Who are you?

• Do you wonder why you’re never content with your job, or school, or your lifestyle?
• Do your friends and family never seem to quite understand you?
• Do you know something is missing, but you don’t know where to look for it?

Do you feel like a square peg in a round hole? Here is a chance to explore your archetype, to see if you are a Guardian, and to discover how to reach your fullest potential and best serve your people and your Mother Planet. Check out the recording of the zoom call with Tamarack Song and Lety Seibel:

Who is the Guardian?

“Some call them Scouts, many call them Warriors, and others know them as Protectors. To Native people, they are Guardians: the manifestation of the band’s courage, selflessness, and desire to serve. Guardians can be female or male, old or young. Invisible, alert, and detached, they serve as sentries, wayfinders, messengers, ambassadors, sleuths, defenders, providers, and mentors. Their presence gives peace of mind to their people, so that they can comfortably pursue their day’s activities and rest peacefully in the night.

“All that Guardians do centers on respect—the deepest reverence for the Earth and all Her children, along with a high regard for the perfected self. In this day, Guardians are again needed by their people and their Earth Mother—perhaps more than ever.”

– Taken from the opening lines of the training text book Like a Shadow: The Life and Training of a Guardian Warrior, by Tamarack Song (Snow Wolf Publishing, 2020)

Call of the Shadow Wolf

First Level and Elite Level Training
in the Hallowed Tradition of the Guardian Wolf

There comes a time in the life of many a Wolf to leave your pack and set out on your own. You have come of age and have a yearning deep inside to follow the revered Lineage of the Lone Wolf. You have a burning passion to start drumming down to your core self and find out what you are made of — and what you are capable of.

You want to get out where there is no pack to feed and protect you, so you can learn to be self-reliant. You yearn to grow in the resilience and wisdom that others can place their trust in. You know it is the only way. You know that you have the power and vision to make a difference for yourself and others, but you haven’t had the opportunity or the training to develop and manifest it. Now is your time, and you must go — you have no other choice.

Yet in order to reach those goals, you have to forge new pathways that neither you—nor anyone else — have ever traveled before. Out on that new frontier, you won’t know where to find food, where to seek shelter, or where danger lurks. And you’ll be passing through the territory of other Wolves. You need to move like a shadow across the landscape, ever cautious and alert.

You will wander many, many days, and many, many miles in your Quest, until you find your place to learn, to train, and to fully blossom into yourself—to go from a Shadow to a full-fledged Shadow Wolf.

It’s all about change, for when we can no longer change, we lose our lust for life. Our spirits become rigid, and we drag our bodies around like they are empty shells. We have died, even though we might still be going through the motions—still consuming and doing what we are told. We are dead because we have given up on ourselves. We have forgotten that we have a special reason for living that is for us and us alone—we have a unique contribution for making the world a better place.

Whatever you do, don’t ever give up. Believe in yourself. Where there is a will, there is a way.

Shadow Wolf Training

You are the Lone Wolf who has become a Shadow, yearning to explore the myth and mystery of becoming a Shadow Wolf. You have an undying drive to train to move silently and invisibly, to strengthen your body, mind, and spirit.

Your Quest takes you down a path through the wilderness. Before you appears a camp. You feel an intuitive draw to the spirit of the camp, yet nobody comes out to greet you. However, yet you feel that there are eyes upon you. Now you know you have found the famed Camp of the Shadow Wolf. You want to shout out, “Let the Training begin!” but you know it is not the Way of the Shadow. You have passed your first test.

First Level: Shadow Training.  You get thorough foundational instruction and practice in all of the essential Guardian skills; It is an at-home training, meaning that you get the instructions online, and perform the exercises where you live. This Training is also available for people who choose not to do the Elite Level field training at this time.

Elite Level: Shadow Wolf Training.  You go deep into the wilderness with a pack of fellow Lone Wolves for a full-immersion experience. The base camp from which you head out on training missions is called Nishnajida, which is Ojibwe for Camp where the Old Way returns.

The Shadow and The Shadow Wolf—A Sacred Trust

All traditional cultures honor their Shadow Wolves, as they are the protectors, scouts, and upholders of the right to live justly and abide by your own Truth. Our Menominee Indian neighbors have a special term: Nenaeneh-takuh-semenaw, which means We honor our brave Shadow Wolves.

The Shadow Wolves of classical times: the Lakota Akicita, Ojibwe Minisino, Arabian Faris, Japanese Bushi, and African Maasai Morans put service to their people above all else. The same is true of another level of honored Guardian service that often goes less recognized, and that is the Apprentice or Shadow (also known as Acolyte, Aspirant, or Seito). Yet the Shadow is equally as important as the Shadow Wolf, as the training period has everything to do with how the Shadow Wolf is ultimately going to serve his/her people. Shadow Training, then, gets a high level of attention from Shadow Wolves and their community. Nearly every Shadow Wolf has a Shadow. It is considered a privilege and a high honor to guide a worthy Shadow in Training.

