The Source of My Being

From Diane Wells, Parish Administrator: Last Sunday I took the dog and the husband for a walk. It was a beautiful day. Mostly cloudy skies in conjunction with the autumn monochrome of the foothills made everything seem oddly two dimensional. As we walked along, the trail busy with the usual Boulder hikers/runners/bikers/stroller pushers/dog walkers, I commented to my husband on the burgeoning population of Cynomys ludovicianus (the fancy name for the lowly prairie dog!) Of course, Pablo the Wonder Dog had already noticed and was busy snorfelling (see Urban Dictionary http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Snorfel ) along, content to reflect on his prairie dog chasing days, now long past. All three of us were completely unaware of the drama unfolding ever-so-quietly out in the middle of the prairie dog colony just to our right. Then, just out of the corner of my eye, I saw something stealthy move. I turned in time to see a beautiful, healthy, and apparently hungry coyote fake right, fake left then lunge forward. It was a wonderful thing to watch, that young, lean coyote so completely coyote in her autumn-colored body. When she leaped up from that lunge, one of the prairie dog denizens dangled helplessly from her jaws. She proceeded to “play” with her catch cat-like until it was finally lifeless, then she trotted off a ways and buried her treasure. It was an amazing moment. After all, after the one million, one hundred and seventeen hikes I’ve been on in my life, I don’t think I have ever seen a predator actually hunt AND catch prey. It was a vivid reminder that nature, the place I most earnestly seek and find the Source of my being, is really all about the eaters and the eaten. Nature is “red in tooth and claw”, but nature is also the calm breeze, the raging storm, the magnificent sequoia, the blue sky, the wolf spider, the nuthatch, the bull snake, the starving cougar, the frozen stream, the gale force wind…… all at the same time. None of it is “right” or “wrong”; the beauty and perfection of nature is the system of it, the delicate balance of the system that is sometimes played out in a field in north Boulder between a coyote and a prairie dog. It is a place that appeals to the both/and thinking of the mystic’s mind. There is no “good or evil”, no “yes or no”, no “right or wrong”. It is just filled with “is-ness”, the “is-ness” where God lives.