Snips - Thoughts from Jim

Whistle Stop Tiny Locomotive time for telling of stories

If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.
Barry Lopez, in Crow and Weasel

Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, the power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts.
Salman Rushdie

God made man because he loves stories.
Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlev (as quoted by Steve Sanfield)

I was showing a cabin that had a lot of ties to the past recently that involved a road trip. On the way there, coming down into Council Bluffs at 3AM, I hit a brush wolf/coyote. It was dark and it just appeared in front of the bumper in an instant. There was nothing to do, but hear and feel the bumps as it rolled under the truck and hit the cabin. I felt sorry for it and wondered what it would mean metaphysically. And lost track of that thought in the hum of the road until we got to our destination. In backing up the cabin, I saw that there was blood and tissue on the front of the cabin and the right rear wheel hub inside was coated red. No damage to the truck. Interesting and now I was really curious.

That got me to thinking and researching wolf meanings revealed some insights that made sense to me. Wolf comes with a warning that we are stuck in a rut, comfortable and have decided to sit on the sidelines. Wolf also calls us to expand our horizons, seek new adventures, learn a new skill, and put the past behind us.  Wolf is always telling us to seek the teachers and mentors to take our/my life to a new level. Lots of messages there for me!

Another name for a brush wolf is a coyote. And a coyote is a trickster, someone that cannot be trusted. Who will lure you in to spring a trap - to make you a captive. So, hitting the brush wolf/coyote was …well… symbolic of old thoughts and friends that had been part of my life. What this was saying to me was to close the door on the past, and yet be aware that the coyote lives, for it is a trickster and it can do some really comical things. The roadrunner cartoons of the coyote laying traps to catch the roadrunner for dinner to only get himself caught in them is running through my mind as I type this. There are 2 meanings to a coyote; from the front is one coyote meanings and when they approach you from the side, it is a contrary coyote. The one that I hit came from the left side.

This is what the book, “Medicine Cards” says about a contrary coyote.

“IF coyote appears in the reversed position, you can be assured that he is going to be contrary and a pain in your side. If coyote approaches you from the outside, beware of this master of illusion. Coyote may put you under his spell and take you to the brier patch to pick berries. It will be a painful lesson for you if you follow him. Coyote reversed can appear in your life as a supposed all-knowing teacher, a scam artist, a get rick quick business partner/planner, a rare coin door to door salesperson, a femme fatale, a movie producer, a television evangelist, a swamp land dealer, a politician, or anybody who wants you to follow their lead. Coyote is not a recommended business partner or lover.”

The coyote also shows us some of our comic foolishness; Coyote is you, me, booby traps, jet airplanes with toilets that don’t work, blind dates, and all the humorous and whimsical things we encounter along life’s way.

Snooze time is over if you have pulled a coyote medicine card or have a coyote dogging you. Be wary of the coyote and brush wolf, for they are cunning, devious and full of tricks. It pays to keep a fire lit and spirits love in your heart, for once encountered, they are always out there beyond the fire lights, lurking in the darkness thinking no one sees them, while we know their games of cunning. They seek out prey that is weak, and by surviving our encounters with them we become stronger.

A writer’s brain is like a magician’s hat. If you’re going to get anything out of it, you have to put something in it first.
Louis L’Amour

All human beings have an innate need to hear and tell stories and to have a story to live by … religion, whatever else it has done, has provided one of the main ways of meeting this abiding need.
Harvey Cox, The Seduction of the Spirit

Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.
Robert McKee

The universe is made of stories, not atoms.
Muriel Rukeyser

The picture is from an Alaskan Cruise when we stopped in Sitka for shore leave and tours. I went on a kayaking excursion to a remote bay and found tiny floating houses and this tiny outpost to start our kayaking from. After going through a “training” program, we got the opportunity to paddle around the bay which had 3 floating tiny homes. - Jim

Losing touch with spirit does nothing to the field of creativity, which is beyond harm; but it can do much to damage a person’s chance in life.
Deepak Chopra

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill

Great opportunity is usually disguised as unsolvable problems.
Gretchen G. Clement

An empowered organization is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organizational success.
Stephen R. Covey

To awaken each morning with a smile brightening my face; to greet the day with reverence for the opportunities it contains; to approach my work with a clean mind; to hold ever before me, even in the doing of little things, the ultimate purpose toward which I am working; to meet men and women with laughter on my lips and love in my heart; to be gentle, kind, and courteous through all the hours; to approach the night with weariness that ever woos sleep and the joy that comes from work well done - this is how I desire to waste wisely my days.
Thomas Dekker

When nothing is sure, everything is possible.
Margaret Drabble

How could any entrepreneur, confronted by such amazing opportunities to help transform the world and to do so with such extraordinary colleagues, be tempted to lose focus? Especially since the work involves such breadth that the boredom of routine or specialization does not exist.
Bill Drayton

Friends…they cherish one another’s hopes. They are kind to one another’s dreams.
Henry David Thoreau

The essence of love is kindness.
Robert Louis Stevenson

Kindness is more than deeds. It is an attitude, an expression, a look, a touch. It is anything that lifts another person.
C. Neil Strait

The reasons for being kind are innumerable.

Here are just a few:

1. Being kind feels good.
2. God smiles on kindness.
3. Kindness broadens our perspective
4. Kindness softens our heart.
5. Kindness brightens our world.
6. Kindness helps people feel respected and less alone.
7. Kindness makes people want to be around us.
8. Kindness bears wonderful fruit.
9. Kindness begets kindness.
10. Your kids will learn from your example.

“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.”
Kahlil Gibran

“Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars.”
Henry Van Dyke

“If you aren’t playing well, the game isn’t as much fun. When that happens I tell myself just to go out and play as I did when I was a kid.”
Thomas J. Watson

Fall Colors

Change only favours minds that are diligently looking and preparing for discovery.
Louis Pasteur

It is by logic we prove. It is by intuition we discover.
Henri Poincare

Every door is another passage, another boundary we have to go beyond.
Rumi

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
Carl Sagan

A view of the Oregon Coast

“Do more than exist, live. Do more than touch, feel. Do more than look, observe.
Do more than read, absorb. Do more than hear, listen. Do more than think, ponder.
Do more than talk, say something.”
John H. Rhoades

“May you live all the days of your life.”
Jonathan Swift

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.”
Robert Frost

Grand Canyon Trail

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.

Henry David Thoreau

Tiny Houses on the Move

The future belongs to people who see possibilities before they become obvious.
- Ted Levitt

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.
- Henry David Thoreau

The very essence of leadership is [that] you have a vision. It’s got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.
- Theodore Hesburg