THIS WOMAN RUNS WITH WOLVES

Double Entendre

A wild, cathartic come-to-Jesus moment via a classic rock anthem

Image by steve fehlberg from Pixabay

His life oscillates, as everyone’s does, not merely between two poles, such as the body and the spirit, the saint and the sinner, but between thousands and thousands. Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

I’d been humming — no tune in particular — when first one tone, then another rebelled, and, though it’d been a long, long

often interminably painful while,

this child of the 60s allowed Steppenwolf to quicken the pace of her walk and redirect her path

I was born to be wild, a woman who runs with the wolves

Who stopped only at the corner of Fillmore and Magnolia to join a landscaper named Jesus lifting his arms to the sun before two ailing olive trees

Grow, grow, Jesus from Green Splendor Landscaping sang out Grow, grow I sang with him — our entwined fingertips French manicured with stars

©Jenine Bsharah Baines 2025

Grow, grow, I sang. May olive trees grow worldwide. May I grow.

May my spirit reach beyond the stars; my soul, open ever more widely in love.

My double-entendre encounter with Green Splendor Jesus occurred the Tuesday after the dreadful weekend of December 13/14, 2025. Two mass shootings followed by the killing of Rob and Michele Reiner by their son. I was so profoundly sad.

I’m no Christ by a long shot, but my wrists bled where the bullets struck and a knife slit my heart in two — each piece bloody as a raw filet on a cutting board.

Olive trees have long been symbols of peace, reconciliation, hope, strength. The two trees Green Splendor Jesus and I sang over were stunted. Nevertheless, I am choosing to trust the process. To have faith, like Abraham Lincoln, in the “better angels of our nature” despite the obvious irony that, 41 days later, John Wilkes Booth obviously chose his demons over his angels.

Yeah, darlin’ gonna make it happen Take the world in a love embrace… Like a true nature’s child We were born, born to be wild We can climb so high Lyrics from Born to be Wild by the classic rock band Steppenwolf

[embed]Great song to run to as well as ride. Steppenwolf means half man/half wolf

Thank you, team at Catharsis Chronicles, for the home for this meditation and prayer for 2026. Chrysa Chrysou, Bella Smith ⭐, Paras Ali, John Hansen PAL, Mariana Busarova, A.H. Mehr — New Year fireworks, all of you.

Thank you, dearest readers, as well. You add such Light and Sparkle and Color and Splendor to my life as a scribbler.

Happiest of New Years. Love.

Jenine Jeni, Jen, J Call me what you will, what feels right. Proper names are poetry in the raw. W.H. Auden