I do believe in coincidence

I'm in the process of re-thinking something.  I have continued to say that I do not believe in coincidences.  I do.  I just have gone back to the truth of that word.  I think we've created a meaning behind coincidence that seems “accidental” rather than two things that coincide.

The word coincide was first noted in the 1600's and came from a latin word used in astrology.  To bring together.  I think there is nothing accidental in any of that.  I think coincidences pepper the understanding of the law of attraction.  The idea that coincidence hinges on a mere chance is a modern thought.  It, initially, spoke to the understanding of grand design and a greater intelligence.  And that….. THAT….. I do believe in!

I am delighted in how my life chooses to unfold.  My heart is held in a courageous mixture of hope and certainty.  I have faith. 

The path before me these days is littered with coincidence and I can see so clearly the hard work I have put in to offer up that moment of “coming together”.  People and knowledge and circumstances are unfolding in supportive and surprising ways for me.

I wonder how often I simply slept through the precious blessings that adorn my path.  I have studiously stepped forward on a path that has left me vulnerable and open.  I have stripped bare the things that would and have sabotaged me before.

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And what stands in place is a life I dearly love.  A soul I am honored to wear.  And a life that is more precious than I have words to adequately honor.  Regardless of my life circumstances, I find myself at peace and content with the unfolding of my life and the unfurling of my heart.

Man thats one of the most beautiful ways I've heard someone describe their life. I also love the idea of coincidence deriving from coincide, its a much more descriptive word.

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Thank you, Golden.

I know.  I have been saying “Nothing is by coincidence” and then I started thinking about the word.  There has never been anything implied that took the honor or the intention out of each path in the word coincide.  Just the opposite.

And thank you for seeing my description of my life in the light I hold it.  I never thought I would get to this point.  And I am simply held in awe for the life I hold.  (And truthfully, I am about to eat a cheese sandwich and tomato soup… and am enthralled with that, too)

Jill

Re: I do believe in coincidence

What a wonderful state of gratitude & love for life & all its beauty! Namaste!

Re: I do believe in coincidence

coincidence, let me share with you what i have with this

i know all memory function in metaphors, patterns and order that are operating “now” in oneness. otherwise time has no truth. “now that is said to be where and when”   is operating as a time parameter, and seeing that is refuge to all time related approach. therefore “wanting”  with fulfillment or disappointment exist on other dimension; it is just our limited acceptance of more dimensions that produces this time blockade and the complimenting consolation.

two parallel examples i can give you to these phenomena in another area.
first is when you see two people watching one painting and agreeing the figure is so perfectly (~),  but more than once if they further question each other vision they find each of them in fact noticed another perfect (~) and it would be hard for one to follow the other (~), why is that? because the perfection is prior to any interpretation, and as much as we'd love to keep it simple, fact is that perfection exists on another platform ~ other dimension, and i when i finish  the painting i see that level of perfection on a separate dimension.

Second example is also about painting, i am painter that’s obvious… is in that it happened to me more than once or twice, after i finished a genuine new work; i had people saying they knew this work already, and they had seen it before….and i must agree with them because i know what they see, even if for me that, which/where they see it “previously” is another dimension ( which i know as “Absolute”) for them the closest they could express it is with time. So time again plays a barrier or is vague enough to house far off dimensions.

So, coincidence could be our ability for perceiving and acting on another dimension, but in our inability to accept another dimension we suppose an accelerating of frequency or some concept of flow would conclude such a bizarre sensation and in some way it reminds me of sexual conservativeness, that at a certain rate of vibration, another, unfamiliar dimension of intimacy is ready to realize, while at that point is blocked and we instead have the big the romance as compensation..

Just another thought

bless you Jill, bless you alex, bless ya all

yosyama

Re: I do believe in coincidence

Alex, thank you!

Yosyama - you've found some really gorgeous examples of the one-ness that is us.

I am honored by the witnessing of synchronicity and touched by the capacity for one thing to impact, touch, effect many different people in the multitude of ways.  Because I am an artist, I sit sometimes completely in awe of how something I did will impact different people, or speak to the person that needs to honor a reflection of themselves and their journey in what they see.

