Stalking Wolf
Grandfather
c. 1880s – 1980s
Part man, part animal, almost entirely spirit. A Lipan Apache whose world had no clock and no border.
Born into a small nomadic clan of Lipan Apache, raised by his great-grandfather Coyote Thunder in the trackless deserts.
He wandered a lifetime gathering survival, tracking, and the basic truth in spirit — from the Pine Barrens to Death Valley to the northern lights.
Tom Brown Jr.
met him as a boy collecting talking stones by a river.
Grandfather’s three missions were simple and inexhaustible: keep the old skills alive, find the truth, and teach whoever would still listen.
True riches, he said, are defined in beauty.
In the library
Grandfather
We are the caretakers
Nature becomes a doorway to the spirit and spirit also becomes a doorway to nature. There is only the sacred oneness that we are all part of. When we take something from nature, its spirit does not die. Instead it becomes part of our flesh and part of our spirit. There is no real death, at least not when things are taken in the right way, the sacred way. You belong to the earth, just as you are part of this old tree and it of you. Nature can exist without us, but it would struggle far more. Remember, we are here for a grand purpose, beyond self. We are the caretakers.
Grandfather
Grandfather
Alone, not lonely
The chasm between being alone and loneliness is deep. The way you begin to be alone and at peace without being lonely is to know that you are with your best friend. When you are at peace with yourself and love yourself, you can never be lonely. Only when one learns to love himself can he love another. You must find that love for yourself before you can touch the purity of aloneness. Love of self, without being selfish, will not allow loneliness to exist. Love of self also creates a love for everything else and brings us closer to the sacred oneness.
Grandfather
Grandfather
Peace, love, joy, purpose
The four things people really work for in life: peace, love, joy, and a purpose beyond self. Peace becomes a doorway to joy. When we know our purpose in service to others and the world around us, our sense of peace and joy grows. We settle into ourselves and our personal gifts come forth. Our capacity for offering and receiving love grows with this as well. The herd does not ask you to manufacture these. It asks you to tend them, the way you would a fire you did not light.
Grandfather