unconscious magic

many of you may not know why i associate myself with the coyote. "pesky vermin!" you may exclaim, if you live anyplace where you have to share space with her. coyotes eat neighborhood pets and generally represent a scavenging nature that many find unpalatable. sometimes they appear mangy and hungry and well, who wants to see themselves in that mirror? here is what i have learned from coyote: she stands on a stage of constant paradox, contradicting herself by standing on both sides of the fence at all times. coyote "looks for ways to do things that will not involve the use of her own skill"-this couldn't be more true. i love to shortcut. this means that i have an ever-present bruise on my knee from hitting the coffee table each time i go around it. emotionally, i do take the long route to sort out issues with others, perhaps in order to be thorough, but i want the fast and hard road when it comes to inner housekeeping. now i know why my bookshelves are littered with self help books... just when i think i've got the magic answer to my issue at hand, i am surprised by what really comes forward into my consciousness-that it is the opposite thinking that is really true. in my life at the present moment, i have enlisted coyote to be my patron saint of adaptation. i wanted to come here and just be here and not feel the pinching twist of discomfort in my gut at being fenced in. i even created a painting that was to be titled "adaptability". i committed to going with the flow and rolling wth the punches and all of those ridiculous cliches that go completely against my intuition. i looked the painting yesterday and snapped. wait a minute! the coyote in the painting is not adapting at all. there was no sense of inertia. she is....is she? it is clear she is loping away from something. i think on this: it is typical, no, GOSPEL to say that i never know what my work is about until it speaks to me much later, after it is finished. and this agreement suits me. i paint. then i listen. soon the scritch scratch of meaning comes to my door. this coyote is moving out of something fixed and toward something more....more open just beyond the edge of the canvas. this coyote is locked into nothing.