Wayward Healer: Two Coyotes

It started with two coyotes and a book about murder.

'Stolen Life' was the book; I recalled how the author described the difference in Cree culture between seeing one coyote on your path versus two. At the time I did not think much of it, other than wonder how many times I had seen two and if so, what had happened... The tale goes that one coyote means good look, good humour, be willing to laugh at yourself, and two means turn around.

It is the Dark moon of February shortly before the lunar eclipse, we are driving home from a back woods farm where we just picked up a new pup for my daughters. I'd had a funny feeling the whole day, like this whirlwind of energy was driving us, like maybe this dog we were bringing home was more symbolic than she was real. She was wild & disconnected, perhaps we thought we would tame her... train her.. we applied none of the normal dog picking rules that we have used through the years. I hear my husband speak as he points to the side of the road 'look kids?theres?a coyote beside those tress, oh, there are 2 of them, 2 coyotes... My mind turns to the pages I had read in my book the night before... I wonder aloud to Mark, perhaps we should turn around. Already we both are second guessing this dog... yet we feel like turning around is a sign of failure. So we stay on our path.?

One half hour after we return home she runs away and is gone for a week. We search the fields for hours, finding only a porcupine... It is her paw prints under the deck that mark her return.

Meanwhile we found another Dog through a rescue place that would be ready to take home in a month.?

So we are stuck with something extra we don't want to care for. Something wild we cannot control, yet feel we are obligated to be responsible for. Something we want to help, train and love yet she has no interest in us at all.. She responds only to the attention of my old female dog Sadie.?

We are overwhelmed.. this makes four dogs to care for, and she is throwing the dynamic of our whole pack off, the energy fragmented and dysfunctional.?

The dead chicken was where I found my boundaries. My willingness to say 'no this is not working for me, and I don't give a *$%@ what anybody thinks this dog is going to the pound!" was discovered.. A metaphor for the months to come.?

Two weeks later my Step daughter moves in with us with her two year old son. Going through a divorce we step into the role of rescuer, not fully realising that we have invited another wild card into our home. That our act of heroism, our need to help and take care of, is preventing her motivation to do it herself. We begin to recognise first hand that there are many life skills and parenting skills missing, we start to see that perhaps this little guy will ?never be properly taken care of. As step parents we question and navigate our role in that. Once again our house is thrown into a whirlwind of chaos, much greater than the foreshadowing of the dog pack. I can't find my boundaries, my line, where do I draw it, how much help is too much, not enough... my husband and I take it out on each other.. then return to each other finding solace in our new recognition of our joint need to draw the line. To protect what we value, what we love, so that all is not sacrificed to save one who we can't save. And so we connect with provincial resources that may help support and sustain her, we open lines of communication with her married family.. we begin to find our line.?

Today during a meeting with Catholic Social Services?Fasd?advocate at our home I hear a funny sound out by the chicken coop. I had let them out in the morning for the second time in 5 months. Holly (the non-wild pup we brought home in March) had one in her mouth. She dropped it when I called her, but it was too late. I chopped off the Hens head thinking now I'd have to add chicken plucking into my day and hung her on a tree to bleed out, returning to the meeting. This meeting gave us some great direction as to how we may actually help my step daughter successfully move forward and out of our house. Looking over the past 8 months I remember the last chicken that died. I remembered how the act of her death had signified my boundaries and that it was literally the moment for chaos to end, for the core of my pack to become functional once again.?

I decide that I will make an offering of this chicken rather than eat her ourselves. I will place her in the Forrest with a prayer of gratitude for all that I have?learned?and for what her death signifies for me. As I walk down the field I start to think of those 2 coyotes, In fact it is at that moment that I decide I will write about this that I see standing in front of me at the corner of the field 1 coyote awaiting my offering. I begin to laugh.

Blessings,

Sarah

Source: http://waywardhealer.blogspot.com/2012/09/two-coyotes.html

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