Into The Mystick

Coyote came last night. He came to me in my dreams. In the deep darkness of dream, most anything
can happen. And most likely it will.


It was a face to face meeting, just Coyote and me. One minute there was nothing, just the dark
emptiness of sleep, and the next, Coyote is there, staring into my eyes. Although it had been a while since
we last talked, I’d been expecting him. But even then, it was still somewhat of a surprise. As it was, I
was so excited to see him, my body responded with a start. For just a moment, I was afraid I was going
to awaken, but somehow I managed to stay in the darkness of dream. But by then, Coyote was already
gone. They’re reticent creatures, dwellers of a twilight world. The harsh light of humanity’s stark and
logical mind is not their place. But he’ll be back. Soon I hope.


I had been trying to make contact with Coyote, to reestablish an old friendship. In fact, I had addressed him earlier that very evening, just as the sun was going down. Not that I could see him, but I sensed the spirit of his presence as I often do in the dark woods surrounding my home. Perhaps that's why his return was such a surprise; you know, the synchronicity of the timing and all. At any rate, I had told him quite matter of fact that I wanted to speak with him. Or maybe that I wanted him to speak with me. I simply let him know I was here, here waiting, and that I wanted to start a conversation, that’s all. Just to start communicating with one another again. This may sound like crazy talk to some. And maybe that’s what it is. But even so, I wouldn't want it any other way.


It may sound strange to some, but I have a need, a deep yearning to get in touch with the natural world, with Coyote in particular, this animal that so many hate and fear. This same animal that our urban sprawl has encroached upon, driven out of his home in the countryside and directly into our city limits, into our neatly planned neighborhoods, right into our cluttered consciousness. Here, he makes his last stand. Where else is there for him to go?


Don’t get me wrong; we’ve had our own run-ins with Coyote. He took a good dog of mine just last
spring. Not that I really blame him. Gus was a territorial dachshund, one that I inherited when my
mother passed away a few years ago. He was a spoiled, overweight lapdog when he first came here, and
I never thought he’d make it. But Gussie took right to the land and made this place his home. He loved
the open ground and spent many an hour doing what dogs do best – barking and marking his territory
and exploring every hill and holler. And much to my surprise, he found a place on this land and in my
heart. And it hurt to lose him. To be honest, it hurt bad. But I also know how he could be. I had seen
him bluff bigger dogs and chase fox into their dens, and I secretly feared what was to come. And yet I
couldn’t bear to keep him penned up. He’d already spent too much of his life in that manner. And so one
late night when he came into the house wounded and bleeding, the howls of wild things still echoing in
the night, I knew right away what had happened. Like I said, I don’t blame Coyote. I suspect he was only
protecting what little he has left.


We held Gus in our arms as he died, and I buried him on the far, east side of the property, upon a hill
under the shade of a tall oak tree. On some dark nights when my mind gets restless, I imagine Coyote
visiting him there. Speaking with Gus and paying him a little respect for his loyalty and courage, for
being a small part of what is still wild and free. They weren’t really all that different in many respects.
It’s a good dream, and so I carry it with me in my medicine bundle. Right here next to my heart.




In the mythological tradition, Coyote is a ubiquitous creature, a shape-shifter, a keeper of magic.
He is a cultural hero, a creator, a teacher, the ultimate trickster, a clown and a fool. In some Native
American stories, he brings light and fire into the world, but in others, his foolishness may bring great
destruction and darkness, although it’s seldom done in a malicious manner. It’s just the nature of things.
Coyote symbolizes both folly and wisdom, a natural balance of the two, yin and yang if you will. His
foolishness mirrors our own, but his wisdom, our greater possibility. In story, he’s often times all canine
from head to tail, but other times he is part human, a hybrid god, a "therianthrope!" Historically, in
the shadowed magic of the dark, ancient man painted magnificent portraits of these animal deities upon his cave walls. He danced and prayed and evoked these gods in ritual, in sympathetic magic. And during induced states of ecstatic consciousness, deep within the womb-like darkness, man merged with beast, becoming one and the same. Sometimes I like to imagine I understand what that was all about.


That he came to me in a dream makes a certain kind of sense. How else would he talk to me? I’ve
heard of a few special men, whisperers as they often call them, men who talk directly to the animals.
But that doesn’t seem to be my way. As far as I can tell, Coyote doesn’t speak English – at least not
with me. Yet I do know they speak. Everything in existence speaks in some sort of tongue, although
not necessarily in a language woven of words. Sadly, modern man just doesn’t know how to listen
anymore. We’ve lost the heart for it. Once upon a time man communicated intimately and directly with
the natural world around him. It was a powerful magic. It was a thread which kept us closely connected
with the rest of the world. But much has been lost. And the world has suffered greatly for it.


