Supporting effective & meaningful
personal growth
through spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical
balance.
It's just us (wild) folks.
America's dog; the coyote!
(Let's stop killing them!)
Call them, "A string of coincidences." and that will please your brain. I call them "miracles", and that pleases my heart. I prefer the latter. I think you do too. c
These are such good quotes that I just keep them here to remind me of some wisdoms I may forget day-to-day. So, I may add to them now and then but in the main, just leave them to keep my brain happy. c
"Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing." William James
"Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have."
Garrison Keillor
"I was determined to spend my life seeking Truth while being spared the company of those who claimed to have found it." (attributed to) John Henry Faulk
'I don't know, I just work here."
Joseph, Beautiful Painted Arrow, Rael (in response to any spiritual inquiry)
"I am a member of 'The Church of There's-Something-Going-on-Here!'"
coyote
He was constantly narrating his own actions in a writerly way, in his head. "I had the lonely child's habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginary persons, and I think from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued."
George Orwell
(George, Me, Garrison Keillor & and probably a million other writers on the planet.)
We took our country back in 2020!
Let's hold on to it!
Coyote's
Cards,
Original photographs on beautifully lithographed
cards
with
envelopes.
Bob Clancy has created a fully functional page for us. Just
Click-the-link!
http://www.soulface.net/cards.htm
We're opening up!
(In order to protect our community you must have been vaccinated or
have a negative COVID test
24 hours prior to attendance at any of our
ceremonies.
Next Sweat
TBA
There will be new dates for the Men's Circle
in January posted soon. The delay is due to the cancer preventative
treatments I'm undergoing (called "BCG"you can look it up if curious).
I'm not sure of side effects yet so I'm holding off any activites till
I know I can handle "stuff". c
No
Trapping on Public land!
We did it!
Thanks Gov. Luhan (Best Gov. we've EVER had!)
Now
"Manage" Trappers!
• • •
Help us support these activist organizations:
The
New Mexico Wilderness Alliance
www.nmwild.org
...and
ProjectCoyote
www.projectcoyote.org
Notes
(From Coyote)
The Genuine Power of Prayer in my Life
The "Lasts"
Frogs....! Again and at Last!!
Was Lincoln a Racist?
Just a Lucky Fit?
The Good Old Days
Education
The Great Boot Adventure
Thinking About What's Going On
Men's Page
Men's Health, Mine anyway!
(Up-dated, January 25th)
Once again.
You Americans and your Guns!
Background Checks, the Political Manipulations
Fall Out
Books
"Every Day a Gift", Tammy Duckworth. See "The Lasts" on the "Notes" page.
I’ve thought about writing a story from a dog’s point of view (coyote, wolf) but I just couldn’t solve the problem of how the dog would think. Would he approximate words and ideas taken from experiencing humans? Would he be mystified by most human behavior? Would most of his actions be determined by instinct? Would he be able to think things through using logic and reason? How would he react to human demands? Etc.
I never ventured further than trying to puzzle out answers to any of this so I never got started on a project. But Garth Stein did. And having solved this dilemma his book, “The Art of Racing in the Rain” though not a “great” book, it is nonetheless Wonderful! Yes, of course the choice of “Great” vs. “Wonderful” is entirely subjective and I can only add that I have wept at the finish of two books in my life; Urrea’s “Hummingbirds Daughter” and “….Racing…”! Maybe they are equally “Great” for me on the emotional level. I won’t get into splitting hairs over it, the bottom line is, it’s a very, very fine read.
"Code Talker" by Chester Nez & Judith Schiess Avila is an engrossing read. Prior to my reading of it I was under the impression that the Navajo "code was simply the use of the Navajo language to relay information for combat units in the Pacific. In fact, the 30+ "code talkers" who were involved had to actually CREATE an altogether new language for much of what they had to communicate. Example: there was certainly no word in the Navajo language for "bull dozer" do they used "dola-alth-whosh" which translates as "bull sleep" in Navajo. "Fighters" were "hummingbirds" "Bombs" were "eggs" (Ah-ye-shi). There are approximatively 30 pages of words each code talker has to learn to be able to transmit accurate information quickly under combat conditions in order to save lives. And they did it under fire over and over again with the Japanese unable to break the code....ever. It's an amazing story.
"The Girl Who Sang to the Buffalo" by Kent Nerburn is fine historical fiction for those interested in Native American (Indian) religion (called "The Red Road" by those of us who walk it.) It's a good story, well told and an interesting journey into skepticism and alternative ways of seeing reality.
If you love trees, read this book. If you love forests, read this book. If you hate clear-cutting, read this book. If you need some courage and hope, read this book. "Finding the Mother Tree" by Suzanne Simard is not an easy read unless you are a scientist interested in the complexities of scientific investigation....becuse it's a lot about how experimnets are constructed. It's also about determination. And it's about love. And survival, both of our planet and of the human who wrote this book. AND, there's some magic involved too. Not the wishful thinking kind. The reality kind. Check it out.
