There have been many expressive moments in my life. These moments I cherish, for they have magic value and I will never forget their importance.

My life as an author began many, many years ago after returning home from the cold office of a psychoanalyst. There had been too many abusive episodes from males whom I worked for and one I married, the scars I wear today. The youthful years of my young womanhood turned ugly and cold hearted.

For me, I was going to graduate high school and get a job. I did both. The diploma afforded me a good job, the good job afforded me a custom-ordered expensive sports car I designed exterior and interior, instructed the car salesman to instruct the car manufacturer to specially make up this car for me. They did and it arrived nine months later on a covered train car, because kids often stand on bridges and throw rocks at the freight. I paid extra to have my custom car shipped in a covered train car from the factory many states away to assure it arrived in mint condition. It did.

The point is, my materialism in those years had nothing of spiritual value to teach me or even to get me to the next phase of life. After years of living materially, one day, something in me snapped. I left my long-term marriage, caught a plane back to my hometown, and began my healing process. That process brought forth an agreeable change in my life. I began living with wolves and raising wolves and giving wolf school to other damaged women, and the secret has remained for years, the Stone Creek Woman secret, the one that I have been asked if I am Stone Creek Woman, the one who leads women across frontiers to get themselves back into the primal element of life in an undiluted, natural environment. The secret remains.

The turning point for me, the day that I would become healed and Whole, was the day in this picture, when I saw something. I took this picture of a very special wolf cub of mine. Things began to take shape. I knew that I was healed and Whole when I saw through the viewfinder that this wolf cub's markings on its face were the same diamond designs on the Indian print blanket. Spirit had entered my rite of passage. My awareness to such detail was the healing balm of wisdom through the process of recognizing an animal of the wild's markings to that of a design on the Native blanket that we've seen for many years, some of us for centuries.

Nine months to make a sports car has very little value compared to the twenty years that I have been in the company of wolves, and that journey is nearly over. I've traveled many more miles with these wolves than I ever did in that custom sports car.

I've seen a lot of things come and go. I've seen sadness and I've seen joy. I've seen things that I never should have seen, but then I've seen things most have never seen. I'm a lucky woman. I've shared my wisdom with others and I've been graded by others, some low marks, some high marks, and I've learned through the wolves how to mark territory. It shows in my writing and it shows in my personality. I've learned how to read women and wolves, both species a challenge. Some are playful, some are embedded in the soul. One I am helping heal from a tragedy that took her mother away. And so the criticism doesn't bother me from others.

The collapse of ambition sat in the seat beside me in that sports car. It's truly amazing how ambition can be revived through the eyes of nature. Gifted women can be so willing to give up on themselves. There's a high price for squelching ambition. I send this article out for encouragement. You have to take risks to grow...

And no, I did not participate in bio-feedback hooked up to wires as my psychoanalyst suggested; my feedback came from my wolves...

Copyright 12/7/2009 Ms. Sage Sweetwater, firebrand lesbian novelist