I was raised in a culture that forever taught me to look back to the signs found in nature when I had questions.  There was a very schlocky movie out  a few years ago that I love deeply.  It talks about looking for the signs.  (Fools Rush In is the movie).

I used to say “It is no coincidence that this happened”…. but in honestly looking at the word and the meaning, I am going to start honoring the deliberateness of coinciding!

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A latin, well there are four real words that were directly used to describe coincidence:
Alea, which is better know as the 'dice' In the famous Ceasar quote : 'Alea Iacta est' (Iacta as in iacta, not lacta as in Lacta (which roughly means the dice is in the milk))
Casus, also meaning the ending or devistation of something.
Temeritas, which also means thoughtlessness.
And;
Fortuna, most often used, Ironically also meaning, chance, bad luck, and destiny.

The word you mean is: Coincidentia. Meaning the falling (by chance) together. the (by chance) part, made british to use it as coincidence. So you can easily see, that coincidence always had something to do with destiny ;)

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I believe that there are no coincidences.  Synchronicities yes but no coincidences.  I also believe that there are no accidents.

The beauty of synchronicity is that once we accept it as a constant in our life and accept each synchronicity as just that…we will begin to see more and more and more of them.

My life has become blessed by regular synchronicities every day…I have a need and the Universe provides…literally out of no where.

I can give so many examples of this having happened in my life.  People contacting me via e-mail that I don't know that turn out to be an important person in my life.  Information seemingly miraculously appearing in my inbox again literally out of nowhere that either match what I was thinking/exploring or that fulfilled a need or interest that I had.  People I haven't seen or heard from in years popping up out of nowhere just when I needed to see or communicate with them.  The list becomes endless once one accepts sychronicity.

Thoughts become things…

Blessings,
Cheryl

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Upon further introspection I think that I too can say that coincidences occur.  I have always thought of them as synchronicities and perhaps they are two difference occurances or perhaps they aren't.

If one defines coincidence as to mean two things coinciding as in being drawn together then that would totally satisfy me in that I view synchronicities much the same.  I have a need, one I sometimes am not even consciously aware of, and it is met through no other action of my own other than having the need.

If one defines coincidence more as one might consider a beneficial or even non-beneficial accident then I can't say I can embrace that concept because I do not believe in accidents.  Everything I have found, at least for myself, happens for a reason.

Blessings,
Cheryl

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Hi Cheryl,

I was on the same page as you and then I really started to look at it.  Immediately after I posted this, I had some time on my hand and I opened a book I'd wanted to read by Wayne Dyer.  I laughed myself silly. …..

“Consider that the word coincidence itself relates to the mathematical idea of angles that coincide.  When two angles join in this way, they're said to fit together perfectly.  Not accidentally - perfectly.  Any so-called coincidence might then just be an alignment of forces fitting together in flawless harmony”  Wayne Dyer - Inspiration: your ultimate calling.

I would probably use synchronicity and coincidence interchangably.

I also agree, though….. there are no accidents.

I am deeply grateful for the splendor of the things that come together and coincide in my life.

Re: I do believe in coincidence

Your use of the word coincidence is beyond the usual, limited idea that have become etched in most of our minds… as such is covered part of the meaning of synchronicity…

Then again, it covers only that limited part of synchronicity that have become etched in most of our minds…

“Synchronicity reveals the meaningful connections between the subjective and objective world.” ~ Carl G. Jung

Beyond coinciding… “They (Synchronicities) demonstrate the unity of psyche and matter, forcing us to transcend our rational, scientific, materialistic attitudes.” ~ Mansfield

When we recognise synchronicities, we feel a spontaneous emotional reaction which elicits a sense of wonder, amazement, awe etc. We might experience this as a warmth, goose bumps, chills up the spine etc… giving us an experience of oneness… a sense of the underlying Tao…

“Synchronistic events provide an immediate religious experience as a direct encounter with the compensatory patterning of events in nature as a whole, both inwardly and outwardly.” ~ Carl G. Jung

A synchronistic event can also be recognised as a sign/omen that affirms a decision we have made and dispels our doubts. This assures us that we are on the right path.

“Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he does not wish to sign his work.” ~ Anatole France

Whether we choose to use “coincidence” or “synchronicity”, I guess we are talking about the same thing here… & what may be most important in experiencing either, may be the practice of gratitude & an expanding awareness of the underlying flow of life…

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How beautifully stated Alex.  Yes I do feel that synchronicity is a sign from the ONE or whatever/wherever you want to call It that someone/thing out there is with us is watching listening and wanting us to have our hearts desire as well as our subconcsious desires.  An aspect of the Law of Attraction perhaps where the hypothetical genie in the bottle, our own personal genie, reads our thoughts/feelings and simply says to us, “Your wish is my command.”

My experience with synchronicity is that once you accept that they occur and accept what they are you tend to notice them more and more and more.  Once you know that this unexpected occurance was specifically designed just for you and is pretty much a gift from the Universe to you then you begin to recognize how those little things that happen throughout the day that you once ignored or dismissed as insignificant occurances are truly custom made just for you.

However I'd like to point out that negative synchronicities also occur and that we need to be cognizant of what it is we are thinking in our minds and feeling in our hearts because our thoughts and feelings are the 'orders' that we are submitting to the Universe that result in synchronicity.

Blessings,
Cheryl

Re: I do believe in coincidence

Absolutely Jill. 

Isn't it wonderful when we make a shift in our perspective on something?  I find it's a most envigorating experience.  I think many are fearful of changing their mind about something they feel strongly about because they perceive that it means that they were wrong before.  In my mind there is no right or wrong there is only then and now.  Now of course being the most important of the two.

I do believe in coincidence…they happen all of the time.  Perhaps it's simply a matter of semantics since I view coincidence, as we've agreed here it is defined, as synchronicity.  Coincidence or synchronicity I really don't feel that the word matters as much as the energy behind it and in this case in my opinion the energy is the same behind either word.

Blessings,
Cheryl

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Lovely thread.

Dipping my toe in here,

I do not know if synchronicity reveals the meaningful connections between the subjective and objective world. - or, as you say, dear Yosyama, coincidence could be our ability for perceiving and acting on another dimension.

I love the sound of such suggestions, but I do not know.

These words from you Jill, resonated with me:

“I am honored by the witnessing of synchronicity and touched by the capacity for one thing to impact, touch, effect many different people in the multitude of ways.”

For me, what seems clear, is that whatever happens I have the possibility to respond to it in a way that opens me.

The thing happening may not have happened 'for a reason', or because it was a synchronicity, or because I created it, or because I was open to more than this dimension - but always, in my experience,  by saying 'yes' to the present moment I can learn, deepen and flower from whatever is happening, now.

And now,

And now.

With love,
Sandra

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Alex,
I am always delighted by the discussion you weave.  I agree with what you are saying and love your perspective on it.

Cheryl,
I don't think my life began healing itself until I let go of the ego.  So, that portion of me that felt like to grow, adjust, change or flat out change my mind about something would compromise “everything I believed in”…. that part died.  All illusion to begin with and the one thing truly capable of creating a feeling of separation from the “one-ness”

Sandra,

Thank you!  I love the idea of flowering!

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Oh yes Jill…letting go of the ego.  So many times I continued a debate on an issue I'd lost interest in just because my ego self wasn't going to allow me to lose the debate or worse yet to be considered as the one who was wrong.  What a liberating thing it was for my soul to be able to finally say at an early point that the person or people I was debating an issue with would simply agree to disagree and leave it at that.  Then as I took that step I found myself less and less interested in debating and much more interested in simply discussing and/or sharing my view in a non-threatening non-judgemental manner.

Self-discovery…the greatest journey in life!

Blessings,
Cheryl

Re: I do believe in coincidence

Thank you for giving me a new (old) definition for coincidence.  It is all so clear to me now - to coincide, to bring together.  Wow, so simple. 

So how did it come to have the connotation of accidental?  I suppose because many people weren't looking for commonality and so the occurance didn't have impact.  More accurately, because they did not believe in their own power to bring into their experience the information and experiences.

It is hard to stay awake to notice the import of events.  I am sure I sleep through way too many myself.