Unraveled: The Life and Death of a Garment by Maxine Bedat. This was a tough one to read....and, in fact, I couldn't finish it......it made me too sad for the planet and our future. Don't get me wrong. It's very well done, BUT! Halfway through I felt a sense of hoplessness about the future. I had to close it down.
“The Comedians”. The sub-title should have tipped me off that it wasn’t going to be all fun and games, “Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy”!
From vaudeville, to radio, to Broadway, to TV, to Comedy Clubs, Stand-up, Late-Night, and from baggy pants, slap-stick, to Lenny Bruce to Jay Leno, Letterman, Prior, DeGeneres, and the lesser and the virtually unknown this read covers the field and from what I got, it’s not a lot of fun to play there. What a tough, cut-throat, un-funny business comedy show biz can be…….and is.
Not many laughs in this one, but lots of very interesting reading. If you’re interested in getting into comedy…….consider selling used cars instead. At least you can make some kind of living and maybe have some laughs.
It’s a good thing I didn’t get hold of Roger Welsch’s book “The Reluctant Pilgrim, A skeptic’s journey into Native Mysteries” before writing my own, ("Becoming Coyote, A Journey of Enlightenment…Mostly".) because I would have been accused of plagiarism (by me at least).
Chapter after chapter in Roger’s book parallel my own, not word for word, but at least concept by concept. I DID borrow, actually quote, one of Roger’s ideas. It came as a result of a phone call to him which might have taken place right about the time he was writing “Reluctant…” about 2014 or so. In that call, a rare one since Roger is phone-call adverse, he told me his granddaughter had commented to him that she thought he was a “…..member of the church of ‘There’s Something-going-on-here.’” (How did I get his number? Obviously the result of “Something-going-on-here!”)
When Roger related that to me I immediately recognized that that was exactly the “church” I belonged to and that the idea of Something-going-on summed up my thinking as well. I’ve used it ever since. (Thanks Roger!)
I’ve tried to contact Roger, even re-opened my Facebook account temporarily only to get in touch with him (I don’t “do” social media) but to no avail…so I’ve let go of the idea.
“Reluctant” is a good one and if you are seeking any kind of spiritual path, this is the read for you….ESPECIALLY if you’re a skeptic.
“Everyone loved sunsets. The light lost its sanity as it fell over the hills and into the Pacific¬––––it went red and deeper red, orange, and even green. The skies seemed to melt, like lava eating black rock into great bite marks of burning. Sometimes all the town stopped and stared west.” (p-129 in “House of Broken Angels”) Who wouldn't love to have written that paragraph.....and that's just a tiny taste of the kind of writing Luis Alberto Urrea produces time after time in his masterful works of both fiction and non. Of those I've only read, Hummingbird's Daughter, Queen of America, & The Devil's Highway (couldn't finish that last one, too painful). Urrea is one of our greats!
My own book, "Becoming Coyote, A Journey of Enlightenment (Mostly)" is NOW available. After 17 edits it has been updated and I never want to see it again.......however, you might like it and my writer-editor-publisher daughter (Winter) says it's "...really good." and it DID get good "reviews" from a couple of pre-publish readers....so there!
Winter
Desiree's book "Matchbook"
is detective-fiction.....not a genre
I usually read...BUT! this is one fine piece of reading and as one of
the comments on the back cover notes, "You will not be able to put it
down."...well, that's for sure. Don't pass this one up, my daughter has
written one FINE story.
PS, She just finished a second, not a sequel, and it's every bit as good as Matchbook. She's on a roll. That book, When I Knew You, is now available too. Contact me for info.
I’ve thought about writing a story from a dog’s point of view (coyote, wolf) but I just couldn’t solve the problem of how the dog would think. Would he approximate words and ideas taken from experiencing humans? Would he be mystified by most human behavior? Would most of his actions be determined by instinct? Would he be able to think things through using logic and reason? How would he react to human demands? Etc.
I never ventured further than trying to puzzle out answers to any of this so I never got started on a project. But Garth Stein did. And having solved this dilemma his book, “The Art of Racing in the Rain” though not a “great” book, it is nonetheless Wonderful! Yes, of course the choice of “Great” vs. “Wonderful” is entirely subjective and I can only add that I have wept at the finish of two books in my life; Urrea’s “Hummingbirds Daughter” and “….Racing…”! Maybe they are equally “Great” for me on the emotional level. I won’t get into splitting hairs over it, the bottom line is, it’s a very, very fine read.
