" or "make their own way" or solve every problem in their lives solo.
That’s not how it works.
The lone wolf is not on his own by choice, he is tracking his pack, looking for his family, and searching for the trail that will take him home.
It’s not your fault.
Our culture has fallen into a rhythm that has moved further and further from being a village. Smaller families, less community engagement, more digital interfaces to disconnect with, and our most ancient and universal way of being, that of being held in community, has fallen wayside.   So what do we do about it? First, recognize that you are not alone. Be willing to reach out and find ways to be held in community, whether with friends, or at events you seek out, or by leaning into support in another way. This is one of the biggest reasons the slow medicine circles were created at the Path of IX.  To connect people back to themselves, to the natural rhythms of nature and remind them how to be supported. When you are called to these circles you are called back onto the path they were born to walk, a path that leads to the individuation within the whole, always connected.

You are not a lone wolf.   You are a part of a whole. An earth ecosystem, a village of humanity, a tribe of light, a tapestry designed to hold you up and nurture you while you grow and expand. That’s what life is meant for.

****

Howling at the moon alongside you~
One Who Catches Lightning and Keeper of the Thunderstone Subscribe to Slow Medicine on Substack >LINK<
Listen to >The Myth of the Lone wolf   Episode<   Join our bi monthly zoom >moon circles<

The "Alpha Male" wolf Myth Debunked

It was never true, and we've never needed to realize that more than we do now.
By Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

I will not pretend I have always made good choices in romantic partners. Being raised by not one but two narcissists left me unable, for far too long, to distinguish between love and domination. Confusion became my native language. Chaos felt like home. But one choice stands out above the rest, a kind of cautionary tale carved into bone.

The cowboy.

We met fourteen years ago on a dating site, both of us drifting in the wake of our own wrecks. When I saw his photos, I briefly assumed they were fake. No one looks like that in real life, I thought. Except, he did. He’d been scouted years earlier in a feed store in Colorado, by a television crew casting cowboys for a Super Bowl commercial about herding cats. A classic bit of Americana absurdity. He’d turned down a Marlboro Man contract, he told me, and instead modeled for Western catalogs when it suited him. Six foot four, six-six with his boots and hat on, strong, all denim and dust, all square jaw and ice blue eyes, living alone on a 17,000-acre ranch in the Hondo Valley. The kind of widescreen landscape where you can hear your own heartbeat.

There was physical chemistry. I was newly divorced and wounded, and he was attentive in ways that felt like protection at first. We disagreed on politics: he was a rural libertarian. I was a progressive from the city. My ex-husband had shared my politics yet still managed to cheat, lie, steal, and manipulate. So I tried, then, to be open-minded. Maybe, I thought, ideology wasn’t destiny. Maybe tolerance could bridge a gulf. Maybe a conservative guy would be a better boyfriend.

Spoiler alert: He wasn’t, and I’m lucky to be alive.

The cowboy believed, with religious fervor, in “alpha males.” He believed nature itself ran on a brutal logic of winners and losers — eat or be eaten, kill or be killed, strike fear into the hearts of others, or be afraid. He believed a man was only worthy if he dominated everything around him. Including, as it happened, me. It began with small attempts at control but quickly escalated: what I was allowed to talk about, who I could speak to, what I could write, what I should wear. I resisted because I am a grown woman, not livestock. But to him, resistance was challenge, and challenge required punishment. Sometimes that punishment was the silent treatment, for days, or weeks. Sometimes it was a cutting remark, “those pants are not your friend.” But towards the end, it was pure violence. Once, disliking something I’d said, he pinned me to the wall, calmly, smiled and said, “Watch your mouth, Valdes. You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

His calm was the worst part. He didn’t rage. He calculated. One afternoon, as we drove across the ranch, he told me in the same tone you’d use to read a grocery list that he could drown me in one of the ranch’s “drinkers.” Animals fall in all the time, he said. City girls too, probably. It wouldn’t be far-fetched. He said he’d once run his business partner off a snowy mountain road into an icy river. He said, after one of his dogs was gored by a longhorn bull, he shot the bull in the lung so it would die slowly. He described all of this without heat, as if narrating the correct method for mending a fence.