Re: I do believe in coincidence

Coyotes.  For me lately, this has been Coyotes. 

Reading Alex's post reminded me of this.  . . “giving us an experience of oneness… a sense of the underlying Tao…”  Taoism is something very recent for me. 

Back to the coyotes.  By circumstance, lately I have found myself doing my daily walk after dark.  I do this with a little trepidation because we share our woods with a pack of coyotes.  I have seen individual coyotes in daytime from a safe distance and I've heard them howling after dark. 

Leading up to the recent full moon, I found myself walking in darkness.  The moon was so bright that I didn't need to use the headlight I was wearing and the shadows from the branches of bare winter trees and the special quality of light was very enticing.  I didn't want the walk to end and so I decided to take a foot path away from the private, gravel road to bend around the confluence of two streams and past a shut-ins, a small waterfall.  Just as I entered the path, I heard an alarm raised by a coyote and the answering howls of the pack.  I whimped out and headed back to the road.  I tried to console myself, that I was responding appropriately to a warning.  (From Alex - A synchronistic event can also be recognised as a sign/omen that affirms a decision we have made and dispels our doubts. This assures us that we are on the right path.)

The very next night, it happened again that I could not take my walk until after dark.  I decided to challenge my fear, to overcome my fear and step out on that path again.  No sounds of coyotes, only the delicious moonlight and a safe, uneventful walk back home.

But the experience keeps repeating itself (more often lately than I would prefer or is it that I'm having too much fun, out in the woods after dark?).  I'm not sure of the lesson or meaning I'm to take from these experiences. In some ways, I think it is to trust life and to trust my choices.  To become more fearless in general, more confident, more certain of myself.  Sometimes I hear the coyotes, sometimes I don't.  I heard them again when I was too deeply into the path to turn around and so I continued and they left me alone.  Another time I heard them in a completely different region of the woods as I crossed the field with my home in sight. 

The experience brought back the rememberance of an incident, when a gun happy neighbor killed a coyote.  “It's only a coyote” he said. as he walked by me carrying the animals body by the leg.   I said words of sorrow at the waterfall, to the spirit of the coyote and so remembering this, I felt safer, although it isn't rational, felt they would know I am not against them.  Of course, there is also the reassurance that they would also rather stay away from a known predator.

Since then, we ended up watching for the first time (and then a few more times at the insistence of my almost 6 yr old) a Simpson's from the 8th season on DVD called “El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer” with Johnny Cash as the voice of the coyote spirit guide.  And had to make a pot of chili within a few days of watching it.  No hallucinations from my chili.

I still don't know what all the coincidences mean for me.  They did open up a wonderul conversation about coyotes with a woman in Idaho.  Mostly, they do remind me about coincidences, synchronicities and I haven't thought about them for a long time, maybe I will notice them occasionally but don't give them the attention I perhaps should, take them somewhat for granted.  As Alex ends - “& what may be most important in experiencing either, may be the practice of gratitude & an expanding awareness of the underlying flow of life…”  Ah, the flow of life, isn't that a nice thought?

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Re: I do believe in coincidence

Thank you Alex for giving me so much to ponder. I see bringing this up to this group was the “right” thing to do.  At times I questioned going off on what might be a tangent, whether it would interest anyone here.

Thank you Cheryl for affirming along with me that choosing the path that allows me to confront my fears will also open up for me the lessons which may be contained somewhere in all that Alex wrote.

Thank you as well jeepdog, for sharing my sorrow and affirming what Alex wrote.   Thank you for sharing your poem as well.

Coyote, help me see what I need to see  or understand next …

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Deb,

As I read your beautifully written story of your night walks in the woods at first, when you voiced your fear of the coyotes, I had intended to write to you something to the affect that your fears should be assuaged by the knowledge that the coyotes would probably go out of their way to avoid contact with you as opposed to be a threat to you.  But then, as it happens so often in this existence, I read on to see how you revered the spirit of the coyote when your neighbor had killed one and realized that you realized the value of the coyote.  Then as I read further on I could see that you have a desire to 'know' the coyote for what it is rather than live in fear based on unfamiliarity. 

