Part One - Why Coyote, why?

Why Coyote, Why I? 

Why are we in a Coyote Conversation? If you haven't noticed, you're in one now.

  Namely for what comes if I - or rather, if we – get it right. I'll take anything between the tight curled cheek smirk, to the long full release of something held far too long. Its how all tales of Trickster in Coyote end: in laughter, perhaps even laughing through the tears.

  I want buttons to pop – wicked dreams going wild, and its still safe because its in your head. When you talk to Coyote you fall into his stories. All the strangematter places your shining longs to show you, all the noises and quirks that tremble in your body, and the wild, wild ideas you never dared share. The grain of your individuality that you, only you, unique and strange in a universe of unfinished stories. 

If only it was safe to let outside.

  Never ever relax, or one night you might say mad things about beauty and truth and love. Push it instead.  Carve out the safe good bits, choice cuts. Leave it wrapped up and bound in a sexy little corset you can barely breathe in.

  Different hurts unless you're beautiful or rich. We learnt that early. We learn it young, on the playground, at the breakfast table, in the mirror. Wrap and bind, don't be timid, and put on your human suit. Wonder why life feels heavy yet hollow somedays so you shove that down too. Rinse and repeat.
                                     
  Dissatisfaction is the universal constant of the West; not hungry, but never full, never enough. The answer 'we' learnt was to fill with more, and more, and ... suddenly we're battling addictions; maybe in rehab or maybe in a ditch, wondering where it went wrong. If your heart holds out that long.

  If I could I would burst through my safe, safe, circumscribed restrictions, how ever pretty my corset is. I would rock, I would strut, I would parade every imperfection and damn my reflection. Aging body, soft stomach, naked haunches and brown to the boot. I would be a Fool, because only fools parade naked.
                                 

         
  Invested with no crown, the Fool dances to the sound of laughter. Mocking derisive laughter rains, and his heart trembles. Shaming words demanding her shame, that we're too ugly, too broken, to painful to see – to just not be. Stop showing me, me.

  The Fool cries as she dances. I know I would. He cries till he hears Coyote laughing. Coyote's laughter is warm as hug, mocking with a shared ironic amusement, and it bestows grace to fools. It is Coyote's only benediction.

  Coyote is always willing to be the Fool. And he will always grin slyly and try again. He is shameless. He gives me courage. He lets me hear what lies under the skin, and below the jeers. I find my path walking it laughing through my tears.

  Since nothing in me allowed for my healing, I had to trick myself into letting go. Thats the very simple reason why we're in a Coyote Conversation together.

The second part will be all about archetypes, and buzzy words such as fractals and chaos, but who knows? You'll have to wait longer for Coyote with me.



Le Fou image by Oswald Wirth (Le Tarot) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

   

Without 'ships, we're swimming: A love letter

Without 'ships, we're swimming: A love letter

Hello beloved,

We don't see enough of each other I think. Or perhaps you always are looking at me, this half-child of you and Mind.

I only ever see you in our pain, both pure and uncomfortable. A good man has cause to feel pain, a man trying to be good is unremittingly reminded his pain is caused by his selfishness.

We echo sometimes, when I say out aloud, 'I hate'. "I hate being rejected." When we say that we lash outwards hoping our pain is flung away by momentum of our fury.

If only we could emancipate our demons with hate.

Do you fear me my heart? My constant howling unhappiness that I strive to hold back. My griefs I've entombed in you. I've hidden you so well from the world, that they see only our light. Is that why I never feel you in your fullness?

All my adulthood, I've craved to know you now, come to peace with you. I was only shown a single way. To make a screen of another person. To project you on to them, and to meet you in them. To love a woman and find you in her.

I could only know you through my lovers. I allow the bitter shell of watchfulness to crack in desperate craving embraces. To dissolve in the amber honeyglow of intimacy and affection. When bodies are shared, I feel safe enough to share my heart, and for a blinding moment I see you!

My touch would rend you, so I swaddle you away to her embrace that I trust more than my own. I love you at an admiring distant, and spend my affection upon her heart, lavishing it with everything I am too angry at us to give. I am told I am a gentle, loving man..

I wish that sorrow was enough to mend our distance. Partnerships, relationships, even friendships seem too small and narrow to hold so disparate needs. You hold the secret of forgiveness, sweet absolution, the amritsar to cleanse my selfishness. Because I am still selfish in loving.

How far I've come. To acknowledge women as people first and not a passage to happiness. To celebrate their happiness more than my neediness. It required long work and painful honesty, to see my principles were out of alignment with my beliefs. I grew up in the clarity of that discomfort.

To all the women I've loved, thank you for showing up in my life. To all the women who've loved me, all my gratitude for seeing me and sharing yourself. When we have reached for each other, we learnt so much together. Thank you.


For too long, I've rested content on these achievements. Believing that by being open, not pursuing, nor forcing a relationship, I would find a spiritual-partnership. Waiting to hear a resonance, not only in her, but myself.

I hoped I would find you in that song, my heart. That I could build a ship with her to trevass the great sea of spirit and we'd find our hearts together and heal them.

I may still build that ship with someone someday, but I know you have to come first. The tenderness I've learnt in waiting and giving space, it is for you to return. The lessons of anger and pain, I can no longer bury within, but allow, experience and release.

I'll dive into the sea and follow the sounds of our grief. I do not know if I'll find you, the sea is dark and cold, and monsters were spawned into these waters, yet I cannot bear to leave you alone anymore.

I will find you in the sweat of release of ashtanga. I will wordlessly speak to you in breath. I welcome you in the rare snatches of mindlessness I touch. I will be honest when I am hurt, and unguarded when I am happy. I will dance with myself first to the songs you love. I will nurture faith.

Reach for me, as I reach for you my love. Let me meet you in this verse ~

“But there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears. And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.” ~ Mumford and Sons, After the Storm, album Sigh No More.
photo credit: Yesterday's boat via photopin (license)