The Wolf, the Tattoo, and the Great Work Ahead

A little wild wisdom, a little life discernment, and a tattoo I definitely need your vote on.

In just under ten days, I’m getting my first tattoo — a wolf on the inside of my forearm. My daughters think it’s a little… well… wolfy. And so do I. Can’t wait. Anyhow.

It’s inspired by Women Who Run With the Wolves, specifically the story of La Loba — the Wolf Woman who gathers bones and sings them back to life. It’s served as a wildly alive reminder of our instinctual, creative, resilient selves…the parts that go quiet when life is too loud. The parts that get cast aside by us, or by others who are uncomfortable with our playing, sniffing, and howling about.

And in that process of gathering bones, I’ve learned that so much of it (if not all of it) is about letting things go — allowing death and receiving life where we’ve denied or shamed it.

There’s more than one passage that gives me goosebumps. This is one of them:

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“The great work before us is to learn to understand what around and about us and what within us must live, and what must die.
Our work is to apprehend the timing of both; to allow what must die to die, and what must live to live. It is a deep teacher if we can only learn its tempo.”

And then this line:

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“We have been taught that death is always followed by more death. It is simply not so. Death is always in the process of incubating new life, even when one’s existence has been cut down to the bones.”
— Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Put that in your pipe and… ah… anyway.

I’ve been simmering with these ideals for years and letting them thread their way through my sense of being. Paying attention to timing. To what my instincts say. Noticing what needs to be revived, what needs to be released, what is incubating, and what is done. It’s been about listening more closely, trusting my own instincts, and letting the next version of myself arrive without force.

These questions have been steady companions (maybe they can be for you too):

What in me is ready to live again?
What has served its purpose and can be laid down?
What is quietly incubating under the surface?
What rhythm is life asking me to follow right now?

Who knows, maybe after you simmer on this for a few years, you’ll wind up with a howling snarl-tooth on your own whats-a-ma-call-it.

But because this is my first tattoo (and because letting people vote on life decisions is the most fun form of chaos), I’d love your help choosing the final design.

I’ve narrowed it down to a few options — some beautiful, some questionable, all wolves, and I’d love your vote before my appointment.

Which wolf should I get? Hit reply and tell me which one you’d pick for me.
(Seriously. Your emails land straight in my inbox, and I read every single one.)