Or Why It All Depends on How You Look at Things
Last week, I was going to pursue that Flat Earth theme, but got distracted (again). I had a visit from a friend. My high-school buddy Harold stopped over on a trek through Europe, hot on the trail of Goethe. He told me a story from back west. Here it is.
In the Beginning, Coyote was swimming. He wasn’t swimming for fun, he was dog-paddling energetically but very unhappily because the world was water. (Coyote is the Trickster, he is Loki and Reynard, Seth, Maui, Brer Rabbit and Saruman – the one who is always up to some mischief, the discordant note in the universe, the one who insists on playing his own tune. He is the transformer; when he dies, he always comes back to life. He is beyond good and evil.)
Coyote called out to the ducks, who were paddling about nearby. “Ducks, he said, I’m sick of swimming, dive down and bring me up some mud in your beaks.” The first duck dived. It was gone an hour. It couldn’t find the bottom. A second duck dived – it was gone half a day before it finally came back up. Still no bottom.
Coyote heard Loon laughing in the fog. Loon looked pretty scary, with his mad bright red eye shining in the mist, but Coyote called out anyway. “Loon, he said, I’m surely drowning, dive down and find bottom and bring me some mud.” Read More Here
