An exchange between a human and an omnipresent coyote, using drawings and photography as the channel of communication. #dearsongdog
Dear Present Human
Just as humans respond to us when we come near your home, we respond to you also.
Most of the time we allow you to pass through without much bother, but when we have our pups we need to ensure you exit our space fully. We will escort you to ensure the safety of our family.
Thank you for your message.
An exchange between a human and an omnipresent coyote, using drawings and photography as the channel of communication. #dearsongdog
Dear Song Dog
I’ve heard stories of your species following mine.
We know that you don’t feed on humans, but there is still a fear that overpowers us.
Fear-based stories spread like wildfire.
Fear flourishes faster than compassion.
Much work is required to restore balance.
An exchange between a human and an omnipresent coyote, using drawings and photography as the channel of communication. #dearsongdog
Dear Present Human
I don’t know what visit that was through your back yard but I know you have spotted us a number of times when the bright light comes on. My mate and I live not far from your space, for a while we lived under a human home up the road.
We like to eat the small rodents that live in the hillside, which is why you probably see us in the dark months a lot.
We do on occasion find it entertaining to watch humans through windows or out in the world.
Thank you for your message.
An exchange between a human and an omnipresent coyote, using drawings and photography as the channel of communication. #dearsongdog
Dear Song Dog
Do you remember a few years ago when it was dark and I was working in my studio? You probably would have seen me lit up from that hill outside my window. I didn’t know you were there at the time. I was drawing you on a big piece of paper. I had been working on it all day long and as I was nearing completion and it became nighttime I started to wonder if I should create a mate for you in paper form.
I decided to take a break and I walked around my house, it was dark so you probably would have seen me move from room to room.
I went to let my dogs out into the back yard, and when I turned on the bright light I finally spotted you with your mate watching from the hillside. The two of you stood for a moment then departed.
I will always remember that day, because in that moment you answered my question about whether my paper coyote needed a mate.
An exchange between a human and an omnipresent coyote, using drawings and photography as the channel of communication. #dearsongdog
Dear Present Human
Your species is very complicated, afflicted with imbalances between intellect and compassion. It seems from the outside that your species values intellect in certain instances and then values compassion in others. And it seems that this imbalance varies from human to human. I don’t think about your species very much, other than how you impact my daily movements and where I can find the best food sources.
I told my brother to take that orange cat paw away.
I think I’ve seen you moving around inside your home, the hill behind you has a good vantage point and lots of small rodents that make good snacks.
Thank you for your message.
An exchange between a human and an omnipresent coyote, using drawings and photography as the channel of communication. #dearsongdog
Dear Song Dog
I once found a soft little orange paw on my front lawn. I realized that it was my neighbour’s cat and so I quickly picked it up and put it away in a bin. It was so light and it rolled around in the dust pan.
I know you don’t distinguish between all the small animals, but humans with all their thinking capacity have a strange animal hierarchy we follow. Some species get to live with us in our homes while others, like yourself, are disregarded sometimes with deep disdain.
I have always found it so strange how humans can love dogs and cats with deep compassion but when it comes to coyotes (which is what you are called to humans) the compassion turns to fear – like the black hole bardo I mentioned last week.
If dogs and cats were surviving and adapting in nature like you do, without humans to care for them, we would feel proud of them and champion their ingenuity.
Back to the soft orange paw, I never told my neighbour what I found. When my cat went missing I didn’t know what happened and so I prefer to think she is living somewhere with a new human. It’s always a battle between intellect and the heart when you are a human.
I sometimes wonder if you left that soft little paw like Crow leaves pieces of glass in my yard.
Maybe you left it so that I could tell this very story to you.
Dear Present Human
I enjoy singing after the bright beasts, the ones that travel your dark hard trails faster than the rest.
Did you know that my lineage was here before those dark hard paths were made? Did you know that my original den was at the top of that hill where you walk?
I used to sing across the Fraser River and my friends would sing back to me.
Now I sing in the small patch of trees and my song doesn’t travel very far.
Thank you for your message.
An exchange between a human and an omnipresent coyote, using drawings and photography as the channel of communication. #dearsongdog
Dear Song Dog
Humans do a lot of thinking and planning, it’s a significant trait of my species.
For instance, I am a human who creates things. You are receiving this transmission through my art, a medium relevant to humans alone.
