The sound of silence, the languge of howls

 Howl's Moving Castle (the film)

Coyote stood at the top of the path leading to the Oak Forest place. Pete was helping me squeeze the heavy laundry into the cooler we use as a wash bucket. This was a sunny day and the morning after my Coyote Visitation. I pointed at the solitary wild dog and howled (softly) unsure of the reason for the visit, and honestly? Honestly shaky in my sense of safety. That is a strange and odd fear, that of the proximity of a wild creature obviously 'seeking me out.'

An old friend emailed me with her version of Coyotes's visit, "They were coming with their best regards." I wondered.

Days later ...

Coyote has not returned to howl outside the vardo window, and I have not seen him, or her, at the top of the trail. But what has happened is an inner recognition of the Initiation I have been gifted. Coyote, God's Dog, has come to keep me on my path.

"Coyote is a powerful teacher about perseverance, about flourishing and thriving against great odds. For many generations, humans have judged, harmed, and tried to eliminate coyotes. The coyotes didn’t accept this agenda for their lives. They didn’t give up or give in. Coyote continued going about being Coyote – genuinely, ingeniously, purposeful in their pursuits. Coyotes flourish and thrive in all kinds of climates and terrains." - JoAnne Dodgson

I was just finishing the last of the dishes when I heard a small call from outside the kitchen door.

"Hello," I called back, not sure if it was Pete or someone else. It was someone else.

It was a real life visitor, a Tilth member who had come to ask me something. We don't get many visitors, and since the Christmas Letter informing us of the Tilth's decision to ask us to move on, we have had even fewer communications.

This was a very surprising, and informing visit. Here was the woman I wrote about in a previous post, back from her December travels.  She was here to tell me of an upcoming activity. In March, she explained, there would be an educational demonstration involving burning. Aware of our sensitivity to smoke, she was here to ask which of the possible two days in late March would work better for us.

I listened closely to the explanation and breathed in the vital element of this surprising visit: there was a give-and-take and reciprocal nature of this call. All involved were being considered, and communication was open.

"Either date would work fine for us," I said. Then added, "You know we've been asked to leave the Tilth, so if we are still here at the end of March, just check with us and we can make arrangements to be gone on that day."

"What? I didn't know that." Her surprise and dismay was written on her face and in her body language. She was genuinely taken aback.

For several minutes, though I cannot be sure how long our conversation lasted, we engaged in opening up that loop so often referred to ... as in, "being in the loop." "I wasn't in the loop," she said at one point.

"You are now," as I put it. "The thing is no one is talking about this," we both agreed.

Rewind on the chronicle of events...

Back at that Christmas Party, no one there including the members of the Tilth Council who had made the decision to ask us to leave, approached us to talk about their decision or bring up a very tender topic. Why bring it up here as a topic for this post?

Because I believe the point of my blogging is to express the latest realities of life as I live it. Is it social media, this form of expression I create here? Not so much. Instead, my posts are a current reality of an old woman with Mars (action) Saturn (life lessons over time) and Pluto (deep commitment) in the Leo-area (creativity) of the sky at birth.

My life is a paradox and a pressure cooker, and to live with all that steam, I siphon off with words; I write. As our conversation wound down that day not long ago, this friend left me with these words:

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." - Martin Luther King

Coyote has imprinted me with the language beyond human words; they have left me howls. An unexpected visitor re-opened a slowly healing wound and left me with human words spoken by a man silenced by other humans. Paradox. That is why I put these words here.

 "Even without grammar or syntax, howls can convey intent, and if the shape of the howl changes enough while the intent remains constant, the foundations of distinctive culture can begin to appear." - "We learn more about our language by listening to wolves"

  “One does not get better but different and older and that is always a pleasure.” - Gertrude Stein


E Ola. To living. Are you part of the loud silence, or initiated with howls?