We’ve all been warned about coyotes. When I first moved to LA, I was stunned to hear that they run all over the city, in woodsy pockets, eating whatever kitty or puppy is available. As my golden retriever, Oberon, is a big dog, it never occurred to me that he was considered fair game. Yesterday, we walked up onto a ridge and coyotes were stalking us and then flitting off into the brush. Obie is usually tuned into me so clearly, but he was salivating and bursting to run amuck. I teased him about the call of the wild. A passerby said ‘Put him on the leash and keep him close! They will seduce him and he’ll be gone!’ The alarm in these words was heeded pronto. How easily and innocently nature can interfere and completely change the direction of one’s world. This time I was warned.
One of the most profound gifts of this chapter for me has been that of surrender. I do not experience crisis as I once did and I see that this is because I no longer resist when a change that I’m not on board with, is trying to take place. While things were unravelling in the home department, my fears rose up. My life was falling apart, and I honestly could not come up with a solution as to where I would live. Sorrow, fear, a vast world out there and what would I do without my nest of safety and quiet and my bath-tub and books and beautiful clothes and my music and my kitchen and my garden and my artwork and everything that brought me comfort? I couldn’t do this! I would rather die.
The ground fell out from under my feet, exactly as I had feared, and almost everything that I treasured was put into storage and I walked out into that world. Step by step, day by day, learning lessons that no other journey could have provided. I surrendered, on my knees, the belief that I was a separate being, alone and in the darkness. I allowed myself to become my own security and source of love. I allowed God’s light and love to flow through me and hold me, and now, whenever that agonizing feeling of crisis appears, I recognize it and surrender my fears.
Usually.