"Code Talker" by Chester Nez & Judith Schiess Avila is an engrossing read. Prior to my reading of it I was under the impression that the Navajo "code was simply the use of the Navajo language to relay information for combat units in the Pacific. In fact, the 30+ "code talkers" who were involved had to actually CREATE an altogether new language for much of what they had to communicate. Example: there was certainly no word in the Navajo language for "bull dozer" do they used "dola-alth-whosh" which translates as "bull sleep" in Navajo. "Fighters" were "hummingbirds" "Bombs" were "eggs" (Ah-ye-shi). There are approximatively 30 pages of words each code talker has to learn to be able to transmit accurate information quickly under combat conditions in order to save lives. And they did it under fire over and over again with the Japanese unable to break the code....ever. It's an amazing story.
"The Girl Who Sang to the Buffalo" by Kent Nerburn is fine historical fiction for those interested in Native American (Indian) religion (called "The Red Road" by those of us who walk it.) It's a good story, well told and an interesting journey into skepticism and alternative ways of seeing reality.
If you love trees, read this book. If you love forests, read this book. If you hate clear-cutting, read this book. If you need some courage and hope, read this book. "Finding the Mother Tree" by Suzanne Simard is not an easy read unless you are a scientist interested in the complexities of scientific investigation....becuse it's a lot about how experimnets are constructed. It's also about determination. And it's about love. And survival, both of our planet and of the human who wrote this book. AND, there's some magic involved too. Not the wishful thinking kind. The reality kind. Check it out.
Unraveled: The Life and Death of a Garment by Maxine Bedat. This was a tough one to read....and, in fact, I couldn't finish it......it made me too sad for the planet and our future. Don't get me wrong. It's very well done, BUT! Halfway through I felt a sense of hoplessness about the future. I had to close it down.
• • •
“The Comedians”. The sub-title should have tipped me off that it wasn’t going to be all fun and games, “Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy”!
From vaudeville, to radio, to Broadway, to TV, to Comedy Clubs, Stand-up, Late-Night, and from baggy pants, slap-stick, to Lenny Bruce to Jay Leno, Letterman, Prior, DeGeneres, and the lesser and the virtually unknown this read covers the field and from what I got, it’s not a lot of fun to play there. What a tough, cut-throat, un-funny business comedy show biz can be…….and is.
Not many laughs in this one, but lots of very interesting reading. If you’re interested in getting into comedy…….consider selling used cars instead. At least you can make some kind of living and maybe have some laughs.
• • •
It’s a good thing I didn’t get hold of Roger Welsch’s book “The Reluctant Pilgrim, A skeptic’s journey into Native Mysteries” before writing my own, ("Becoming Coyote, A Journey of Enlightenment…Mostly".) because I would have been accused of plagiarism (by me at least).
Chapter after chapter in Roger’s book parallel my own, not word for word, but at least concept by concept. I DID borrow, actually quote, one of Roger’s ideas. It came as a result of a phone call to him which might have taken place right about the time he was writing “Reluctant…” about 2014 or so. In that call, a rare one since Roger is phone-call adverse, he told me his granddaughter had commented to him that she thought he was a “…..member of the church of ‘There’s Something-going-on-here.’” (How did I get his number? Obviously the result of “Something-going-on-here!”)
When Roger related that to me I immediately recognized that that was exactly the “church” I belonged to and that the idea of Something-going-on summed up my thinking as well. I’ve used it ever since. (Thanks Roger!)
I’ve tried to contact Roger, even re-opened my Facebook account temporarily only to get in touch with him (I don’t “do” social media) but to no avail…so I’ve let go of the idea.
“Reluctant” is a good one and if you are seeking any kind of spiritual path, this is the read for you….ESPECIALLY if you’re a skeptic.
• • •
“Everyone loved sunsets. The light lost its sanity as it fell over the hills and into the Pacific¬––––it went red and deeper red, orange, and even green. The skies seemed to melt, like lava eating black rock into great bite marks of burning. Sometimes all the town stopped and stared west.” (p-129 in “House of Broken Angels”) Who wouldn't love to have written that paragraph.....and that's just a tiny taste of the kind of writing Luis Alberto Urrea produces time after time in his masterful works of both fiction and non. Of those I've only read, Hummingbird's Daughter, Queen of America, & The Devil's Highway (couldn't finish that last one, too painful). Urrea is one of our greats!
• • •
• • •
My own book, "Becoming Coyote, A Journey of Enlightenment (Mostly)" is NOW available. After 17 edits it has been updated and I never want to see it again.......however, you might like it and my writer-editor-publisher daughter (Winter) says it's "...really good." and it DID get good "reviews" from a couple of pre-publish readers....so there!
It's thick enough (400+ pages) to make a
good door stop and has a very nice cover.....which, for some obscure
reason, I can't get to load here....? It beats any over-the-counter
sleep aid and has no horrible side effects. (so far)
Anyway; it's $20, which will cover book, envelope, and postage. (No, not available in a "Kindle" edition or on Amazon, so rare to begin with....and I'll sign it too!)
