laurawythe

The reference to Farley Mowat was right, and I must have liked the workings of Mowat’s anti-bureaucratic mind enough that his philosophy and a bit of his wisdom has stuck.    Never Cry Wolf is about a young, naive, biologist flying into the north tundra, and his literal face-to-face meetings with the wolves.  His openness to what he really saw, a de-bunking of the myth of the wild, and of wolves beyond self-serving human narratives like Jack London’s, has become a model for wildlife management.

The best descriptor of the Never Cry Wolf relationships can be found in the Duluth Model of Equality, the changes needed to encourage a shift to non-violence in an abusive relationship.  Mowat would encourage us to give up our violence and learn a more peaceful way from the wolves.  I learned about the Duluth Power and Control Wheel through volunteer training with the London Abused Women’s Centre.  It describes the use of violence to exercise control, and I have posted them below, with love.

A great guide for any relationship. Wish business/government culture would adopt it universally.

Call of the Wild approach, so old-school.  No need for aggression.

And so Mowat does pee out a boundary and you’ll have to read the book to see if it really does work.  And so my short story was built on the wisdom of an elder, who offered a great alternative to the violence of conquering.