That was the day I jumped out of a moving truck. We were going maybe twenty-five miles an hour down a rutted dirt road, but the jump still slammed into me like a freight train. My shoulder dislocated. Skin tore. I didn’t care. I grabbed my dog from the truck bed and we ran. Sixteen miles across gullies and canyons until I reached my car, which I always left parked near a neighboring ranch. I knew his old football injuries would keep him from chasing me. It was the last time I ever saw him.

I tell this story because it ties directly to something most people don’t realize: the very idea of the “alpha male” is based on scientific error. A myth with a body count. A fantasy that some men cling to like scripture, without ever learning where it came from or why it was wrong.

The term first entered the American bloodstream in 1970 with biologist L. David Mech’s book The Wolf: Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species. Mech described “alpha” and “beta” wolves based on observations of unrelated wolves forced together in captivity — wolves that fought because confinement is not nature. Years later, after studying wolves in their natural habitat, Mech realized the entire framework had been wrong. Wild wolf packs do not resemble gladiator pits. They are families: a breeding pair and their offspring. There is no throne. No violent competition for control. The male holds no more power than the female. They are equal partners who love their kids. Simple as that. As Mech put it in 1999, “Calling a wolf an alpha is usually no more appropriate than referring to a human parent as an ‘alpha.’” It was humans, not wolves, who projected patriarchal fantasies onto the animals. Mech publicly asked publishers to stop using his outdated terminology, even releasing a video with the International Wolf Center to explain that wild wolves do not behave this way.

It gets worse — or better, depending on how you feel about the death of bad metaphors. The ubiquitous “lone wolf” trope is just as false. Wolves are profoundly social; their entire evolutionary strategy is cooperation. The only time a wolf is ever alone for more than a day or two is during dispersal — the brief period when a young adult leaves its family to find a mate and start a new pack. Even Mech pointed this out: “A dispersing wolf is not a ‘lone wolf’ in the romantic sense. It is simply between families.” Not an icon of rugged independence. More like a teenager moving out and apartment-hunting. The American imagination turned this brief biological errand into a whole personality type.

Yet these myths — the alpha, the lone wolf — became cultural currency, because they mirror the values patriarchy wants to believe are natural (they aren’t). The manosphere built an entire worldview out of them, claiming their dominance fantasies were grounded in “nature.” They never bothered to read past Chapter One. The truth, across species, is that social mammals survive through cooperation, not tyranny. In many Native American cosmologies, including among the puebloan people of New Mexico, wolves are seen as representing the power of kindness, sharing and family, probably because those cultures did not come to wolves already poisoned by patriarchy, and observed wolves in the wild.

Primatologist Frans de Waal, who spent decades studying chimpanzees and bonobos, learned this too. Though he once used the term “alpha” himself, his long-term research showed that the most effective leaders among primates often maintained power not through violence but through reassurance and coalition-building. In Our Inner Ape, de Waal writes, “We would much rather blame nature for what we don’t like in ourselves than credit it for what we do like.” Even among chimpanzees, an aggressive alpha often loses power quickly, because fear alone can’t hold a group together. And among bonobos, leadership frequently rests with older females who arbitrate disputes with social savvy rather than force. The biology is clear: empathy and altruism are foundational strategies for survival.

The manosphere, however, clings to the outdated version because it flatters their worldview. It dresses insecurity in the costume of destiny. It offers a script for domination with “science” stapled to it. But that science has been revised, corrected, replaced. These men are basing their identity on a myth invented by wolves who weren’t even wolves — just prisoners in a cage.

The irony is almost too on the nose. The cowboy believed he was a lone wolf and an alpha male at once, the sovereign predator of his domain. But he was neither. He was simply a former abused kid, raised by an autoritarian stepdad, who never learned how to love, be loved, or be in a family, so he mistook isolation for independence and brutality for strength. He thought domination made him powerful. In truth, it made him fragile. And dangerous. And weak. And small.

That’s why the drift from personal nightmare to national peril feels so natural — when certain men and women in power adopt the same “alpha male” dominance mythology I once lived.

