Winter Storm Warning - Canis latrans

WARNING, this is a story for winter. If you are reading this in the spring or summer, stop right now. This is magic, there are rules. I am telling this story when it is winter, when you read it is your own mojo.

There is snow on the ground and upon the sky; it's the time for telling stories. Here is a true one.

Many years ago I was trying to think of a name for my freelance graphics business. Oh, sure I could have used my last name and the word "Graphics" or as popular at the time "Graphix." But look at my name. Memorable? Yes. Can you spell it without looking? Probably not. So I needed something stronger. I searched and troweled through my creativity, laying on thick cuteness and spunk. Nothing worked. My searched expanded until I realized I was looking for who I was, what my core was, just what was my identity. I mediated (I could back then), I thought, I went spelunking through life trying to distill who I was. I was on a vision quest, although I didn't know it.

After one night when I began despairing about finding a name, an identity, I had a dream. You have to know that when I was young I dreamed wild things. The future came to me at night and poured slips of itself into my ears and filled my head. I have to consciously not guess at what is in packages to stop others from being disappointed at not surprising me. Since I went to college, though, I had stopped dreaming, or at least I stopped remembering my dreams. I'm slowing coming back from that, but at this time I was in the middle of it. Having a dream was important. They meant something big.

In this dream I found something. Coyote was there. He showed me how to run and dance in the moon. And we ran. Sometimes we were together, pals, littermates. Sometimes I was Coyote, sometimes Coyote was me. And there is a difference. At the end of the dream, as Coyote left me to wake, he danced in front of the moon. that image is seared into my personality, and it became my logo.

I don't know if I have and Indian blood. I have been asked by elders, after we've talked for a bit, what clan and tribe I am. If there is such blood it's from my Father's side, which I don't know very well. I don't think it's there.

Coyote is a powerful totem, but there is a price. More like a twist. Coyote is the Trickster. When pursuing a goal I may think that all is lost, when a turn happens and I'm through the winner's tape all smiles and jumping. Other goals I'm so close to making it, the path was easy, I have the skills, and then as I'm about to snatch the brass ring there's Coyote's face laughing at me as I fall. Sometimes I am Coyote, sometimes Coyote is me.

My friends know I can be serious as death one moment, and the clown the next. I can bring fire to the wood, solve problems, and create the world as I need it. In the next moment I can ridicule and seem insulting and dance away from the punches. I can be on top of the world and then pull the lever that drops the floor out from under me. Most times I have control over this, sometimes it feels as if someone else is driving the car. The trickster; always dancing, always hungry, and always laughing.

"If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend; if you pardon, we will mend; And, as I am an honest Puck If we have unearned luck Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue We will make amends ere long; So, goodnight unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends."