Wolf Medicine

Wolf Medicine

February 16 – 22, 2025

at

The Giant Pine Lodge,

7136 Military Road, Three Lakes, WI, 54562

Brother Wolf Foundation offers this course in conjunction with Teaching Drum Outdoor School.

A week of immersion in the world of our Brother Wolf
to bring us closer to discovering the truth about Wolves—and ourselves

This course takes you into a world few people are lucky enough to visit. For an entire week, your whole world is the territory of a pack (i.e. family) of Wolves. You take a journey into the heart of the family, to listen to their teachings on how they are so successful with cooperation, survival, leadership, commitment, and how they enjoy what life gives them. You learn that they—just like us—play, love, care for others, show compassion, die of broken hearts, pine for home, and can be endlessly patient. You observe their hunting, mating, and childrearing practices. In doing so, you discover that they personify our ideals for being loving family members, empathetic helpers, and firm but fair leaders who know when to defer to others. And you see that even they have rambunctious teenagers and fun-loving pranksters.

In this day, our social order seems to be falling apart, while the Wolf’s remains intact. Our organizations—and we ourselves—are disoriented from the aftershocks of trauma, divorce, crime, war, overpopulation, economic turmoil, and environmental degradation. The Wolf family, on the other hand, remains a model of playfulness, teamwork, efficiency, and living in balance with Nature. While our educational system flounders, Wolves always put the instruction, protection, and mentoring of their young first, along with the care of their elders, as they know that therein lies their future. We clearly have much we could learn from Wolf, who is willing to share with us if we are willing to listen.

Wolftracking
Wolf tracks
Wolftracking

Course Highlights

  • Live for a week as a family of Wolves.
  • Bring Wolves to life, as the intelligent, sensitive, and cooperative creatures they are.
  • Trail a family of Wolves in the Headwaters Wilderness, reading their sign and hearing the story they tell.
  • Explore the similarities between Wolf families and Human families.
  • Listen to a local Native Elder describe her people’s relationship with Wolf.
  • Hear traditional stories of the Wolf-Human relationship.
  • Learn more about being an advocate for Wolves.

Daily Activities

Mornings begin with a Greeting the Sun Ceremony, which is one of Wolves’ four ritual practices. After breakfast, we then explore some aspect of the life of a Wolf. After lunch, we see how what we learned in the morning fits by heading out to the wilderness to immerse ourselves in the life of an actual Wolf pack. Evenings are spent exploring the afternoon mysteries we discovered, and the course guides bring in their knowledge and experience from living with Wolves, following the local Wolf families, and learning from the local Native Elders.

Wolf tracks

The wolf tracking immersion is a thrilling and educational experience that will keep you engaged the whole time. Whether you are in the field following the tracks or in the classroom learning about the culture of the wolf, you will be captivated. The instructors are some of the best in the world and their combined experience and wisdom will leave you in awe. They take a very holistic approach to teaching about the wolves in their entirety. They know the wolves that they track, they know the land that they live on, and they know how to make you feel like you belong.

~ Nick Harnish, 2020 Wolf Tracking Immersion participant

I was surprised about the level of care staff brought to this event. The amount of focus, effort, and soul they put in was evident. They are knowledgeable, encouraging and there to help. Their devotion to tracking is strong, and their combined knowledge is powerful. Their impact on my life is something I carry with the utmost gratitude.

The food was top notch, the housing was cozy, and the tracking was insightful and fun .I was worried about the cold, but as soon as I started tromping through the woods I was taking off layers I was getting so warm. I went solo, but there is something about the community…we all ended up like family.

~ Joe Colder, 2019 Wolf Tracking Immersion participant

Day 1 – Growing In Relationship

We start by learning what role you would play in a Wolf family based on your character traits. We then divide into two Wolf families and enact a showdown on our shared territory boundary, with the resultant negotiations being conducted in Wolf language. The second half of Day 1 is spent learning about the Wolf families in the area, their lifestyles, and their habitat.

Wolftracking

We live out the rest of the week together as a Wolf family, maintaining our prescribed roles within the family. To put to practice what we are learning about the Way of the Wolf, we provide for our own basic needs, including food preparation, cleaning, and socializing, just as a Wolf family would.

Days 2-6

Morning Presentations and Workshops

Every morning begins with a Greeting the Sun Ceremony, which is one of Wolves’ four ritual practices. After breakfast, we get right into an exploration of one or more of the following topics:

  • Becoming a Pack – How a Wolf family forms and maintains itself. We explore mating rituals, conflict resolution skills, pup rearing, the roles of females and elders, and more.
  • Wolf Language – Relationship is communication, and the body language, facial expressions, and vocalizations comprise a rich and complex language.
  • Our Ancestral Relationship – Through legends and history, we discover how Wolves made us Human and why all indigenous people call him “Brother Wolf.”
  • The Local Native Relationship – A Native Elder joins us to share the story of their kinship with Wolf and the role Wolf plays in their culture.
  • Wolf Preservation – A Wolf biologist and animal rights proponent shares information and inspiration on what we can do to advocate for Wolves.  
  • Lessons From Wolves – for family, relationships, business, leadership, self-discovery, and creativity.
Wolftracking

Afternoon Fieldwork

After an early lunch, we take what we gained from the morning workshop out into Wolf’s world, to see how it fits. Moving and inquiring as Wolves do, we get an inside view of Wolf habitat, territory, movements, the hunt, mating and denning, rendezvous sites, kill sites, reading track, sign, scat, scent markings, and more.

