Other intelligent and socially complex species share this same experience as Coyotes…..

This book you see here the Last Chain on Billie touches deeply on the words of Frank Dobie. I highly encourage everyone to read this book. The author, Carol Bradley follows the life of Billie, and Asian elephant stolen from his mother as a baby, and details the 50 years of abuse and suffering at the hands of the Circus. But it is also about the lives of hundreds of these highly intelligent social beings (like Coyote) who have experienced the intolerable suffering at the hands of humans.

OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH WILD BEINGS HAS A GREAT DEAL TO DO WITH OUR PERCEPTIONS OF OURSELVES……Why is it that as a society we allow the imprisonment and suffering of wild beings? We allow their imprisonment for our entertainment…..like Elephants and Killer whales, and we allow the slaughter of those who are free like Coyotes and Wolves, punishing them for their freedom……

WHAT DO WE WANT TO TEACH OUR CHILDREN?  Taking our children to be entertained by imprisoned and suffering wild beings teaches our children one thing……it teaches about relationships with them that express a deep lack of respect for who they really are…..and for who we really are.

photo by Janet Kessler

DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT THESE TWO COYOTES ARE EXPRESSING THEIR AFFECTION TO EACH OTHER ….. OR DO YOU BELEIVE THAT ONLY WE HUMANS CAN DO THIS?

Because what you believe will shape your actions.

So our science keeps seeking to know our wild ones in ways we never could imagine. And the “knowing” is not merely what we observe about them physically, but more important, understanding their inner world. This is the Science of the Future, as we evolve as humans.

And so the following words from Henry Beston’s Classic book, The Outermost House, ring true of an understanding we are reaching for ~

“We need a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge, and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion.

We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken a form so far below ours. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.

They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other Nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the Earth.”

And so it is for Coyote….

Coyote Song

Coyotes

  Is this world truly fallen? They say no.

 For there’s the new moon, there’s the Milky Way,

 There’s the rattler with a wren’s egg in its mouth, …

 And there’s the panting rabbit they will eat.

 They sing their wild hymn on the dark slope,

 Reading the stars like notes of hilarious music.

 Is this a fallen world? How could it be?

 And yet we’re crying over the stars again,

 And over the uncertainty of death,

Which we suspect will divide us all forever.

 I’m tired of those who broadcast their certainties,

Constantly on their cell phones to their redeemer.

 Is this a fallen world? For them it is.

 But there’s that starlit burst of animal laughter.

 The day has sent its fires scattering.

 The night has risen from its burning bed.

Our tears are proof that love is meant for life

 And for the living. And this chorus of praise,

 Which the pet dogs of the neighborhood are answering

Nostalgically, invites our answer, too.

 Is this a fallen world? How could it be?

 poem by Mark Jarman

photo by Jan Myers

Coyotes

by Leslie Moore

They hug the margins of fields,

slip into the creases between trees,

glide across gravel roads at dawn or dusk,

bellies close to the ground, tails

trailing. We hardly know they are here and think

all of this is ours – the property, the shorefront,

the view – until moonless nights

when a choir of coyotes sings to the stars

and one paces the length of our driveway

leaving tracks in the snow and scat

where the dog and I are sure to find it.

Coyote Pup by Tim Springer

If left to his natural instincts

Photo by John Tangney

 I’m not alone tonight …
I lay in my bed while a chorus begins.
Coyotes are yipping and howling …
… amplified by the waters of a slow moving river.
Just beyond my window, they sound so close.
I imagine how many huddled together,
tails tucked under their bellies … taking turns.

A  round of fireworks rips through the air.
The neighbors afraid … try to scare them off.

Long ago, the Coyotes used to be
human, too.
Coyote People left their shelters
TO RUN FREE.
Growing fur to match the Wind,
Dropping down on all fours
TO FEEL THE EARTH
against their feet.
Making themselves cunning to protect
THEIR INNOCENCE.

More fireworks

If I were among the Coyote People tonight
I’d laugh at those hiding from the darkness
trying to drown out my SONG with loud noises,
not safe from their own FEAR.

Poem by Cecilia Soprano
New England Poet

photo by Forest Hart

I received a letter from a woman in our Maine community, sharing with me an experience that left her feeling a loss of something beautiful in her life ~ Coyote’s Song.

photo by John Tangney

 When the Animals come to us,
asking for our help
Will we know what they are saying?
When the Plants speak to us
in their delicate, beautiful language,
Will we be able to answer them?
When the Planet herself
sings to us in our Dreams,
Will we be able to wake ourselves and act?
by Gary Lawless, Maine Poet