Page 17 - Summer 18

Scavenging canids probably domesticated themselves by adapting to a new environmental niche – human refuse dumps. Those that were bolder sought ever-closer contact with humans and so by natural selection became increasingly confiding and tame, producing by adaptation an end product which we would recognise as the typical mutt – similar to the medium-sized, golden-coloured, black-muzzled dogs that scavenge on the edges of towns worldwide. The wide diversity of breeds that have developed from this early nondescript form was at first due to very little human intervention, dogs being preferentially selected and reared for their abilities, such as guarding and hunting.
Environment also played a role. Much later, humans began to crossbreed animals with desirable traits deliberately manipulating the wolf form, often with Frankensteinian- like intent, to produce the great variation in shapes that now exist, some, such distorted hybrids that they could not possibly survive in the wild; a far cry from the free- ranging, independent, proud and superbly efficient wolf. The dog has become known as the “shapeshifter.”
Little wonder that Lac-cans suffer from a sense of inadequacy, inferiority, disturbed body image and identity, and are plagued by an obsessive dissatisfaction with some body part, often the nose or breasts, and hide their social phobia behind a shifting mask of multiple personas.
Self-disgust, loathing, and a sense of being in some way soiled are indicative of sycosis, and are equally strong in Lac-can and Thuja. In both archetypes, this rejection of self may follow sexual abuse and may lead to a compulsive need to wash and cleanse themselves.
The wolf is a powerfully ambivalent symbol. Its image in the human psyche is essentially dark. It is equated with the devil – fierce, insatiable, and evil.
As incarnating all the dark, destructive aspects of nature, the wolf, when worshipped, becomes one of the dread deities, embodying ferocity, cunning, greed, cruelty, and wickedness. However, its fierce qualities can also be protective, courageous, and victorious, and therefore venerated.
In Norse and Teutonic mythology the wolf is sacred to Odin or Wotan, the supreme god. Two wolves with two ravens, were companions of Wotan. These wolves, Skoll and Hati – repulsion and hatred, persistently pursued the sun and the moon attempting to swallow them so that the
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