Supernatural Aid is a necessity when answering the Call to Adventure. Let’s resume our story with Brother Coyote and his Call to Adventure…

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As he arrived at his den, Brother Coyote thought about what Brother Eagle and Sister Cougar had said. He thought about how it had been getting colder with each passing day. He remembered their words that the People and Chief Buffalo did not know if the Sun would ever come back. He thought about how disappointed Chief Buffalo had been with him. The more he thought about it, the angrier he became.

“Why should this be my responsibility?” he cried, “I didn’t ask for this burden! I just want to play in the forest! I don’t want to go on any journey!”

As he thought about it, he grew angrier and angrier. He became so mad that he began to chase his tail. He ran around and around in circles on the ground. The faster he chased his tail, the faster it ran away from him, and the more frustrated he became.

Thus preoccupied, he didn’t notice at first that a mysterious white substance had begun falling from the sky. It fell thicker and thicker around him until finally he could not help but notice. Puzzled, he caught a flake of this stuff on his tongue and found that it was cold and tasteless. As he watched, the snow covered the ground, obliterating the dying plants as it fell. The air around him grew colder and colder.

Shivering, Coyote curled himself up into a ball to stay warm as the snow continued to fall.

As lay there on the ground tucked into a ball, watching the snow, Coyote began to think that it would never stop.
“Truly this is the end of all things!” he thought to himself, “I might as well just lie here and freeze to death!”

Soon the strange white stuff completely covered Coyote. Lying there buried in the snow, he had begun to compose his Death Song when he saw a faint light shining in the distance. As he watched, it grew closer and closer. He eventually saw that the light shone from atop a stick being held by a woman dressed in the color of the snow that surrounded her. The light on her stick looked like a miniature sun, and she was bringing it towards him. He was frightened but also cold. If that miniature sun gave off heat as well as light, how he wanted to be near it! So he did not run away but waited patiently as the woman dressed in white approached and sat next to him.

“Greetings, Brother Coyote,” she said, “I am White Buffalo Woman.”

Coyote was usually wary of strangers, but something about White Buffalo Woman put him at ease. She seemed wise and kind, so he greeted her and began to tell her his story. He told her that the People were frightened because of the cold and that they were worried that it might never be warm again. He told her that the People wanted him to go on a quest to find a new place for the Tribe to live, but that he was afraid to go.

“It is wise that you are afraid,” she told him, “Only fools are fearless in the face of the unknown. But that does not mean you shouldn’t go.”

As they talked, White Buffalo Woman gathered sticks and twigs and began arranging them in a pile in front of Coyote. When the pile was big enough, she touched her glowing stick to the pile, and it blossomed into heat and light. Almost instantly, Brother Coyote felt himself begin to thaw. The heat spreading across his body was almost magical.
“What is this strange thing?” he asked.

“It is called ‘fire,’” said White Buffalo Woman, “If you have its secret, your People will not have to move away to a new place. With fire, you may stay warm through the winter until the spring comes again.”

“What is ‘winter’?” asked Coyote, “and ‘spring?’”

“Winter is the reason it is cold now. It is a time known as a ‘season.’ Spring is also a season. Winter is a time of cold, decay, and death, and spring is a time of warmth and rebirth. Seasons come and seasons go, but when the time of winter has passed, the spring will return again. Fire will help you make it through the cold and dark of winter. Until then, you must be vigilant and wait for spring’s return.”

Coyote was amazed at the magical power of the fire. He was also glad to know that spring would come again, but if the People did not have this magical thing to help them through the winter, they may not live to see it.

Coyote and White Buffalo Woman sat warming themselves by the fire and talking. White Buffalo Woman told Coyote that the fire had come from a sacred village in the mountains to the North, where it was guarded by a greedy witch who wanted to keep it for herself. She told Coyote that if he followed the North Star he could find this village, and claim some of the fire to call his own.

“But why can’t I just have some of your fire?” Brother Coyote asked.

“Because each person must find his own fire, and this fire is mine,” replied White Buffalo Woman, smiling enigmatically. “It would not work for you because it is my fire. You could not make it burn.”

They talked for half of the night until White Buffalo Woman lay down in front of the fire to sleep. Coyote tried to sleep himself, but after hearing of the village of the Fire Tribe, the fire, and the witch who guarded it, he was more frightened than ever. Yet he knew that he was the only one who could make this journey. When he had resolved for himself that he must be the one to go, he finally fell asleep just before dawn. When he awoke the next morning, White Buffalo Woman was gone, and the fire had gone out.

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Just as Coyote began to grow cold and numb in the snow, when we deny our emotions we open ourselves up to the process of emotional numbing. We kid ourselves into believing that certain emotions are “wrong” or “bad,” and we hide them away. We don’t want to own these parts of ourselves. Sometimes emotional injuries can lead to this state of numbing as well. The feelings are so powerful that they become overwhelming, so we learn to stuff them down and pretend they don’t exist so we don’t have to go through the pain of feeling them. Over time this denial of what we feel can make it difficult, if not impossible, to acknowledge our feelings at all. When this emotional numbing occurs, we have to actively work to “thaw out” our feelings. Sometimes we may do this by relying on our own Supernatural Aid.
To find your own Supernatural Aid, first ask yourself if there are there any fears that might have led to your own emotional numbing in life. Like Coyote, do you need to “thaw out” those feelings? How might the characteristics of a shaman help you to do so?

It can be difficult to answer the Call to Adventure. When our emotions freeze us into inaction out of habit, it sometimes becomes hard to choose a different path. When faced with the opportunity (or challenge) to discover new ways of being, our fight or flight response often takes over, and we remain stuck in the familiar. It can be scary to journey off into unknown territory, simply because it is unknown. But using mindful awareness in the present moment we can become aware that the unknown is just that…unknown. Dangers may lie ahead, but great rewards may lie ahead as well.

We only change when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. Every action has a consequence, and answering the Call to Adventure is an action with unknown consequences. Answering the call means facing our fears. It means facing our pain. It is an acknowledgment that with great risk comes great reward. It is a willingness to risk it all in order to gain ourselves.

Ultimately, the Call to Adventure is about inspiration. Ecospirituality is all about finding that which is awe-inspiring in our own lives. When we find that source of inspiration, then the “fire” of our own Supernatural Aid comes to warm us. Your own Supernatural Aid will come to assist you when you realize that there are no other options but the path you’re on. All other doors have been closed to you, and from that point on the only choice is to heed the call.

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