 

Evening Storytelling

After the evening meal, we relax into exploring the mysteries in the stories from our day in the world of Wolves. Lety shares indigenous perspectives, OdeMakwa reflects on what she has learned from keeping tabs on the local Wolf families for the past decade, and Tamarack weaves in stories from his life with Wolves.

 

Wolftracking
Wolftracking

A Special Night

We spend one moonlit night around the Fire at our primitive camp adjacent to the Headwaters Wilderness. Depending on the weather and your personal preference, you may get to sleep that night either in a birchbark wigwam or a lean-to in front of the Fire. The camp is in the Wolf territory we explore during the week, so you never know what might happen…

The daily schedule may be adjusted to accommodate the weather.

Immersion Warm-up We learn best through story. The book Entering the Mind of the Tracker: Native Practices for Developing Intuitive Consciousness and Discovering Hidden Nature is a collection of Tamarack’s accounts of guiding people to meet Wolves and their animal relations. The book is included in your registration packet. Through the stories, you learn about the Wilderness and her inhabitants who you will be spending the week with, and you get accustomed to the indigenous heart-centered approach to communion with Nature that permeates this immersion. It is strongly encouraged that you read the book in preparation for the course.

Your Guides

Wolf is the primary guide and inspiration for our time together. At every turn, you hear the voice of Wolf and feel her presence. To help translate Wolf’s language, you are accompanied by three people who have a special relationship with Wolf:

Lety Seibel

Being raised by her Mayan curandera (healer) grandmother, Lety grew up with the guiding and healing voices of Nature as an intimate part of her life. She served as ceremonial assistant and translator for a Peruvian shaman, and she has a close relationship with several of our Ojibwe Elder neighbors. Having studied Ojibwe language and culture for years, she has an intimate feel for what it is like to know Nature as your mother and Her children as your sisters and brothers. As our Elder Storyteller, Lety brings the traditional legends of the Wolf-Human relationship to life for you. Her sharing is enriched by her connection with the local Wolf families and her intuitive sense of what the Roman poet Juvenal meant when he stated that Never does Nature say one thing and Wisdom another.

 OdeMakwa

Having lived in the Wilderness in a bark lodge for an entire year, OdeMakwa knows on a visceral level what it is like to rely on Nature to meet all your needs, wants, and desires, just as Wolf does. She brings that consciousness into her sharing with you, which is all the more relevant because her year of primitive living was spent in the Wolf territories you will be exploring. In addition, Odemakwa works as a habitat restoration consultant and pollinator plant reintroduction specialist. So along with her intimate knowledge of the ebbs and flows of our local Wolf families, she helps you recognize the habitat requirements and plants and animals they depend on for their livelihood.

Tamarack Song

Fifty years ago, Tamarack was adopted by the family of Wolves he rescued from a zoo. He lived with them for the next five years, and they became his first real family. They accepted and cherished him for who he was, rather than for who he could or should be. He learned valuable lessons from them about emotional honesty, matedness and family, the archetypal roles of Guardian, Nurturer, and Voice, and living in balance with all of Creation. Unfortunately, a tragic series of events separated him from his family, and soon after they met their demise. He survived the trauma by dedicating his life to helping others live and learn from the Way of the Wolf. That is why he is inviting you to join him on this journey of rediscovering our primal relationship with Wolf, and in doing so remembering what it is to be fully Human.

  Warning Before you register, be forewarned that participation in this experience is likely to result in an addictive condition known as Wolfaholism. (Oh, dear!) Should you choose to continue anyway, please note that you may be reduced to a Wolfaholic for the rest of your life. (Horrors!) In addition, you need to know that any withdrawal symptoms from exposure to the Way of the Wolf that you may suffer after departing can be alleviated only by incorporating Wolf Consciousness into your daily life. (Aah…)

Course Information

Location: The Giant Pine Lodge in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest near Three Lakes, Wisconsin.

Date: February 16 – 22, 2025

Tuition: $1600. Includes in-course transportation, lodging, and all meals.
$2600 total if taken back-to-back with Wolf Tracks Across Your Life.
Alternative financing options are available when needed.

This course is open to 10 participants.

For more information, contact tracking@teachingdrum.org
or (715) 546-2944.