Right now, the United States is being steered — at the top — by men and women who believe leadership is about brute force and fear, not empathy, compassion and decency. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth embraced a posture of “maximum lethality” and declared an end to what he calls “woke garbage,” telling the Pentagon to refocus on raw martial strength. The speech he gave alongside President Trump at Marine Corps Base Quantico in September 2025 called for stricter, more “male-level” standards and signaled a willingness to recast U.S. cities as domestic “training grounds.” That kind of talk does more than rebrand military policy — it normalizes impulsive aggression as a virtue, subordination as order, and absolute dominance as policy.

It’s not just Hegseth. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has repeatedly embraced similarly brutal rhetoric and policies. Given that she bragged about shooting a family dog for not being obedient enough, she appears to have been raised by someone a lot like the cowboy. Her public stances cast dissent and vulnerability as threats; in doing so, she reinforces the idea that strength means suppression, that protection is imposed through violence, not care.

When deeply psychologically sick people like Trump, Hegseth and Noem hold the reins of a diverse society, democracy, empathy, and pluralism are imperiled. They are unnatural beings, living an unnatural ethos, with the full conviction that such depravity is natural and Godly.

The cowboy almost killed me because he believed a lie about nature. The people now making decisions at the highest levels of our government are using that same lie to justify policies that risk more than one life.

I saved myself because I stopped believing it.

We — the people — must refuse to believe it too.

Because nature is clear: real strength and leadership among mammals do not come from blind, bombastic displays of masculine dominance.

They come from connection, empathy, sharing and care.

****

"ALISA WRITES" ON SUBSTACK https://alisav.substack.com/p/the-alpha-male-myth-debunked

A Wolf Shall Devour the Sun

A Mythic Journey into Troubled Relations with Our Oldest Ally

Respected by ancient cultures but the archetypal villain in European fairy tales, wolves were hunted to extinction in Scotland by the eighteenth century. Ancient myth, mesmeric imagery and dreamlike soundscapes open a liminal space where Norse gods, Irish shapeshifters and Siberian wolf-children traverse Scottish moors and Transylvanian mountains. Live music stirs the soul. Shadow puppetry and animation portray terror and playfulness. Stories about our oldest ally ask: in the absence of the wolf, what is lost?

****

Edinburgh Festival Fringe, August 2025

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"I am feral"

1/28/2026

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pegi eyers

art by Elena Ray

All pretense is stripped away in the Old Crone years - she has seen too much, done too much, and has already known the intimate agony of ongoing chronic pains - joints and bones and faculties fading, and the loss of strength. What has she got to lose? By sheer will alone she rises from her slumber and slowly enters the forest, the abandoned field, the jumbled hedgerow, and finds the strength to uncover the earth-encrusted apple branches carelessly buried under the farmer's plow, to free the hidden buds struggling for life, caked dirt under her taloned nails, blood oozing in small scrapes from the dried branches and hawthorn spikes. She doesn’t care, as she smooths and untangles, soothes and whispers, sings and encourages, apologizes and supports - the tiny buds appear, take breath and hold the light - and she makes amends for everyday ecocide. Her healing gestures find the green fuse under the tangle. Pushing herself beyond the limits of her physicality, she lifts the heaviest branches, clears the matted grass, and moves the tumbled stones. Stabbing headache, chapped lips, sore knees and hair full of catkins – the Old Crone is nothing like the sterilized archetypes. No, she is not the noble witch, measured and wise. She is something much more – dark, rank and feral - a rabid unkempt force who gives no fucks for the soft comforts of the self, but only for the restoration of the hedgerow and the health of the forest. What else matters to the Old Crone? Eyes fading but hands holding, her love enfolds the chain of life - the tiny buds, the creatures of the soil, the deer in the distance, and the birds keeping her company on the branch, singing their songs of surprise and approval. The Old Crone does the nurturing work of the Earth Mother – mother and daughter both, as they are one and the same. There is no other reason for being, except to remediate the damage caused by the death-dealing patriarchs, and to care for Earth Community.

