![]() ![]() I’ll never forget that sickening electric feeling as all the hair on my body was electrified and stood on edge. I felt the electric shocks of the storm as I ran and stumbled back down the trail to the safety of the trees. I knew immediately I had made a mistake and I needed to get down, fast. At the summit things began to go sideways, the dark clouds were right above me and the hair on my arms stood straight up. They were too far away, I thought, and I continued up. At the top of the false summit I noticed some dark clouds, signs of a building storm. Step by step I walked up, looking down at my shoes mostly. A fantastic glow surrounded me and I caught my first glimpse at the false summit of Mt Elbert. The trail was long and winding and the sun began to rise and I finally passed through the trees and into the krumholz. Forcing myself to walk slowly I set out toward a peak I couldn’t yet see. It was dark when I set out on my first solo trip up a 14er, the stars were still twinkling in the sky and my heart beat with anticipation of the view to come. I thought all I needed was a backpack, hiking boots, a car, and my basic outdoors knowledge from camping and fishing growing up. When I first got into mountain activities I began with hiking 14,000-ft. The juxtaposition and the fine line between type 1 and type 2 fun is something I’m all too familiar with while adventuring. When I go outside I think about Coyote’s lessons a lot, mainly the difference between wisdom and foolishness. My people take these teachings everywhere we go. ![]() So to us, Coyotes are also healing creatures for giving us jokes and laughter. For this reason, laughter is medicine and a form of healing. In laughter, we are able to listen for a moment to our ancestors. As the tension leaves your body with an uncontrollable smile and joyful feeling radiates around your body, for a moment, you let your guard down. ![]() Laughter breaks down a universal barrier, the logical mind. Tricks, jokes, and pranks are creations of laughter and so to us, the Coyote, as a form of all of that, is the creator of a sacred time between two worlds. Two seemingly opposite emotions serving a similar purpose - a compendium of opposites - like the Coyote. In my culture, our belief is that we are closest to the sacred connection of the living and the spirit world in times of grief as well as times of laughing - times in which the barrier between worlds is the thinnest. If you look around, that is how much of the world or worlds are as well. Through our emotions we learn to deal with duality, mixtures, and compendiums of opposites. The mixture of emotions, however, is what makes us human, something that bonds us closely as a species. We are so used to these paradoxes that at times we don’t immediately recognize them. Because the Coyote is part of our creation story, I often think of him as a part of both the spirit and the living world, another way the Coyote shows his duality.Īs human beings, we live in a constant state of paradox: happiness in sad times, laughter in the midst of grief, anger within joy. Whether the Coyote is stealing, scheming, or providing wisdom, there is always a lesson to be learned where the Coyote is concerned. I have heard many stories depicting the Coyote as creating some sort of problem and then, ultimately, learning from it. There is a similar rhetoric of the Coyote in several different Indigenous cultures, each with their own understanding of stories and lessons - even my Irish ancestors had folklore of the tricksters. To my people, the Piikani Blackfeet, some of our stories represent the Coyote as a demi-god of sorts, a version of the creator of our world, and a creature that often gifts wisdom to us. In nature they are paradoxical, walking the tightrope between the darkness and the light. They are jokesters, truth seekers and inherently playful creatures. The Coyote represents much, but the most central aspect we learn is to see that there are two sides of everything the Coyote and his ways represent that dichotomy and duality in all things. The ways of Coyote, their lessons, are central to my ancestors and many other Indigenous groups around Turtle Island (North America). They are tricksters, loners, and some of the smartest survivors in nature. Their yellowing teeth make their sneaky demeanor something more sinister, like there’s something to hide. With slim, sleek builds, they’re hard to see, their fur the color of stone. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |