Dr. Catherine Svehla: Mythic Coyote and his Dance with Synchronicity

“Chance and chance alone has a message for us. Everything that occurs out of necessity, everything expected, repeated day in and day out, is mute. Only chance can speak to us. We read its messages much as gypsies read the images made by coffee grounds at the bottom of a cup.” Milan KunderaThe weekend of Sept 12-14th was the first annual Synchronicity: Matter and Psyche Symposium. It was a very rich event, combining perspectives from science, psychology, the arts, and archaeology. I brought Mythic Coyote to the event to help us answer the question: how can we consciously engage with the phenomenon called synchronicity?Our experience of synchronicity belongs to the mythic dimension of our lives. The mythic dimension is where matter and psyche, visible and invisible, what we typically call inner, and outer- meet, reflect, shape, create, converse. What we call “mythology” is the narrative and artistic form that we have given to our experience of this exchange.In mythic dimension we might call synchronicity “opportunity,” and we might say that someone who notices, uses, harmonizes with the power of synchronicity has “smart luck.” This leads us to a character  called the Trickster, and here in the Mojave, trickster is Coyote… who the Chemeheuvi’s call “Mythic Coyote.”In this program I talk about Mythic Coyote and tell the story of Coyote and Buffalo Bull. Support the show