Pegi Eyers, May 5, 2026

The Crone teaches us to let go of attachment to the physical and embrace the cycles of life and death. Death is coming for us all and if we found a way to become more comfortable with that, maybe we wouldn't banish the Crone to the shadows. Patti Smith

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magic & miracles

1/6/2026

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Once upon a time in a land far away, the Snake Goddess and the Green Man met in an enchanted forest on the outskirts of a dangerous land full of concrete, dubious technologies and strange machines. They spent the afternoon visiting with their beloved friends the Wild Gods - and the pixies, elves, flower fairies, woodland nymphs, and other mythical creatures in the Green Man’s realm. They danced, drummed, sang, told stories, read the oracles, and enjoyed nectar and coloured cakes until the magic began to fade. (A few muggles in a bubble played at swords and strummed guitars, but that was OK too.) And even though they had to cross back into the sterile desert of the “civilized” beings, they held in their wild hearts a deep bond to the leafy green world, memories of dappled sunshine and warm summer breezes, and the beautiful feral essence of that spellbound day.

Lakefield, Ontario, Canada 2016

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feral bio
PEGI EYERS

Feral Bio is the ongoing discovery of themes, elements and experiences that are woven into my personal mythology.

Ethnoautobiography is a research method and a practice that combines elements of autobiography and ethnography, with a focus on the researcher's personal experiences and cultural context. It explores how individual identity is shaped by cultural, historical, and social forces, often in relation to colonialism, ancestral roots, and social justice.
Jürgen W Kremer and
River Jackson-Paton

"i am feral"
GEO-CONNECTION
SACRED SITES
LOCAL LAND GODDESS
land spirits
wolf clan
the black dog
animist ENCOUNTERS
magic & miracles
inspirations
DREAMSPACE
Curriculum vitae

Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots
& Restoring Earth Community
is an award-winning
book that explores
social justice,
nature spirituality,
the ancestral arts,
and resilience in times
of massive change.
Available from
Stone Circle Press
or Amazon

RSS Feed

The descendants of the tribes of Europe were
so successfully and completely colonized
and assimilated that
we have been
conditioned to confuse the narratives of Empire with our own,
identifying with the ruling-class elite and confusing their interests with our own, which we
in turn work to protect
and defend. We were forced off our ancestral lands into the cities
and factories of industrialism, shipped around the world to
feed the growing
industry in newly-colonized areas, and we continue to destroy
the Earth that gives
us life today, because
we think industrial civilization feeds,
clothes, and shelters
us, rather than the
Earth herself. It is therefore both
attractive and mutually beneficial for all
to aspire and actively work towards once
again becoming Indigenous in place,
firmly rooted in a landbase with which
one’s culture has
an intimate and deep-rooted connection.
TLALLI YAOTL
(RECOVERING WASI’CHU/WETIKO)

Too many humans have been led to believe that they are NOT animals
but some kind of extra-special super-species.
This is the BIG LIE that fuels predatory
capitalism and the degradation/destruction of the natural world.
We ARE mammals.
Get back to the circle.
BARBARA LOW

FERAL BIO​

Geomantic connection

i walked and walked

THE SERPENT MOUNDS

WOLF CLAN

when the wolves disappeared

​Eldrvak - Heart Of The Wolf

HOWL WITH THE WOLF MOON

the wolf moon rises

The Judgment of the Living and the Dead​ or “The Wolf Who Taught Us to Pray”

sofia batalha

grimfrost ~ Werewolves and Indo-European warrior-bands

THE ICE AGE WOLF THAT LOVE IS

keen

The Lone Wolf ~ Who is creating your myth?

The "Alpha Male" wolf Myth Debunked

A Wolf Shall Devour the Sun

"I am feral"

pegi eyers

magic & miracles

feral bio​PEGI EYERS

​"i am feral"GEO-CONNECTIONSACRED SITES LOCAL LAND GODDESSland spiritswolf clanthe black dog​animist ENCOUNTERSmagic & miracles inspirations​DREAMSPACE​Curriculum vitae

FERAL BIO

Eldrvak - Heart Of The Wolf

The Judgment of the Living and the Dead
or “The Wolf Who Taught Us to Pray”

feral bio
PEGI EYERS

"i am feral"
GEO-CONNECTION
SACRED SITES
LOCAL LAND GODDESS
land spirits
wolf clan
the black dog
animist ENCOUNTERS
magic & miracles
inspirations
DREAMSPACE
Curriculum vitae