The wolf has always been associated with the darkness of caves, with ravenous jaws and dangerous thick forests: hence comes the atavistic fear of this splendid being.
However, even the wolf has a double nature.

A charming and mysterious dualism:
its throat is the cave, hell, the night, the dangerous but necessary passage which leads to liberation and then turns into dawn, the initiation light which reveals itself after the descent to hell.
The wolf is the closest animal to human nature, it lives alone or in packs, and, after mating, it becomes the devoted head of its family and faithfully stands by its companion till death.

The wolf is a wild beast bearing death and destruction, but also an initiator and bearer of knowledge.

The wolf guards the entrance of the kingdom of the dead, its jaws symbolise the point of no return, and its menacing spirit has a great charm due to the power it expresses beyond good and evil.

As light comes out from the shadow, the wolf comes out from its lair and from wood. Its strength and courage in fighting make it the pre-eminent symbol of warriors.
The heavenly wolf is the mate of the white hind, which represents the earth where great heroes and great chiefs like Gengis Khan were born.

On some Etruscan vases it was pictured while appearing at a cave communicating with the Underworld.

In Greek mythology its destructive side was the reincarnation of god Mars, while it was a symbol of Apollo if it was attributed a solar role.
The sacred wood around its temple was called lukaion, and Aristotle used to hold his lessons there: here is the origin of the world “Lyceum”.

The wolf is the bearer of a knowledge from darkness and from the kingdom of shadow, thus it is dangerous: it evokes the idea of a hardly restrained strength, it is maybe the symbol of the archetypical experience with the numen, which is out of time by definition.

In many civilizations it is associated with the idea of fecundity.

Romolo and Remo, the twins who founded the town which would have become the heart of Christianity, were brought up by a she-wolf.
Turks claimed that they had been brought up by she-wolves, and Aristotle told that she-wolf Leto gave birth to the twins Apollo and Artemis.

Many legends, concerning both the building of new towns and the rebirth of conscience, are about the wolf.
Other ones, which are very ancient, tell about the metamorphosis of men into wolves in full moon nights, that is, lycanthropy. In Spain the wolf was the mount of wizards, and witches used to wear wolf leather laces during their Sabbaths.
During the Middle Ages the wolf was seen as a symbol of voraciousness and greed, and the she wolf became a symbol of lust and unrestrained passion.
The initiation journey, man’s mandatory need to go through the Underworld for sake of his own safety and to bring the light again, starts from the wolf throat (darkness) which swallows the sun (con science).