There’s been a number of articles in the local papers lately discussing Coyote. Mostly highly
emotional talk about what a problem he has become and what we need to do to protect what is
rightfully ours. Sadly, no one speaks for Coyote. Nothing is said about what a problem we have become.
No one mentions how we’ve taken all of what was once theirs and selfishly made it our own. Who
would listen? Who would care? Tomorrow, proud and angry men will set steel traps of death along the
outer periphery of our guarded boundaries. As always, Coyote will slip silently back into the shadows of
the dusky twilight where he waits and watches. But man has proven to be clever and relentless in his
obsessions, and in the end, we will win.


But what happens when we win, when we trap and kill the last of Coyote? What I really mean is,
what happens to us? What happens when there are no more songs from the prairie wolf? One less
wild thing to touch us, to remind us of where we come from, what we are, what we’ve always been?
What becomes of us then? What will we have won? No more magic. No more dreams. Just a sterile
world of concrete and steel. It’s a bleak picture we paint, and it sits uncomfortably in the wildness of
my soul. As I ponder this dark possibility, I’m reminded of Chief Seattle’s prophetic words as we stole away the last vestiges of pristine wilderness along the Pacific Northwest, once again intent on reshaping the natural world into the bleak and malevolent vision of our darkest dreams, “It’s the end of living," said Chief Seattle, "and the beginning of survival.”  Not a place I care to be. . . . .




I watched Coyote one afternoon in the wild grass and brush that creeps right up to the edge of our
property. You don’t usually see them out at this time of day, even see them at all if they have their way.
But I saw them just the same. There were several of them moving silently along the opposite bank of
the small, wooded creek that runs just west of our home. They were beautiful creatures, their coats
still thick and full from the winter’s chill, and they glistened like woven gold in the afternoon sun. There
was a rank and file line of them moving with deliberate intention toward the southern end of the creek.
And bringing up the rear, the smallest and thinnest of the pack walked with a limp, one of his rear legs
clearly injured, and he carried it mindfully as he struggled somewhat to keep up on his three good legs. I
wondered even then, as I fought back tears, if he’d been a victim of our obsession to eradicate the world
of all things wild and free.


And although I had no real reason to suspect it in the beginning, I now sense they may have known
I was watching them. It’s a funny feeling but in the light of what has transpired, it makes a strange kind
of sense. Perhaps they even deliberately let me see them. After all, we were new to this place, our first
spring here, and so, maybe like good neighbors, they were simply here to greet us, to welcome us home.
A somewhat silly human sentiment, but I’ll say it just the same. It feels that way. And although I was as
silent and stealthy as possible in gaining a good vantage point in which to watch, what passes for silence
and craftiness is a relative term, especially when and where humans are concerned. What happened
next only confirms my suspicions.


I watched until they disappeared from sight, and after a few more moments of waiting and hoping
for more, I decided the afternoon show was over. Regrettably, it was time to get back to my chores.
But then I noticed a slight rustling in the nearby grass. The woods are thick and the grass and brush are
high along the creek, and for a creature like Coyote, it’s a fairly easy task to move about unnoticed and
unobserved by human senses. And sure enough, one of them had crept silently through the tall grass
and trees to within a few feet of me! He was still hidden to some degree, his glistening coat somewhat
camouflaged among the thick foliage. But what I could see quite clearly were his golden brown eyes,
eyes that sparkled and held a deep wisdom and wonder for me!


Much to my wonder and amazement, Coyote was almost close enough to touch, and with just a
few short steps, I might have. Not surprisingly, I felt no fear, and he obviously felt little either. Instead,
only a feeling of enchantment and awe. For some reason, I was reminded of "Two Socks" on Dances With
Wolves. You know, the scene where Kevin Costner feeds him from his hands. I even went so far as to
imagine Coyote eating out of my hands, but luckily I had enough sense not to do anything that arrogant
or foolish. Instead, I let Coyote direct our first meeting here and decide where it might go. After all, I was
the visitor here, and I didn’t want to act out inappropriately and overstep the boundaries of common
courtesy and consideration. To be honest, I felt blessed to even be in his presence. And so, we just
held each other’s gaze for what seemed like the longest time. And in that time, I felt an awareness,
a consciousness that reached out to me and welcomed and comforted me. A wildness that knew no
bounds, a ferocity that touched and stirred what little wild and natural feelings still abide in me, what
untamed soul our civilization has not yet completely subdued.


Eventually, without me even realizing it, Coyote was gone, slipping away silently back into the
wooded creek from which he had come. Although our conversation had been short, I felt satisfied that our meeting had been a good one. Not unlike old friends coming together once again. Some might laugh at the suggestion that we had communicated with one another. After all, there had been no actual words spoken here. Nothing the human ear might hear or the rational mind might grasp. That much is true. And yet, I like to think we had spoken in a language much older than words.


