Tree of Life by Coyote (as told to Patricia K.)

This segment is from a longer piece, Plato’s Alcove, which won an honorable mention in Torrey House Press’s 2011 Creative Non-Fiction Contest.   You can read the entire entry here. Plato’s Alcove is about my first trip to the desert back in 1982.

In the desert one day I met Coyote, the Trickster-God.   We greeted each other and sat in the shade.   I opened my canteen and drank then offered Coyote a drink.   When he thought I wasn’t looking he wiped the canteen’s mouth.   Then he drank.

€œThank you, € he said, handing it back.

I asked Coyote, €œWhy is this place so beautiful? €

He laughed and said, €œI’ll tell you a story that explains everything. €

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Cosmic Turtles, Part Two

Beside serving as the foundation of the world, Turtle surfaces in folk literature as the trickster’s trickster. It may surprise some to learn that Turtle has the smarts necessary to get the best of flimflammers like Jackal and even Anansi, the trickster spider, but then surprise is part of the strategy.