The Sanctuary is forever away, miles north of the Artic Circle.  It’s one of the most beautiful places on the planet.  It’s also one of the most challenging to visit.  Any exposed part of your anatomy is fair game for thick, feisty swarms of mosquitoes.

Here’s how you get there from Manhattan: Take a plane to the alfalfa-rich plains of Saskatchewan, Canada.  Then, clamber aboard a second plane.  Your destination? Yellowknife, the capitol of Canada’s Northwest Territories.  Next step into a tiny floatplane.  It will skim over miles and miles of shimmering lakes surrounded by flat, seemingly barren, tundra.

In this landscape there are no signs of humans.  No roads, no railroads, no houses, no cars, no trucks, no buses, no fences, no electrical or phone wires. The lakes are minus the tell-tale wakes left by motorboats or floatplanes.  No one lives here; not even Inuits. 

Next stop?  Refueling at an outpost for Artic explorers.  It consists of a handful of tents snapping in a fierce breeze and stacks of steel drums -- full of gasoline.  The stop may turn – as it did in my case -- into a two-day, obligatory rest-over. It’s not safe to take-off or land in this blustery gale.  Finally, a second biplane drops you down onto the Thelon River. 

You’ve arrived at one of the largest and most remote wildlife refuges in the world.  It’s 320 miles northeast of Yellowknife.   

We were a pack of women canoeists -- intrepid, perhaps, foolhardy.  We are, of course, beyond cell phone coverage.  In the event of a broken leg or a bear attack, we’re an alarming one or two days away from help. 

Knowing that help is miles away has a fine result: we become exquisitely mindful. We pay close attention every minute.  And we start feeling deliciously self-reliant.   

On the third day, a whisper and a gesture came back from the front canoe – wolves.  There were two on the bank. One trotted off.  The second stood quietly and looked at us. 

She was white, dazzlingly, magically white.  She showed no sign of alarm.  She seemed mildly curious.  In wolf-talk was she asking, “Hmmm, I wonder, what’s that peculiar, long, thing [our canoes] in the water?” 

Carefully, I rested my paddle across my thighs.  My spine tingled.  My heart quickened.  Tears started to well up.  I kept saying to myself, “Oh, you’re so beautiful, so beautiful.” 

I wanted to bow before this wild, perfect creature.  I wanted to pray – or sing. 

In a moment she trotted slowly, almost languidly, up the bank.  She moved not in fear.  It was more as if – in the scheme of her world - we humans were boring, unimportant.  She slipped into the forest of dwarf willows and alders edging the river. 

She was gone. 

Tucked into my tent later that night, I understood my tears.  They were a mixture of joy and sadness.  The joy sprang from the marrow of my bones.  Hours later, I was still zinging, inside and out, with the beauty of the white wolf.

Simultaneously, I grieved.  I wanted the wolf – and all the other animals -- to hear my apology, “Forgive us.  Forgive us for killing your brothers and sisters.  Forgive us for destroying forests, oceans, plains, mountains, rivers, lakes.  Forgive us for global warming…”

Later, back in my maxed-out, urban life in New York City, the white wolf of Thelon became a vision, an inspiration.

White Wolf YogaDance manifests my vision.  It’s inspired by a wolf surviving in the bitter, bitter cold winter in the far North.  It’s also inspired by the fantastic beauty of whales, humming birds, tigers, cobras, hawks, owls, earthworms and all the amazing beings with whom we share our home. 

I hold the space for a new possibility.

There are marvelous similarities of anatomy, family life, social structure, vocalizations, feelings, and behaviors between humans and other beings on the planet.  In White Wolf YogaDance we explore and celebrate these profound connections.  In so doing, you may giggle or cry.  You may want to shout or sing.  And it’s all okay.

Guaranteed: A journey of transformation.  You’ll probe your inner wisdom and creativity; you’ll experience your own unique manifestations of magic, beauty, and spirit.  You’ll find yourself being healed and becoming more whole.  And from that place of healing who knows what changes you might make in your life?