Good on ya Deb.  As the late Steve Irwin so often stated, “we want to save the things we love” and it was his life's mission to help us all fall in love with all other living things.

Blessings,
Cheryl

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It's a very interesting discussion you bring up. 

English is a language strictly based on connotation, especially American English.  We're notorious for saying “bad” when we mean “good”, “hot” when we mean “cool”, “cool” when we mean “hot”, you know it never ends!  Perhaps more so than any other language I know of, English is progressive and constantly changing.  It relies heavily on social context.  Words like “bootylicious” that couldn't be found in the dictionary 10 years ago are now there– and really, what does bootylicious mean?  It's largely opened to our own individual intepretation, but when we use it in conversation, we define the word based on the context in which it's used.

I don't believe things happen randomly.  I've always believed in a mathematical beauty to life.  In mathematics, everything has a reason.  To believe in randomness is to deny the Truth in everything.  If we look at the denotation of coincidence, there is an unknown element in the meeting of two things, events, etc… the meeting of two things in the same space as if by chance.  It's not saying that it happens by chance, but it appears to happen by chance.  In that case, I don't truly believe in coincidence… I'd rather say I believe that everything happens by reason… what's the word for that?

For me, believing in coincidence is knowing that these two things didn't happen by accident, but not really knowing why they did.  I'm way too curious to let things just be… I must figure out the often hidden reason why these things happen. 

I'm of the belief that these things happen on purpose, and now it's become my duty to find out why it's happening, and not just be in wonder that it happened.

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Kyo, “I must figure out the often hidden reason why these things happen.”

Me too… & I believe that's a big problem…

Please share your thoughts on this… anyone…

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Good question.  I think there was a time in my life when I wanted `desperately` to know the “WHY” of things happening.  I poked and prodded at each event, each moment of identified synchronicity….. and it was simply fear wrapped up in a hypervigilance.  (for me).

Now, I honor what happens.  I trust that it is all unfolding according to a greater purpose and I honor what is in front of me.  I've found that I miss less in doing this.  I do not get anxious or feel the fear over missing something.

I know that when things coincide, they are meant to.  I follow my hunches.  I listen to the warnings (I loved the coyote stuff by the way).  I honor my feelings.  I am honest and open and simply put one foot in front of the other and allow myself to honor my path and my inherent connection.

I said that I was reading Wayne Dyer's inpsiration.  Yesterday I read an awesome analogy.  He was talking about a single droplet of blood.  It contains all the things necessary to sustain the life that the WHOLE of the blood does.  And yet… you remove that from the source and you examine it to death…. and it literally loses connection and dies.

I think we “think” too much.  I think we lose the connection in the thinking of what it all means.  It never worked for me.  I simply needed to remember and become utterly vulnerable.  And in doing so…. I have found that I do not need to know why.  I simply need to say yes and hold gratitude.

Anyway…. my thoughts this morning.

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Jill,

My thoughts echo yours.  Yes we waste so much time trying to figure out why that we don't appreciate what is. 

A friend of mine is into a way of being that bases everything on the premise the Everything Works Out Perfectly (EWOP).  I've come to embrace this for myself and know that everything always does work out perfectly no matter how out of whack it might appear to get. 

As for signs that I attract into my existence often I know immediately what the sign is for.  Sometimes the sign has nothing to do with anything going on at the moment or in the recent past and that is when I know that soon enough it will all be revealed to me in the most wonderful way.

Has anyone here ever viewed the film titled 'Signs'?  Basically that is what the film is about…receiving a sign, not understanding that it was a sign and then realizing much later that it was a sign and what the sign was for.

Blessings,
Cheryl

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Cheryl,

I was riveted by that idea in the movie.  I work at a place where amazing things happen….. in spite of folks best intentions to think their way into safety.  LOL 

I mean, seriously….  If I sat with you and told you that the pain you were in came about because of some actions in the recent past and that it was a good thing.  A necessary thing.  And also told you that the pain was only beginning, but to trust me that it was required to bring about even more change……

Would anyone know I was talking about childbirth?  And in not knowing…. how many people would try to find a way to stop the body's process of hormone release that signals birth.

