http://starryskies.com/articles/dln/4-01/coyote.html
Her power is to open what is shut
Shut what is open
Ovid
HOW THE STARS FELL INTO THE SKY
A Navajo Legend
When the pulse of the first day carried it to the rim of the night, First Woman said to First Man, "The people need to know the laws. To help them, we must write the laws for all to see."
"Write them in the sand," he told her.
"But the wind will blow them away," she answered.
"Write them on the water then," he said and turned to go, having more important matters on his mind.
"But they will disappear the moment I write them on the water," First Woman called out.
First Man turned back impatiently and looked at her squatting there on the rim of night, a blanket of stars at her feet.
"Why don't you write them in the sky?" he said. "Take your jewels there and write them in the sky."
And so she began, slowly, first one and then the next, placing her jewels across the dome of night, carefully designing her pattern so all could read it. But First Woman was not alone. Behind a low tree Coyote crouched, watching her as she crafted her careful mosaic on the blackberry cloth of night. He crept closer.
"What are you doing?" he called out her in a voice that sounded like the whine of an arrow whistling in the wind. "Why are you tacking up he night sky with your jewels?"
"Oh," she answered, deliberately shifting a star, "I am writing the laws so all the people can read them. There will be no confusion if we can always see the laws."
Her hands glowed from the warmth of the stars she was touching, and she smiled as she toiled.
"May I help?" Coyote asked.
First Woman nodded. "Begin here," she said and handed him a star.
Coyote hung the star and stepped back to look. He hung another, and another. But for each star he hung, First Woman's blanket held a hundred thousand more.
"This is slow work," he grumbled.
"Writing the laws could take many moons, " she said and began humming to herself.
"Can't we find a faster way and be done?" Coyote asked.
'Why finish?" she answered. "What is there to do next that is half so important as writing the laws? The people will see these laws before they enter their hogans at night. The young mother will sing them to her child. The lonely warrior, crouching in an unknown country, will look up and warm himself by them. Writing the laws may be what I do each night for the rest of my life."
But Coyote lacked First Woman's patience. He loved best to see a job finished. Impatiently he gathered two corners of First Woman's blanket and before she could stop him, he flung the remaining stars out into the night, spilling them in wild disarray, shattering First Woman's careful patterns.
First Woman leaned far into the night and watched the tumbling stars. "What have you done, you foolish animal!" she shrieked at Coyote. He crept away while First Woman wept because there was no undoing what Coyote had done.
As the pulse of the second day brought it into being, the people rose and went about their lives, never knowing in what foolish haste Coyote had tumbled the stars .... never knowing the reason for the confusion that would always dwell among them.
Oughton, Jerrie (1992). How the stars fell into the sky, Boston: Sandpiper Houghton Mifflin Books.
October 22, 2007 3:33 PM
Following the trail of the coyote through the underworld and beyond, I have learned many, many lessons ... but mostly, things are not as they seem ... and I wonder, how could I have ever thought otherwise? Through the power of coyote, I have changed in ways I have only imagined and in this now, I recognize the strength of shifting identities ... coyote as creator, joker, truth teller, story teller ... the transformer that links one to the frequency that extends to places far & wide ...
Living in a world that is neither here nor there yet somewhere in the outside & inside of time, coyote recognizes reality as only an illusion. Forever the wise-fool, she is content to stir, stir, stir the pot, destroying worlds & building new ones with a wink & a nod. Her schemes & dreams have the power to fool monsters & demons as her questions shift into answers, the answers questions, cycling up & down & around .. death & rebirth, creation & destruction, the old disappearing, the new hovering on the horizon.
There, we see coyote, howling at the tangerine moon.
She is calling us into the remembering ...
Will we wake up & hear her?
I wonder, I wonder ...
And yet, I know,
A vein of sapphires
hides in the earth,
a sweetness in fruit;
and in plain-looking rock
lies a golden ore,
and in seed,
the treasure of oil.
Like these,
the Infinite
rests concealed in the heart.
~Mahadeviyakka
October 11, 2007 4:44 PM
Entering the mythical dimension as coyote, I instantly recognized my nemesis, my shadow, my friend. Not always who she pretends to be, the coyote hides behind her invisibility, she is illusive, unknowable. Sometimes, she shows herself as the creator, sometimes destruction. Other times, she's simply an object of ridicule and scorn. But always, unpredictable, changing from one identity to another . . . and always, always tripping on her own tail ... only to fall, get up, again & again & always, her failures transform into successes ... fooling one, fooling all.
As I know coyote, she is the alchemist, the shaman, the embodiment of the fantastic. She stands in the threshold betwixt & between paradox & possibility as opposites meet, coming together in all their complexities & contradictions, arising and passing away, arising and passing away.
Yes, coyote stands fearlessly, in the threshold, waiting . . .
“A threshold must now be crossed, a threshold, moreover, demanding an act of unflinching self-discernment ... gradually leading, in an immensely long dialectical movement, toward a reconciliation with the lost feminine unity, toward a profound and many-leveled marriage of the masculine and feminine, a triumphant and healing reunion.”
