“Our task must be to free ourselves … by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.”  —Albert Einstein

On an early morning ramble in the crisp, cool air, I turn a corner in the trail to find a coyote standing at the head of a pool of water. His yellow eyes sparkle with intelligence and wariness. Alone on a deserted trail, I don’t dare move, but stand for some time looking at him. He merely looks back at me.

The wild defiant coyote howling that I hear at night sends chills through me, but this creature seems only to want peace between us, though coyotes live constantly at war with humans. Because coyotes breed rapidly, eat a wide variety of plants and animals, and hunt skillfully, they are hated by farmers and ranchers. Throughout their range, coyotes are hunted, legally and illegally. They are tracked by helicopter, trapped, shot, and poisoned. Surely by now the intelligent coyote brain is imprinted with the fact that human beings are their enemy. Yet this once seems neither to fear me nor show any impulse to attack.

He seems to want to convey to me some hidden meaning, a secret known to wild animals and wild places but seldom perceived by people. The coyote presents me with a mystery, then slips back into the woods. I turn the puzzle over in my mind, unable to grasp his meaning. Perhaps it was just to say that we are together here. Today it is enough.

I know that all is my own mind and my own mind is all. As I create and keep mental peace, I create and keep peace in the world.