Coyote Universe

Coyote is a trickster whose tricks often leave us baffled and feeling victimized.  But, Coyote is also a teacher so his tricks can lead us into new insights, new ways of responding, new understanding of our selves and the world around us.

The circumstances that yesterday led me to feeling like Charlie Brown was a trick of the Universe.  Literally.  I was in the midst of a rather sensitive email exchange with an old friend when communication stopped.  

We had had issues such as this in the past, so I picked up the Charlie Brown metaphor and ran with it ... or perhaps it would be closer to the truth to say that I laid down and wallowed in the victimhoodness (!) of it.  Rather than pick up the phone and ask what was going on, I became a righteous victim.  I took it personally and that blocked my ability to act with clarity and intent.

It turns out that, due to a technical glitch, my emails were being sent but not received ... which was creating the same Charlie Brown feelings on the other end.  Fortunately, not understanding why the communication had stopped ... and after reading yesterday's blog post ... my friend reached out to ask what was going on.   We still haven't figured out how or why the emails dropped into a black hole when they had been working perfectly, but it almost caused a serious break in a friendship that is important to both of us.

After thinking about this for awhile, it reminds me to turn back once again to The Four Agreements:

1. Be Impeccable With Your Word.
2. Don't Take Anything Personally.
3. Don't Make Assumptions.
4. Always Do Your Best.

I've always struggled with #2 but this incident makes me realize how much work I still have to do on #3.  The good thing that has come out of this is that we are both more confident in our friendship and have agreed to do a reality check before going "Charlie Brown" again.

Show Your Art

 This quote comes from Alyson Stanfield this morning:

Art is a form of communication. You might think you make art as a form of self-expression, but you know that your work is incomplete until people see it and respond to it. You understand the synergy that erupts when you are in a room full of people looking at and talking about your art. 

It also reminds me of the incredible poem from Mary Oliver that prompted this image and ends with the lines:

Tell me, what is it you plan to do 
with your one wild and precious life?

The Summer Day

Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?