In a way, Coyote has always talked to me, always communicated with all of us. We’ve all heard his
plaintive song calling to us, and for those of us who have really listened, we’ve come away with a deeper
sense of wonder and awe from the experience. His is a haunting song that resonates most fully beneath
a moonlit night or a star-filled sky, but it’s also played much of our lives in our daydreams and night
dreams. Can you remember those dreams, what you experienced, what you were told? It’s a language
that mankind once related to experientially, its magic so powerful it eventually came to be part of our
ritualized tradition, stories told around the campfire, passed from generation to generation. And there’s
much enchantment in that. A magic that brings us together as family. Brothers, animal and man. I
suppose I’ve carried this small bit of magic with me for longer than I’m willing to admit, even to myself.




And in my dream, just before Coyote slips away, runs away. . . . . I remember something I'd forgotten. Something long buried beneath centuries of civilization and the complexities of the human mind. Something beyond importance, something essential to life, a subtle lesson we must continually be reminded of. I find myself reaching out to Coyote with my mind, with my very rational mind. But this logical reaction is not a natural response, not at all. It's more a programmed behavior, a habitual response gained from several thousand years of alienation from the natural world, from the cradle of life itself. As it is, it's an unconscious effort to seize this wildness, to civilize it, to reduce it to its simplest terms, something we can grasp with our minds, intellectualize and conceptualize. Even in my dreams, my logical mind wants to control it, to clench it tightly, to make it my own. Don’t you see what I’m getting at here? Even in a dream, my mind, our minds are no more than steel traps, cages in which to capture Coyote, to own him, to enslave him and what’s left of the magic and wildness of the world. In our madness, we attempt to organize and rationalize the world, to name and categorize it, to reduce it to mere scientific fact, numbers and statistics upon the pages of a book. And there, in the harsh light of our so-called civilized world, we’ll hold Coyote captive, a prisoner, a tribute to our sovereignty, a mere memory of what once was.


But to what end? So that we may live in relative isolation and alienation from the rest of the world?
From what is real and alive and so very essential to our hearts and souls? What we have yet to fully
comprehend and integrate is that life is not a thing to be grasped, to be confiscated, owned, or even
fully understood. It is a mystery beyond anything the rational mind might comprehend. My heart and
soul and even my body seek to understand this, while my mind still struggles to gain the upper hand,
never seemingly content without control.


But somewhere within me, there’s a small piece of wilderness that has begun to grow again, to
set deep roots into the fertile soil of my soul. What was once a dark and sterile place now shows signs
of new life. Faintly, but there just the same, I detect an ancient song as it rings through the empty
corridors of what once and always was. I long to reconnect with it, to be one with it again, to echo what
speaks to me, this call of the wild!


And so, just before Coyote flees from my dream, back into the wildness of the world from whence he came, I somehow manage to turn off my overly logical mind for just a moment and instead, open my
heart. One last look into those eyes, and I turn the key, opening myself, unlocking long shuttered doors,
unchaining ancient gates which guard a deeper awareness, a consciousness that knows no limits, no
boundaries. As wide and deep as I might go, into and beyond my own wounds and vulnerability, into the
heart of the world, awash in its pain and injustice, but finally to the love that dwells at the center of this
moment and all of eternity. And in that moment, in that instant, everything changes! The whole world
changes! A new world arises and Coyote and I merge! Into a stream of consciousness, into a dream
beyond anything I might try to put into words, beyond anything the human mind might intellectually
conceptualize! Into a world beyond all worlds, I become Coyote and he becomes me! I see through his
eyes, I feel his wild heart beating, my wild heart beating, all wild hearts beating as one! For the first time
in my life, I know what it means to be truly wild and free! For just one magical moment, Coyote and I are
one! And then he is gone. . . . .


Back into his twilight world, back into a magical dream realm that I can only begin to imagine, only
begin to comprehend. But Coyote knows now he is safe here with me. I’ve created a place for him, a
sacred space for him here. Here, he can run wild and free. There are no steel traps or cages here. Only
a heart and soul which yearn to open wider and deeper. Clearly, I have much work to do here, but with
Coyote’s help, anything is possible. I sense he’ll be back. Soon I hope. While I await his return, I will tell
his story and sing his song to all who will listen.


It is a good and powerful dream. Much magic here. Each piece becomes a part of my unfolding story,
my mythic life. It is a blessing, a growing part of my faith, and I carry it with me in gratitude, a prayer
without words. In my medicine bundle, in my heart, it will light my way in this world.