How Ridiculous

Defining coyote is a little like trying to
juggle hummingbirds. ~ Jarold Ramsey

“Coyote teaches Two-leggeds to find joy in their own foolishness. When the Heyokah calls upon Coyote to assist him in keeping prying eyes off his trail, Coyote will assist in a multitude of ways.

I learned my first Coyote lesson in Mexico when Joaquin, my Medicine Teacher, wanted me to see how ridiculous my seriousness had become. We spent one whole day gathering dried Cow dung, Rabbit pellets, Coyote, Dog, and Owl waste and carefully placing each in an old tin bucket. The next day we spent mixing all of it together, crushing each part into powder and slowly adding water to make a paste. After this was completed, I was told to mark a circle in the earth with string and a stick making sure that the circle was perfectly round. Then Joaquin told me to fill the tiny groove in the soil with all of the paste I had made from all of the feces. I was very careful to make a perfect circle and not to let any of the circle be crooked. Joaquin praised my work and how careful I had been during the two-day process. He then told me to enter the circle and sit in the center until I understood the value of the lesson.

I sat there for at least three hours, thinking that maybe this was a way to contact the Power Animals. Finally Coyote came into my consciousness, took one look at me, and rolled on the ground in side-splitting laughter. Coyote was laughing so hard he could not speak. I was fascinated, while still sitting in my circle of poop, serious as ever. In between his guffaws, Coyote spit out the words that taught me my lesson. "For the past three days you've been examining other people's shit!" he screamed. "Now you've surrounded yourself with it and you are so serious you can't even see how ridiculous you look."

I started to laugh at myself as I imagined how Joaquin must be rolling in hysterics at the joke he had played on me. I wondered how he could have kept a straight face for two days. It finally came to me that I had spent the previous days worrying about the problems of others. All of these worries had left me, in effect, sitting in a circle of others people's mental garbage. The lesson hit me hard, and I laughed until I was aching with no breath and tears ran down my face. It has taken me many years to master the lesson and I still get sucked in the drama of others at times. Joaquin was an excellent Teacher and even now he will come to me, in spirit, and break my seriousness with more Heyokah antics. The primary lessons of the Heyokah trick us into revelations rather than giving us all the answers. Heyokah is needed when we refuse to allow ourselves alternatives. The view will always expand if we use the Divine Medicine of laughter - Nothing is beyond repair. We may need to use comedy to crack a smile so we can reclaim our Sacred Space.

Heyokah Medicine can be called upon through Coyote. Remember that the Divine Trickster is the perfect integration of all things wise and foolish, sacred and irreverent. When we ask for those lessons, we need to be prepared for adventure. We need to be willing to laugh and to have others laugh with us. We will have achieved the ultimate union of opposites when we learn to celebrate more than we mourn. The time has come to laugh and reclaim our divine right to find pleasure in the sacredness of being human.

If the Trickster has appeared on your horizon, you are in for a barrel of laughs. You may be doing exactly the opposite of what you need to be doing and are about to get busted for it. Stop leaking your creative energy on other people's problems or high drama. Stop being so serious and crack a smile, or Coyote will dog your dreams. Remember that some days you are the fireplug and some days you are the Dog. That goes for everyone, so don't let getting pooped on get you down. Learning through laughter or opposites can be fun.

The keynote to Heyokah is to lighten up and start balancing the sacredness with irreverence. If you are just being stubborn, it may be time to create a contrary lesson that will force you to crack up, crack a smile, or trick you into going into the crack in the universe to find out what's really important!” ~ Jamie Sams

Art ~ 'Trickster 1 - Coyote' by Colleen Parker