With the Ojibwe people of our area, a Shadow is called an Oshkabewis. Tamarack, one of our Shadow Wolf Trainers, served as an Oshkabewis in the Wisconsin Walleye War of the late 1980s, which was waged to regain the treaty-guaranteed rights to hunt and gather. He helped the Minisinos prepare for service and stood by their sides in action. By the end of the War, I was honored by being inducted as a Minisino.

A similar practice survived into the European Middle Ages with the Knightly tradition. A young person would begin as a Page. A Page had to be an outstanding youth, capable of both morally and physically walking in the footsteps of the Knight he/she shadowed. Pages matured into Squires, who rode alongside the Knights they served. Squires who proved worthy over time could become Knights themselves.

We follow the same hallowed Training practice as those traditional cultures, with each Shadow Wolf accepting the petition of a Shadow. Being chosen as a Shadow is considered a once-in-a-lifetime break, as you receive the best Training possible—the opportunity to mirror every thought, word, and action of a Shadow Wolf, and to perhaps one day become one yourself.

The Awakening

You are about to enter another reality: the World of the Wolf. You’ll never be the same after the Shadow Wolf Training—if you surrender to it. You lose weight you didn’t know you had: you shed every pattern, routine, principle, and I-me-mine inclination that’s rooted itself in your psyche. Here’s how it’s done:

• First and foremost, you get to work on rooting out and deleting your unconscious behaviors, addictions, and beliefs, which enslave and restrict choices and options.
• Then, everything gets stripped down to its essence. That means everything—communication, relationships, clothing, gear, shelter, nourishment, and culture. You then build up to the two essential sources of power and awareness: Breath and Water.
• All thought, speech, and action are done to perfection, with full presence and engagement. Every step becomes conscious and done with intention and grace. Every word is chosen for clarity and spoken with beauty.
• No one thing and no one moment is valued over any other. No person or relationship is more or less regarded than any other. Every breath, every glance, becomes sacred.
• You learn how to see through everything—including yourself—and find that nothing is as it appears. That is the secret to been invisibly as a shadow, with no effort.
• Silent communication training is intense: words are dismissed in favor of faint gestures and the sly voice of the eye.
• Even the path less traveled is shunned, in favor of going with no path at all. To be unpredictable and full of surprises is the way of no way—the Way of the Shadow Wolf.

The Result

You emerge emotionally and psychologically free. You have stripped everything away to unleash your inner wild child—your pure, spontaneous, fun-loving, creative, empathetic, fully empowered self. Uncontaminated by biases and expectations, you have become who you were intended to be:

• You are open to everything and anything.
• You are at your mental and physical peak, able to consider all options and use anything at your disposal to accomplish the Mission.
• You can answer to anybody or nobody.
• You can function independently and effectively, like a Lone Wolf, when there is no-one else to rely on, or when you are separated from your fellow Wolves on a Mission.
• In other terms, you have evolved from a drifting Seeker to a Zen Master.

Camp and Trail Life

You learn to get by with less than you ever imagined you could live on. In the same way a Guardian’s strength is rooted in her shadow presence, you are going to go from a stripped-down Guardian camp to bathing in the abundance that surrounds you. It is done by adopting these three mottos:

Life is games, and games are life.
Life is ritual, and ritual is life.
Life is training, and training is life.

That is the Way of the Wolf, and you learn it the same way she does—by living and breathing it. Remembering that we are animals just like her, we learn how to not only survive, but thrive. When she is alone or injured and cannot take down a large animal, she feasts on Mice, young Birds, even Grasshoppers. You learn to do the same, such as when you can’t catch Fish. You’ll be feasting on the abundance of nourishing Minnows anyone can catch, anytime. It’s training in how to pull off a successful Mission when nothing seems to be going your way. That’s the elite level of performance both Shadow and Shadow Wolf attain in this Training.

Call of the Shadow Wolf is also elite survival training. When all else fails, the Guardian needs to know how to help his/her people survive, because survival skills are the foundation for sustainable thriving. When people know how to stay alive in all circumstances, they no longer live in fear of the future. They realize that no matter what, they can take care of themselves, their Children, and their Elders.

Camp and Trail life starts nice and rough, then finishes nice and easy—if you let go and step fully into Wolf’s World. You first bleed, but something far more precious than blood. Then you hurt, all the time wishing it was just from pain. But after all your tears and cursing, you find yourself—to your shock and amazement—laughing and dancing in gratitude when you realize you’ve become someone you only dreamed you could be—a Shadow Wolf.

Registration

First Level At-Home Intensive: 80 days, online via email and zoom.

Date: January 20th–April 9th, 2025.

The At-Home is open also to individuals not enrolled in the Shadow Wolf Training.

Petition for the Elite Level Field Training: 80 days, somewhere in the Wisconsin Wilderness.

Date: May 25th–August 14th, 2025,

To apply for the Elite Level Training, contact Tamarack for an in-person or video interview at 715-546-2944 or training@teachingdrum.org

If you are accepted, it will be either as a Shadow or a Shadow Wolf (see The Shadow and the Shadow Wolf —a Sacred Trust). You may Petition to participate in the Elite Field Training at any time, including before the At-Home Intensive.