Sheila Winter Wallace BodyGateways

While I have been hearing them, as if screaming, in a pack, occasionally, both winter and summer – especially and mostly late at night – over the last 3 or 4 years, I finally saw a coyote, from the house, this afternoon… moving up the railway track, nearby… then, it returned to the edge of our road…. and, then, it moved down into the densely foliaged ravine, in front of our home. Amazing movement…. so fluid, certain and quick… so silent… like it was floating on air.

I get that coyotes can go long distances without effort. I get that they are so attuned to themSelves and their environments. I get that their vision expands with their movement… the metaphor for living abundantly in the simplicity of Being… free of Self-imposed entrapments. A coyote simply lives… simply; traps are not of its world.

Amazing to see and a reminder to me that I can always, in all ways, look after mySelf by choosing to move forward – resourced in my association with pack buddies who are an awakened species – called to awaken Self and others with ears alert to the simple and sacred call home – and that I am never alone, even as I walk, alone, up any track of my choosing. Since there are innumerable tracks, forests and ravines, I can, by instinct, choose what I want, when I want, as I want.

Instinct. A reminder to me that my instincts are beyond excellent. When did I choose to forget that? The truth is, like coyote, wolf, and dog, I have always had a nose for things; only, this time, I am choosing to own that… without apology.

Instinct. Raw, red, visceral, core, fecund, and feral. The wave that I AM moves and I know my instinct to be that wave.

The last time that I saw a coyote was in the shimmering heat of the afternoon sun in Sedona, Arizona. The kind of heat that is seen sizzling in waves above the pavement. It was May of 1998 and I was returning on a road – that had dead- ended itself in a vortex of natural, red rock obilisques (unique to Sedona) – to the main highway. Finding my way, by getting lost on purpose. The coyote, mesmerizingly, walked in front of the car that I was driving, as if to stop me; it’s focus was instinctual and present and moving… fearless, yet fully engaged. Fluid and quick, so that any illusion of stopping was not that, at all – just a momentary side-step in direction. Since, in that moment, I was unable to find/see what I was looking for, it was my reminder of the trickster… awakening to the, until then, games that I was playing with mySelf; the trick called move, camouflaged as stop. The trick called stop, camouflaged as move.

One more lap down the road, so to speak, and I did find what I was in search of (if nothing else, I am persistent!). Up until that moment, it was like I could not see the light, for the light. It was like I would not see the light that I AM, for the light that I AM. I believe, now, that I can. I choose, now, that I do.

And, unlike I did in 1998, when I awakened, only to fall, yet again, asleep to mySelf in the intellectual second and third guessing of my life, I now choose to finally be done with the old bags of tricks, even as I uncover the more that I have  yet to discover.

I now, willingly, choose to live, by instinct… to be and to own the distinct instinct that I AM – raw, red, visceral, core, fecund and feral – that knows its very expression in the genius of my body.  That is my truth undenied – quick, fluid, potently silent, and moving. In that, I know my inalienable voice.

Instinct undenied. The most powerful expression of my truth as I AM.