I don’t know that creativity belongs to anyone at all. I feel that creativity uses humans to transmit ideas into the world.
Or maybe that’s just a string of human words that mean nothing. But then again, here we are, communicating back and forth.
An exchange between a human and an omnipresent coyote, using drawings and photography as the channel of communication. #dearsongdog
Dear Present Human
We have the abilities that we have for the reasons that we need them.
If you saw the owl, raccoon, or I, you saw what you should have seen.
Thank you for your message.
An exchange between a human and an omnipresent coyote, using drawings and photography as the channel of communication. #dearsongdog
Dear Song Dog
Last night I saw a barred owl flying. I know there are many animals that thrive in the dark.
If my eyesight was like yours I probably would see them more often.
Human visibility is very limited.
Perhaps it’s for the best.
An exchange between a human and an omnipresent coyote, using drawings and photography as the channel of communication. #dearsongdog
Dear Present Human
You simply need to stop all that.
Just be outside. Be in silence. Be out there with your senses. Let the light change and notice it and notice you are part of it.
Let the crickets and the frogs take over again.
Thank you for your message.
An exchange between a human and an omnipresent coyote, using drawings and photography as the channel of communication. #dearsongdog
Dear Song Dog
If my species could let go and become less fearful of the things we cannot control, I believe that we would relax into our natural place. Then we’d feel fully at ease living alongside you, instead of how we live now.
Song Dog, you are here because you are important. Humans are also part of the ecosystem but it seems like we’re fighting the natural way most of the time.
An exchange between a human and an omnipresent coyote, using drawings and photography as the channel of communication. #dearsongdog
Dear Present Human
If you want to live here and now you need to learn to read and respond to the land.
Notice things happening and don’t try to control them, just let them happen and respond out of necessity, or not at all.
Thank you for your message.
An exchange between a human and an omnipresent coyote, using drawings and photography as the channel of communication. #dearsongdog
Dear Song Dog
One thing that I understand is that when we spend too much energy on one identity or ideal, it usually means we need to get more balance. This is a distinctly human problem.
Symbolically, if we only live our lives during the daylight, the nighttime becomes a terrifying black hole.
It seems to me that the things we fear is where we should probably be the most curious.
Being in the symbolic bardo of the night is important for balance.
An exchange between a human and an omnipresent coyote, using drawings and photography as the channel of communication. #dearsongdog
Dear Present Human
I don’t think about the future or the past, I just live here and now.
I remember what I need to survive and to show my pack mates.
We have a life sequence and where you are is where you are and that is all that matters to us.
Thank you for your message.
An exchange between a human and an omnipresent coyote, using drawings and photography as the channel of communication. #dearsongdog
Dear Song Dog
When Jenna and I walk at night we pass under streetlights and through darker areas.
The dark spaces aren’t dark when your eyes adjust to them.
On these walks my thoughts meander from being present to thinking about you, and I think about life and death.
I think about the Buddhist concept of the bardo: another plane or space that one exists after one dies but before being reborn. I don’t know if I believe in reincarnation the way it sometimes gets presented, but from an energy expansion and contraction perspective I suppose there is something to it.
In the bardo one is groundless. The bardo is symbolic of the unknown and also the things we fear the most, but at the same time it is a sense of home beyond humanity.
An exchange between a human and an omnipresent coyote, using drawings and photography as the channel of communication. #dearsongdog
Dear Present Human
I’ve seen you walking in the night, and I thank you for giving me space to move around you when we encounter one another directly.
Most of the time I go unnoticed, my preference.
The frogs and crickets and I are one.
Thank you for your message.
An exchange between a human and an omnipresent coyote, using drawings and photography as the channel of communication. #dearsongdog
Dear Song Dog
I was out walking with my little dog Jenna the other night. We love the cool air and the absence of humans. It’s like walking in a dream or on another plane.
I have always loved being outside at this time, ever since I was a little kid growing up in the Okanagan. I loved laying in rows of apple trees looking up at the stars, or just sitting next to a pond to take in the chorus of frogs and crickets.
I’m starting to understand that it’s a gift to be independent and comfortable in the night, to allow yourself to be fully open to the environment, to be absorbed within it. There is no self or identity in the dark, there is only the space of night and its endless possibilities.
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Artwork: TERRITORY XI , 2019, soft pastel on drafting film, 17x22, sold.