I remember feeling proud of my daughter teaching me the prosocial skill of ‘quiet coyote’ that she learned from her school teachers recently. However, after the fleeting emotion passed, I found myself flirting with frustration as she flipped the script by making the ‘quiet coyote’ sign on her dad somewhat akin to a classic Beavis and Butthead move in balking at an adult authority figure. Thankfully, I remembered to breathe and cut back to Inner Peace, kind of like Barry Sanders used to do on the football field, before he walked out on top. And while I’m not getting paid for faking the socks of guys bigger and stronger than me, like Barry I remember to politely hand the ball off to my wife when I need help from my teammate. It’s not always easy to give peace a chance instead of reacting without reserve.

Ah, Coyote . . . “you devil! You tricked me once more! Must I sit and ponder, what you did it for?” I can hear an old teacher saying, “Ari why is it that sometimes you’re a perfect little Angel (pause-look) . . . and other times I just want to strangle you?” Alas, the Universe might not always give Us what We want, but It does always give Us what We need. And while I might not like the bitter taste of our child’s unwelcome rejections at times (and other rejections as well), I am learning to adjust my palate to the taste of digesting bitter. Perhaps it’s in the cards that I return to the innocence and wonder of a child as I meditate on The Fool in the Tarot. Coyote reminds Us to lighten up and remember to laugh at the big Cosmic Joke, in much the same way that Jimmy Buffett reminds Us that “if we couldn’t laugh, we’d all go insane.” I picture myself embracing the Batman and Joker in me giving each other a big hug and moving onward to New Frontiers. If it wasn’t the for that roaring laughter, there would be no Tao. Further, in Our Judeo-Christian culture in the good ole US of A, We like to think of Ourselves as One Nation under God. But I know many market driven zealots that worship a bigoted god of a dying old world, with a fear-based belief that hell is a physical place where you’re damned and Heaven is an exclusive country club in the sky that discriminates against those deemed not to deserve to stick around.

Finally, I’ve heard stories that Our Christ, while having a Divine intellect and Being a serious thinker, was also playful like a child with a sense of humor that lit up a room.  I Bee Leave that He came here to teach Us to honor Our own power and see the God “as within, so without.” He wasn’t trying to be cryptic when speaking in metaphor and parable. Rather, He was trying to water a seed that was already planted in Our subconscious that would grow so that We could see the Kingdom of Heaven all around Us and understand our co-creative powers to amplify Our world together. For example, when reading spiritual texts with both an open heart and mind, we open up our inner state of Consciousness in a way that sets Us free. When We see in this Light, We become the change We want to see in the world and build the New Earth and co-create Heaven on Earth as One. In the eyes of the Universe, We are moving into an egalitarian age of unity in diversity, where humans, nervous woodland creatures, all other sentient beings and machines share space in the spirit of mutual aid . . . I can hear R2D2 becoming a Public Enemy #1 by sampling Chuck D spittin’, “just like dat.”

I Hopi You are well,

Ari