Green Coyote - Art In The Park

Green Coyote by artist Don Kennell, the newest work of public art on display at Santa Fe's Railyard park.

Approaching this strange, gigantic creatures, my pups were about to launch in to a serious bark attack.

This has got to be the cutest, most adorable gigantic coyote there is!

Not sure my pups, Isabella and Sumo would agree.

Yep, Don's work of art creates quiet a stir and grabs the attention of most anyone passing by, here two guys with one 33 year old parrot. 

Next, coyote with passing Rail Runner train, yeah!

This coyote has different colored, green and blue, brilliant, bright eyes created by the amazing artist Mitchell Berg.

Art in public spaces can really affect the community positively I was able to observed this myself. 

Don Kennell's Yard Dog staring from the park across one of our busiest streets over toward Whole Foods, really attracted people to it and the area. Kids would sway on the swing, families would have their picnics nearby, tourists would take each other's pictures with the sculpture, occasionally I would lend a helping hand. I felt a real loss when that work of art was taken down November 2012. Folks no longer gravitated to that area in the park. So, my surprise and joy was all the greater when I discovered this Green Coyote. I might add that real live coyotes have been sighted right near this spot as they like to travel along water ways such as the nearby Acequia Madre (Mother Ditch.) During Occupy, the longest occupation by a camp of a public space that started in fall of 2011, protesters made it a point to feed those real coyotes! At my first spotting of the Green Coyote a sweet young couple had taken refuge underneath it. This capture will linger in my mind only as I had ventured out  without camera, fearing, no expecting, and here in the high desert southwest truly welcoming more rain. I sure look forward to more photo ops with this most delightful, gigantic creature.

Well done, Don Kennell, thank you!

Synchronicity

Synchronicity
The simultaneous occurrence of events that appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection
ORIGIN 1950s: coined by C. G. Jung, Zurich, Switzerland.

Wow, wow, wow!

On my way home from the plaza late last night in a deserted parking lot downtown, I happened to come upon one magnificent looking, tan, apparently young and healthy looking coyote the height of about my Isabella-girl, but a lot slimmer. Unhurried and unafraid the coyote kept on sniffing the ground after a quick check on me as I was about to peddle by real close. Thinking of my Pretty Kitty, most likely near by, still out and about during these mild summer nights, I circled back again and again around  the coyote. Trying to scare the beast away, I rung my bell wildly. Nope, this creature of god-dess showed no fear, but languidly retreated only a few steps to continue on while it held only a minimal proper cautionary distance. This coyote almost looked and acted more like a dog familiar in human habitats and utterly unconcerned.

Oddly this magical encounter happened after an odd chance meeting with a stranger where a conversation that started due to the appearance of roaches at the center of our plaza. Soon the conversation shifted to coyotes and this man's account of his personal experiences and his appreciation of their intelligence. He claimed to have seen coyotes climb trees (small Pinions) in pursuit of prey and said that the coyotes always outwitted the wolfs, acting in tandem, one as a decoy the other fetching the goodies. Feeling at first sorry for the cute bunnies demise, he eventually came to appreciate the natural order of things and learned to desist his desires to interfere.

From there the conversation moved on to more personal matters and we recognized a similarity in our experiences and learned that we were born less then a month apart, although on different continents and in different genders. We, and maybe a large section of our generation considering our friend's accounts, seem to share experiences of vacillating between despair one moment and elation the other. In our fifties we had suffered devastating loss of lovers, friends, family and - beliefs not to speak of financial security.

It was powerful to realize our commonality, to be reminded that we are not alone, but part of a collective conscience and a generation, maybe at a loss, but still able to laugh with and hug a stranger.

My mythic encounter with a gorgeous coyote, so close to home,  only stressed the importance of what had transpired that evening. 

1 Year Anniversary!

Pancho and Lizzie

 Today, September 7th, the Schnauzer pups are 1 year old.

Yesterday, up on the mountain, a coyote was in hot pursuit

probably of Lizzie, the smallest and slowest of the pack.

Eric managed to return his Schnauzers safe inside his car.

The coyote had followed them,

while the Schnauzers stayed blissfully unaware 

of the danger they had just survived.

Pancho and Lizzie