Merry Christmas from the family

Coyotes and Chest Pain

Coyotes were yipping and howling late last night. Of course my dogs have to join in with their yodeling which makes sleeping very hard to do in my little cabin.

I was having a dream about a witch-doctor lady who was trying to minister to me by pressing hard on my chest while I lied down across her desk. I expressed to her this tightness and pain I had in my chest and she was trying to remedy me.

There's sometimes in my waking hours an awareness of anxiety or a tenseness I carry around in the center of my being that feels like my heart. I press and bang on my chest some but it doesn't go away. It is mental or emotional, not physical – I think.

As I'm lying there listening to the coyotes and my dog howl. I realized how much I worried about the ability of outside life - for example, wildlife, and even maybe nature - to survive outside of man. Somehow I've become convinced that if mankind doesn't change behavior, we will wipe out all life on earth. Well, maybe not all life, but surely the newly arrived surrounding coyotes in my neighborhood will more than likely be shot and killed out by someone, making them at least locally extinct.

I felt this same burdensome pressure in my chest.

Then I thought about the wily nature of the coyote and how sneaky he has been to successfully avert the onslaught of man with his semi-civilization of dogs, guns, and farming. Realizing to myself that in spite of man, coyotes have still so far survived. If man completely became extinct, coyotes might still survive on the outer edges somewhere.

Just knowing that I myself and mankind in general isn't completely in control and responsible for all wildlife - that man might die out someday and other wildlife could continue - released the pressure in my chest.

I exhaled and felt better than I've felt in long time. The pain in my chest went away.