More Than Meets The I

The following piece is excerpted from my collection of teaching stories, Coyote and Friends. Snake Struggles to Shed His Skin There was once a young rattlesnake who lived where the 5,000 foot peaks angle on down to meet the desert. During the winter rains, waterfalls plunge off cliffs and streams race into the canyon. Summer has its own flow. Mountaintop air cools in evening and descends to greet the canyon opening. Young Snake was so anxious to grow long and strong. He saw older, larger snakes going out to hunt. They returned with prey vital for the needs of the …

I have been seeking and gaining greater awareness of the Self, my self, my selves, through my entire adult life. I don’t consider this remarkable—no, it’s just natural. I rarely think of the Self as a thing. Sometimes it seems like a story. Sometimes like a movie, or a song on the radio. It could be like the sound of a babbling brook, or the steam rising from a cup of tea. Sometimes it is like an inner argument, a struggle. Sometimes it seems like an intimate conversation. What an interesting study! What is the Self and how do we …