The coyote howl always means something is up. There's a shift in the wind, the tide has turned in some imperceptible way. It means listen. At three in the morning, the dark side of the night, at the turn of the year there is hunger. Life climbs higher in search of sun, blood and satisfaction.
The coyote is supposed to be indistinguishable from the Eastern Timber Wolf genetically. Smaller than the gray wolf, its howl is higher pitched. But the common appeal to chaos is unmistakable.
The wild is the opposite of what is good. It wants disorder, destruction, tearing down the boundaries. We are supposed to get in touch with our wild side, acknowledging there are some things in us, our past, that are unspeakable, unnameable, indecent. But to be honest, the wild is anathema to us, it is what we are against. And the howl of the wild dog raises hackles because it is a language we still understand.
But listen closely. There is a nobility, an honesty in what the coyote sings. Co-existence and mutual respect are a good thing and that is how the wild and the human depend on each other. When I hear a coyote howl, it thrills me to know that the woods are alive. As long as they stay away from my sheep, everything is okay.
I am reading a book called A Fighter's Heart by Sam Sheridan - Nietzschean in a comfortable globalized jet setting way. It is about the world of ultimate fighting. In it Sheridan quotes a jiu jitsu master saying "everything fights". The universe is framed in such a way that conflict and struggle are part of life
