The Trickster Part 2

In Part 1 you may remember my spiritual skepticism was increasingly being challenged by a series of unexplainable, almost paranormal, experiences that had occured in my life. While I was intrigued by all these coincidences I stilled remained a disbeliever. I chalked it all down to chance and my desire to find meaning and reasons for painful events. I would have remained the eternal skeptic had it not been for another coincidental experience.

I had been distraught much of the day. My depression had been obsessively hounding me to end it all. I was used to having these thoughts, but it was never easy to make it through the obsessions. The only thing that seemed to help when I felt like this was physical exercise or intense focus on other activities. I decided to walk to the back of the farm. When I got to the field at the far end of the farm I saw two bees, a honey bee, and a bumble bee, drowning in a tub of water. Immediately I envisioned the bees, soaked and sinking, desperately paddling and drowning in a dark pool of water, as symbols of my desperate struggle to save myself from my depression. I made the fortuitous decision to try to save the bees. If they lived, I decided, I too would decide to live.

I fished the bees out of the water and placed them in the sun on a stump of wood. They sat there, comatose. I squated down beside them intent on learning what the decision would be. Still they remained motionless. Suddenly the bumble bee started dancing on the edge of the stump. He hung himself off the side of the stump and opened his wings, drying both his wings and the underside of his abdomen in the warm afternoon sun. Within minutes the honey bee started the same dance. The bumble bee, drying complete, flew away into the field. The honeybee soon followed suit. I had been so completely engrossed in the activities of these two bees that it was like I had been in a bubble, sheltered from all sounds and experiences outside the one I had been so focused on.

Suddenly I heard a snort and a snuffle, like when a dog accidently snorts dirt into its nose when it is sniffing the grass. I looked up and there, 6 or 7 feet from me, was the most beautiful coyote I have ever seen. Because I had been crouched in the tall grass silently watching the bees, he had not seen or heard me. I had never been so close to a wild animal before. I felt an intensely mystical connection to the animal.

I decided to learn more about the coyote as a symbol. I soon discovered that in American aboriginal mythology the coyote, like the raven in Westcoast aboriginal myth, is a trickster figure. The trickster figure brings light into a world that is completely dark. He is a figure that challenges our initial perceptions. He brings humour and playfulness into situations that have become too serious. The trickster figure shows us that we cannot plan our lives perfectly, that life is unpredictable. In other words he challenges many of the behaviours that contribute to my depression. I found it incredible that, of all creatures to appear in front of me, the coyote chose to appear. What greater symbol of the side I seemed to be missing in my daily life.

The coyote is a perfect symbol for me. I seem to fit its symbolism of duality with my cycling moods, my being a gemini, and my having a degree in Philosophy (rational thought)and in English (mystical, magical, creative thought). I am a workaholic. I get lost in rambunctious fun when I feel well. I see the path. I don't. I am good. I am bad. Things are black. They are white. I need a symbol that challenges my strict need for structure and assurity. I need a talisman that is able to lead me away from the intense seriousness I feel when in a depressive state.

For years that talisman has been a silver bracelet given to me by my parents when I was young. Carved with another trickster figure, the raven, I have felt the bracelet protects me, but never knew why. To me the coyote is yet another symbolic representation of the mystical side of existence that I have been loath to believe existed. I find it comforting to believe the coyote was meant to appear when it did. It was as though it provided me with a reason to keep trying.