(Tarnas, R. ( 1991). Passions of the western mind. NY: Penguin Group, p. 444).
These days, my awareness is centered on the long, long road I have traveled from there to here, the short road ahead, the songs of the universe, the dance of birth, life, death, rebirth. Often and without warning, I am reminded of the sign that hangs over Gloria Steinem’s bed. Written in red lipstick letters, it reads, “Not in my time.” Sometimes, this makes me laugh but most times, I just cry—for you, for me, for all of us.
September 28, 2007 2:22 AM
Once upon a time there was Coyote Dick, and he was both the smartest and the dumbest creature you could ever hope to meet. He was always hungry for something, and always playing tricks on people to get what he wanted, and any other time he was always sleeping.
Well, one day while Coyote Dick was sleeping, his penis got really bored and decided to leave Coyote and have an adventure on its own. So the penis disattached itself from Coyote Dick and ran down the road, having just one leg and all.
So it hopped and it hopped, and it was having a good time and it hopped off the road and out into the woods, where--Oh no!--it hopped right into a grove of stinging nettles. "Ouch!" it cried. "Ow, ow, ow!" it screeched. "Help! Help!"
The sound of all this crying woke Coyote Dick, and when he reached down to start his heart with the accustomed crank, it was gone! Coyote Dick ran down the road holding himself between the legs, and finally came down upon his penis in the worst trouble you can imagine. Gently, Coyote Dick lifted his adventurous penis out of the nettles, patted him and soothed him down, and put him back where he belonged.
~Women Who Run With The Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Who is coyote?
Creator or destroyer?
Saint or sinner?
Transformer or trickster?
Ego or shadow?
You or me?
In search of answers, I turn to a favorite tarot deck, The Daughters of the Moon. Day after day, I pull the same card, again & again---The Coyotewoman, the Trickster---only to learn within my waking, my dreaming that with Coyote anything and everything is possible.
In the Medicine Wheel, Wabun and Sun Bear describe the coyote as . . .
". . . the one who can force folks to learn, even when they don't want to . . . . By being tricked and then learning necessary lessons, earth's children learn to trust in life and in the lessons that it brings. Being as stubborn as most of the earth's children are, tricks are often necessary to growth. People become comfortable as they are and don't wish to experience the pain that rapid growth sometimes brings. At such times the power of Shawnodese (Coyote) is needed to help people to grow and continue to learn the lessons that they were placed on earth to learn."
Today . . . Coyotewoman is simply a wonderful reminder to be tricked into play & to have fun. Listening to her wisdom with its own magic & miracles & mystery . . . my heart opens . . . to joy . . . to laughter . . . to the songs of the Universe.
Tonight, the tangerine moon hangs full in the indigo sky. Stepping into the night, I search for a lone star to guide me through the darkness. Soon & without warning, I sense Coyotewoman is near. I can't see her and yet I know, I know-- Suddenly, I hear her wildness . . . her cries are of the forgotten & the sacred & as they move through me, I am one with the moon, the stars, the deep night sky. And now . . . And now . . .
When I dance, the sun sails safely through the night.
When I dance, the future is formed by my feet.
When I dance, the stars move through the heavens . . .
When I dance, Venus shimmers the desert,
When I dance, dust becomes silver, stones are made of gold.
~Hierodule, Cosi Fabian
September 21, 2007 7:07 PM
Following the trail of the coyote as she weaves in and out her different stories, I was reminded of a conversation I had recently with a dear friend upon her return from a sabbatical in Ireland. One long evening & over countless cups of steaming coffee, Lynne & I spoke about the terrible beauty of the island, the laughter, the music, the startling emerald green grasses that stretch endlessly, the turbulent ocean pounding its rocky shores, the dream of a return of the homeland to its people, the young colleens leaping, twirling, dancing to violins & accordians. It was then Lynne shared a secret, she had learned Irish dancing while away & was told by her teacher--a magnificent grayhaired crone--that the dances were acts of rebellion--by the dancers--as each step was a letter of the Gaelic alphabet, each dance tapping out word by word a long ago myth, a fairy tale, a poem. So, even though the british had outlawed the language of people to spoken or read in their own country, the dancers refused to obey & instead kept the words alive & active in the hearts of the Irish ... one step after another, after another, after another.
With this journey into a mythology with its translations in a language that does not belong to mothers or daughters, I am reminded of the Irish dancers .. the African women drumming ... the women weaving tapestries of their stories in signs & symbols ... & then, I can hear these brave women whispering as I read past & below the words & into the empty spaces between . . . & I hear them singing so softly as I enter the symbols, their dance . . . & when I finally reach the place where my ancestors once lived, the whispering grows louder, the message clearer ....
Re-member us,
you who are living
retore us, renew us.
Speak for our silence
Continue our work
Bless the breath of life
Sing of the hidden patterns
Weave the web of peace.
~Judith Anderson
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