Last Friday night, full moon but the clouds covered it. Wendy and I were walking through the dark field to her home when we saw a young coyote up ahead, eating carrion at the side of the road. Fearless, it lifted its head but kept tugging, only backing a little ways into the bushes as we got nearer.
We walked on. Coyote watched.
My friend hears the coyotes bark in the night at her end of town. The yips and howls of their calls. The discordance of the train whistles are my sound track as I lay in my bed. And the rain, always the rain. A pummeling force on the skylights, or a caress, the water in waves from the sky.
We said our good nights, and I turned homeward. Moving through the silence of a small town on a holiday weekend, I pulled up a dream that I had had more than a dozen years ago. A dream that has such powerful mojo it thrills me still.
My dreams are tactile, always in colour, the sound quality superb. I am never bored. I have had dreams in which I’ve laughed so hard I’ve woken up gasping. Woke in grief that morning could never shake. Gone places in my night travels that earn map pins on my wall and stamps in my passport.
I was moving through canyons. There were red rock formations, the red I love, and the ground was that rust colour, too. The road red dirt, the canyon walls steep, the high sky in contrast was a blue that defied the existence of any other colour. Glorious sun, pillowing white clouds. I became conscious that I was in a large car speeding through the desert heat. The air was clean and there was lots of it. An open car, a convertible. A large American car with the top down, and fins, and there was no one driving. Somehow I sat like a beauty queen in a pageant, perched up high with my feet on the back seat, facing forward head on, breezing down the road. Oh, it was a smooth ride!
There was a shift, I became the car, or not just the car, but part of the force. The power that was within the car. I sped on. And then another shift, the movement changed. The car began morphing into a large animal, bigger and bigger and the movement became a lope and then a galloping run. The speed never diminished. Then I was riding the back of a huge silver gray coyote. I felt its body beneath me, the fur of its neck clenched in my hands. The wind rushed past us, so great our pace. We grew as we ran, our size and height becoming mythical. And as I rode, the black tipped fur streamed its colour behind us, and left in its place a pure and brilliant white.
And then the shift again and It was I. I became the white coyote. There was no more me. I, a white coyote, raced down red roads between rock walls. I felt the pads of my feet hit the dirt. Powerful, turning, twisting through the canyons so surely. Moving. Free.
Knowing – Myself – Coyote.
………..
They say that a coyote signifies the change that’s coming…
Illuminator.
Teaches us to laugh at ourselves, to learn from our foolishness, our human mistakes…
Trickster.
Mediator between life and death…
Shapeshifter.
Coyote on the road…What say you to me, when once I had become you?
Reach into your bag of tricks. Pull one out for me.
Pull me out a new lesson.
Coyote…Shift me…Shape me.
I will only have to learn it once.
Good Life
diane
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog. 🙂 Cheers! Sandra. R.
Wow, I need a dream like this. Yes coyote, trickster, mediator, let us all in on the plan. Beautiful, your writing takes me places. Thank-you.
another dimension, our other self. remember….cyl