Anyway; it's $20, which will cover book, envelope, and postage. (No, not available in a "Kindle" edition or on Amazon, so rare to begin with....and I'll sign it too!)
• • •
PS, She just finished a second, not a sequel, and it's every bit as good as Matchbook. She's on a roll. That book, When I Knew You, is now available too. Contact me for info.
Movies (& TV)
Hard to know where to begin.
Our viewing habit is simple and predictable; around 7 each evening one of us will say, “Want to watch something?” The response is usually “OK.” unless we’ve each found a good book.
Next question, what to watch. Well, we want either a good movie or a good series.
We choose from four streaming sources, Netflix, Peacock, Paramount, and Acorn. (If you don’t know Acorn it’s a source for Brit, Australian, New Zealand, Irish, Scot, and Welsh movies. They range from very good, A Place to Call Home for example, to depressing, almost anything made in Scotland. That’s not because of the thematic material, usually a murder, it’s because the sky is always overcast.
A big winner for us was “Anne with an E” on Netflix. This was based on the book “Anne of Green Gables”, a classic “children’s book” written in 1907. But the film version is anything but a children’s story. There are so many levels of story and character that it’s very difficult to, as I’ve alluded, know what to talk about, so I’m going short-hand here. One of the main themes for me is that this is a story about fathers…..men, and our difficulty with relating on a feeling level. But this is just one of many important themes developed in this story. Count among them, racism, sexism, girls developing onto young women, boys into young men, birth, death, betrayal, love, life on a farm and what that means when it comes to setting priorities in life….so much to talk about and no where near enough words to say it all.
Three seasons, wish there had been four. Made in Canada, set on Prince Edward island (off the coast of Newfoundland) time, early 1900s.
You will not regret the time spent on this one. Our only regret is that 1. It ended. And 2. It will be really hard to find anything that will match the writing, the story telling and the acting in this one. We’ll probably watch it again.
"Wild at Heart" (no, not the movie) is a BBC series on Acorn. Takes place in South Africa and is about a wild life vet and his family. Is somewhat of a "soap"at times, as in always a new "problem", it played for about 8 seasons and was quite good for the first 5 or so then got a bit redundent. Still it is engaging.
CBS has a light one, "Ghosts". Pretty well done and has laughs in every episode. (Better than a murder.)
Best cop show hands down is "Blue Bloods". Great scritps and believable characters. Gore is played down. 12 seasons and counting on Paramount +.
"Goodbye Christopher Robin" (Netflix DVD, don't know if you can stream this) is the true story of A.A. Milne's series of books, who he was, why he wrote them and their impact on the real "Christopher" his son Billy Moon. This is a beautiful, heartfelt story wonderfully done.
"The man who invented Christmas!" Yes, it's a story about Dickens, cleverly told by a cast of Brit. stars.....a really heart warming story about writing the book (A Christmas Carol of course.) Need your spirits lifted? This is the movie to see. (Netflix)
"Rumors of Angels" with Vanessa Redgrave. Heart felt and magical....likewise, "Collateral Beauty" with Will Smith and a fine cast. Both of these are about death of a loved one (a mother in the first, a child in the second) and both are very well done. (Netflix)
Ben Okri author of, The Famished Road (1991), incorporates African myth and folklore, which has been labeled magical realism. Okri disagrees: "I grew up in a tradition where there are simply more dimensions to reality: legends and myths and ancestors and spirits and death. You can't use Jane Austen to speak about African reality. Which brings the question: what is reality? Everyone's reality is different."
| Dick Prosapio, MSW, aka Coyote; ceremonialist, psychotherapist (recovering), writer, Intuitive Tarot (now out of print) Becoming Coyote (available from Spirit Path) drummer, photographer, dancer, and leader of experiential workshops for 30+ years. Co founder of; The Foundation for Common Sense©. | Elizabeth Prosapio, BFA, RMT, aka Raven; leads WildWoman weekends & of Woman's Spirit Weekend, a (very) fine artist and massage therapist and co-wrote Intuitive Tarot with Dick. Elizabeth is available for "Soul Face" drawing (more info by contacting her) and is also the co founder of; The Foundation for Common Sense©. |
For more information on any event listed, contact us at:  coyotecall@spiritpath.net raven1680@gmail.com |
Spirit Earth Path Raven's Email: raven1680@gmail.com |
Last
updated;
9 AM, January 25th, 2022.
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every age you've ever been."
Mr. Rodgers
Web
Creativity and Up-Date Director:
Da Wiz
(with LOTS of help from Bob
Clancy)
The Prosapio Motto:
Non ti Arrende!
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