The most fertile earth is that which has been tempered through fire.  And yet…. we see fire as bad.

That isn't to say that I do not see a cause and effect.  I believe if I choose to see myself only as a victim, I will only see ways in which that is true.  I will exhibit behavior and seek things that reinforce that belief.  I do believe in being impeccable in your thought and word.  Which also means to avoid determining things that are not comfortable as being bad.  Sometimes, it signals a birth. 

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Dear Jill,

I can't fully express how wonderful I am finding this exchange of ideas that is yet sometimes more of an echo than an exchange; with each of us echoing the other's ideas.

Yes I too am a person who has realized the power of perception.  I am typically the only one in a group of people who mentions, when everyone else is speaking of gloom and doom, the brighter side of a situation and more often than not I'm asked to just keep my opinions to myself and to grasp the 'reality' of the situation.  I will not be silenced however and will continue to expose the 'up side' of everything that happens that may appear to others not to have an up side.

I've often commented that I can't truly understand why it is that most of us human beings will always choose the more negative perspective in any given situation.  I am becoming ever so hopeful however to know that people who choose the positive perception like us are popping up everywhere more and more these days.  Who knew that there were so many out there who choose to see the good in all things no matter what those things might be?  I think its wonderful and I'm so glad to be a part of it.

Blessings,
Cheryl

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Thank you, Jill & Cheryl. I really enjoy reading your exchange.

I too think too much… it's about balance isn't it?

Love this: Everything Works Out Perfectly (EWOP)
hmn…
This Too Shall Pass (TTSP)
Relax, Let Life Unfold (RLLU)

Love this: The most fertile earth is that which has been tempered through fire.

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Alex,

I know exactly what you mean.  I have discovered that those times when I thought I'd been spinning my wheels and wasting my time…. I typically was building muscle for a greater task later on.

Each of my relationships created opportuntiy for learning and expansive unveiling of my own heart and my own capacity for intimacy.  The things I thought were mistakes became the grit that allowed me a greater understanding.

Time is not linear.  Our perception of how it is arranged can be linear.  When I grew up I was taught time in an unfolding and not a straight line.   Things attend to themselves when they do.  There can be no waste.

Each breath.  Each moment:  A gift.  Never a waste.

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You put it well, Jill. Thank you :o)

A day after posting my previous post, I came across Paulo Coelho's To Be Like a River Flowing. Marvelous synchronicity!

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Alex,

This was gorgeous and also very well put.  I would have to agree.  Every moment is fresh, and all moments are contributing to the whole of our lives.

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Sigh.  “Only a coyote,” you neighbor stated.  There is so much more.  Every time I see a coyote, I learn new lessons.  You neighbor misses much - and in the process of killing a coyote, he kills himself.

Coyote Essence

They can be spotted in the outskirts,
circling villages, probing.
They come.  They go.
Elusive Coyotes on the fringe.

Moving as shadows always,
appearing hunched in their loping.
They are cautious.  They are certain.
Confident Coyotes seemingly, but never, cringe.

Surmised as thieves, they actually scavenge,
helpfully cutting out the small is what arid land’s creature is hoping.
Take the weak.  Leave the strong.
Careful Coyotes never kill out of revenge.

Pups jumping and rolling,
as the tumbleweed, purpose seemingly joking.
They are arduous.  They are playful.
Balanced Coyotes, fun in the face of dire they impinge.

At the pale moon they can be heard loudly proclaiming,
mournful spirit manifested in voice eloping.
Howling cry.  Joyful expression.
Their voices are actually life’s door’s hinge –
Coyote Essence.

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Lovely prose indeed.  I too value the coyote greatly.  In fact I've learned to value all life that exists.

Blessings,
Cheryl

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Thanks everyone! 

This thread is just what I needed!  I am all so quite familiar with this topic of course through personal experience and as it has echoed through many books I have read and now through each persons comments from how they see life through scyhronicity. 

I again regain insight to higher spiritual freedom which gets lost in my computer like memory when in midst of stuggles.  I enjoyed this very much and absorbed everyones words with love and peace, may my easeful bliss reflect into you all.

Namaste'