Songs of the Wild

Wild yips and howls of coyotes wake me from under my down comforter in the early hours of a summer morning in the mountains.  Their song is a secret opera not meant for my ears.  I feel lucky to hear the strange tones and rhythms of the night.   I am like the child who has slipped behind a curtain at a party, unnoticed.  The eerie aria of the song dogs  remind me of  Ophelia just as she is finally breaking.  I want to surrender my own voice to this song that crosses an unseen line between madness and truth.  I imagine what it would feel like to unleash such a howl.  Would it be a relief to surrender those secret notes into the night sky or would it topple me over toward a wild madness?  As I slip back into sleep,  I dream of reconnecting to my primal self.  Mary Oliver’s words echo in my subconscious, “Tell me, what is it you plan to  do with your one wild and precious life?”  

I know the singers of this late night choir.  They are the shadows that move in and out of my line of vision while walking in the woods.   I see their tails bouncing away before I get full sight of them.  I worry, as their silver bodies sluice through the trees, that they will entice my dog Stella to a wild and potentially fateful game of chase.  When Stella gives in to her primal urge to run with the pack, she is gone and I am left screaming her name.  She comes back out of breath with a feral look in her eye, like she was just dancing with danger.    I wonder what Stella understands about the coyotes that I am unable to comprehend.  Does she know what each distinct phrase of rhythmic notes means?  Some are sharp, shrill and quick, others are elongated notes left reverberating through the meadow.  In the dark hours of the night, does she long to sing with them?   Or does she want to protect her family with her own unique howl, yip and growl.  

I am not alone in wondering what the coyotes are singing about.  According to Gary San Julian, a professor of wildlife resources at Penn State, "Howling is a basic communication behavior in coyotes.  It has several functions. One is to call the pack—really a family group—back together again after a period of individual hunting. A second reason that coyotes howl is to advertise their presence to other packs, essentially warning those other family groups against trespassing across territorial boundaries."  The coyotes are like the families that live in this mountain town. They are calling their loved ones back together after the day’s adventures and tasks are done.  They are keeping each other safe from harm.    The coyotes’ voices and songs have to be distinct from one another to identify the unseen boundaries between home and beyond.  These variations fascinate me.  What are the artistic choices the coyotes make in each song?  In the future, I will listen more deeply, appreciating the distinct night time howls as those of individual families practicing the rituals that keep them safe and thriving.  

Since I left my hometown on the coast of Maine to live in the mountainous deserts of the west, I have had a few memorable interactions with coyotes.   They have always captured my attention and imagination as they are so close to the domestic dogs that I love like family while simultaneously being so very wild.  

I went on a NOLS trip to Baja California, Mexico when I was in college.  While doing a three day solo on an island that was overpopulated with coyotes, I found myself lying in my sleeping bag under the stars, without a tent.  The stars were incredible with no lights for miles and miles.  I dreamed that night that a pack of coyotes surrounded me as though they were standing guard like sentries in a perfect circle around my body.  They were protecting me, guiding my spirit through the dream world.  I felt safe with them there.  When I woke, I sat up, looking out to the sea and remembered the coyotes of my dream.  Soon I noticed that there were coyotes footprints in the sand in a perfect circle around my sleeping bag.  I hadn’t just dreamed their presence, they had really been there around my sleeping body.  I was so grateful I didn’t wake up, as I would have been so scared.  I was also so grateful they didn’t attack me.  I had never felt more alert of the natural wild world.  It was near impossible to sleep the next night.  I didn’t see another sign of them once I was so keenly looking for them.  

When my son was an infant, I walked with him every day in the woods.  We often walked a five mile loop through the meadow and forest at the base of a local ski resort.   In those days, I walked slowly, not wanting to tax my body with the extra weight.  I enjoyed being in the woods and out of the house. It allowed my brain to unfurl into a wider space beyond the four walls of our home that sometimes felt like a cage.  To step into the wild made me feel more human, more myself.  Samuel was a calm baby.  His hearty 3 month old body was like a warm water bottle tightly secured to my body by a long stretchy wrap.  His eyes peeked out as he quietly took in the tips of the mountains that surrounded us, making delightful cooing sounds as we walked.  During one of our sauntering strolls, I stopped, suddenly feeling the presence of another being.  I knew instantly that I was not alone.  There was a coyote sitting just 20 feet from me.  She looked so regal, as though sitting upon a throne, not at all as scared of me as I was of her.  We locked eyes, neither of us moving.  I wondered if she could see or sense my baby.  I slowly crouched down not taking my eyes off of the wild dog and grabbed a rock.  I wanted to trust that the coyote and I could calmly coexist.  But I was also ready to defend my baby at any cost.  I slowly backed away from the stand off, not taking my eyes off of her.  The coyote never moved or made a sound.   She clearly won that stalemate. 

Another coyote encounter occurred while on a camping trip with my daughter and her girl scout troop.  I was woken by the loud screams of a pack of coyotes.  It seemed like they were right outside our tent, the noise was so loud.  They yipped with what sounded like pure glee and excitement, like they had just won a football game against a rival team.  Soon all the girls were awake.  I abandoned hope for any sleep and chatted with the 8 year olds about what the coyotes were so excited about.  “Maybe they are having a party?”, one girl said.  “Maybe they are telling a story,” said another.  “It sounds so scary,” said a third.   The next morning we climbed out of the tent, forgetting about night time noises that were to blame for our grogginess.  We walked down to the lake with our warm drinks to find a deer carcass, freshly killed.  The blood and gore made the girls scream and suddenly the howls and yips of the coyotes came back to me.  It was a victory song that woke us.  A party we all attended from afar.  

Now that my kids are older, I walk quickly through the woods with my dog Stella.  I have an eye peeled for any silvery movements but all is still.  The trails in the open space near my house meander through meadows and dense forested hills.  The network is like a choose your own adventure book I used to love as a kid.  Each trail has numerous break- off paths along the way.  The dirt routes are unmarked, having been created by locals who run, walk and bike through the woods.  I set out for a high point with a patch of rocks jutting up toward the sky.  This rocky outcrop seems like it was the grounds for ceremonial gatherings from ancient times.  I find a smooth flat slab of slaty andesite as Stella stands at a higher point scanning the woods.  Together we are quiet and still, listening.  Will we hear a coyote?  Eventually I hear the high chirps of a squirrel or chipmunk hidden in the trees and nooks and crannies around me.   Soon I hear the call of the chickadee.  This spunky little bird’s bright, happy chirp, is locally known as the cheeseburger call.  The chickadee reverberates a contented chant again and again and again, proclaiming that although much smaller than the coyote, she is a powerful force of life too.  For a moment,  all is silent again.  Then the leaves flutter in the breeze like jazz brushes on a drum.   Being quiet allows the variety of melodies, pitches and rhythms to morph into a forest symphony.   But the illusive coyote remains silent in this sweet song.  

There is music in the wild beyond our doors.  The more still I become, the richer the sounds appear before me, like aberrations.  These ballads in the night and sonnets in the day connect me to a part of myself that is my most primal being.  It is a part of me that has always been there but never quite fully realized.  In the bright warmth of the day, I long to sing simply because I am alive, like the chickadees.  While under the wild and silvery moon,  I dream of releasing my feral voice to join the howls of a coyote.