Old Man Coyote - Trickster Or Creator?

When I hear the coyotes yipping, I often think back to when Gordon and I first decided to move back to the mountains.

Gordon, my husband, and I "re-met" in 1996 and we were married in 1998. He came to me because I drew him to me (and he me) using the law of attraction. I created a list (he just asked out loud) of the attributes that I wanted in my ideal "soul-mate" and I got them. Of the list I created he matched the list with a 93% rating (if you can’t tell, I'm an accountant in my day job).

Just prior to our marriage we talked about where we wanted to live or what we wanted to do - I knew one thing - I had to get out of suburbia. We talked about buying a larger sailboat and sailing abroad (and we would have been in New Zealand participating somehow in the making of the Lord of the Rings we tell ourselves); we talked about maybe instead buying a houseboat, but in reality neither one of us really wanted to do these things. I heard the call of the Sierra and the red-tail hawk. So I suggested to Gordon that maybe we should move there. We agreed to look for property.

I used to live in the Sierra Nevada just outside of Yosemite and I loved it. The Sierra Nevada is a mountain range that runs three-quarters the length of the state of California - north to south - and stops outside of Bakersfield. That’s Spanish for Snowy Mountain Range - which is the case during winter.

Running between the toes and into the feet of these mountains is a road called the Golden Chain Highway - Highway 49. It marks the same trail the 1849er's used to traverse in search of gold. I knew I wanted to be above Highway 49 but what county? There are nine "Golden Chain" counties in the Sierra Nevada and these counties are all considered "Gold Country."

Having traversed them myself in earlier years – online I looked at all the counties but selected El Dorado - which is Spanish for "The Golden." I picked El Dorado, because it had a good highway to it that would allow me to retain work in the valley near Sacramento - without too long of a commute. Of the nine Mother Lode Counties it seemed the most progressive county touting a heavy web presence.

It basically sits in the center of Gold Country and has its place in history as the location gold was first discovered in a Coloma saw mill on January 24, 1848. This sparked the famous gold rush to California.

I went online - we decided a price we were willing to pay for land - I wanted trees and Gordon wanted meadows and I found MLS listings. The MLS provides prices, locations and descriptions of homes and land. I chose several within a specific price range (picking some higher because I liked the descriptions – they felt right to me – specifically this one piece that listed much higher).

We began our weekend sojourns into El Dorado County in search of our corner of heaven. I told Gordon that we should not worry - there was a perfect piece of land waiting for us and it was ours - we just had to find it - using the law of attraction principles. During this process we made it fun.

On Friday, July 16th, 1999 after nearly ten months of searching we checked into the Cary Hotel in Placerville, California, a hotel known for its ghostly visits. That weekend the news was awash with the disappearance of John F. Kennedy, his wife, and her sister.

With those twenty MLS printouts, we traveled the county from one end to another that Saturday. El Dorado County has many mountain tree-lined ridges, open meadows, deep etched river canyons, and small mining towns with National Forest lands snaking its way inside its borders.

By Saturday's end we were beat. There were several pieces of land we couldn't find because they had no address and therefore they didn't show on a map but we had looked at almost all the twenty.

Sunday we ended up going to a real estate broker in town and we looked at their listings. There was this one piece of land that I had the listing for but we couldn't find as the address was listed as zero road. It was also above our price range by quite a bit but I had printed it out anyway because something “told me” to.

The funny thing of it is - my husband didn't know that I had this listing printed out already and he asked for land up to the price this particular piece of land listed for (something told him to) - so out popped this piece of land from the broker's computer. I told them that I had this listing but didn't know how to get to it as the address was zero and the MLS map didn't show directions to a zero address.

The broker gave me his Thomas Brothers map book which lists every street. Using the map book we drove right to it like our car had a homing beacon of its own. When we pulled off the main road onto a dirt and gravel road that would eventually lead us to this listed land I felt strange because this road seemed similar to the road I used to live on in Mariposa, California, just outside Yosemite’s south gate. It felt as if I'd driven it before. Maybe I was remembering the future.

We pulled out of the trees into an open valley ringed by a mountain ridge dotted with pines like candles on an aged person’s birthday cake. This mountain ridge ran east to west and lay on the south side of this private valley with a river at its base. I cannot tell you the emotion that welled up inside me when I first came into this valley - but it felt a little like discovering gold. I knew we were home. I said so to Gordon, who, after ten months of searching wasn't that inclined to believe me.

We wound through this little valley and found our road - which turned out to be a cul-de-sac with only one other resident on it. As we approached its end we discovered a piece of fence with a realtor sign. From this piece of fence at the butt end of the road, the land didn't look like much - but I could see inside this fence line and saw that it appeared bigger on the inside than it did on the outside. The MLS listing said ten acres.

Gordon parked the car and I said “this is it – we’ve found it!” Gordon grumbled that he didn't want to get out because the land lay covered in tall grass.

"I don't want to get stickers in my socks," he said to me as I was halfway up to where our house now sits.

As I reached this place I turned and looked. I knew I was home. A soft summer breeze gently kissed my face as I sat on this hill and looked east toward a million dollar view. The land welcomed me home.

My husband grumbled all the way up the hill until he reached me and turned and looked. He could not speak. Where I wanted trees and he wanted meadows - pines, oaks and cedar lined the east and west ridges, in the middle lay golden meadows, with a stream etched through it that fed a seasonal pond at its southern end.

Here before us lay the perfect piece of land. On that hot summer day in July of 1999 all I could think about was getting back to that realtor's office and placing a good faith hold on it.

Ever pragmatic Gordon insisted we look at two more pieces of land to be sure this was the one. He didn't understand that I knew it was our land. It turned out we couldn't even find the other two plots so we went back to the broker and wrote a check for a thousand dollars to hold the land (which we didn't have in our checking account at that time).

We did some bargaining with the owner, and we negotiated down and they up until we agreed. Then we had to come up with the money. We didn't have it. So we reappraised Gordon's house and came up with exactly the money needed to pull a second to buy the land. The exact amount plus one thousand dollars.

When we started looking for land, we didn't think of money at all, just a price range. And when we found the land, we went oh yeah - the money! That’s why I know to dream big, worry about the money later. It flowed so smoothly I thought we were floating.

In June of 2000 we moved onto the land after arranging for an early retirement for Gordon. In his retirement, he began working immediately. Within two months we had the trailer we would live in for the next few years parked in the shade of hundred-year old oaks. Our well house was up and running and we had electricity to the trailer.

Gordon had started building our foot bridge across the creek while we awaited the arrival of the graders.

One night as Gordon slept I was awakened by the sound of a lone coyote. In Native American traditions the coyote can be known as the Trickster or the Creator and oftentimes his coming tells of great creative deeds or tricks that may be played upon one.

When I opened the trailer door and shone my flashlight down toward the pond I found him there. He sat and looked at me with the ghostly glow of the flashlight in his eyes reflecting back to me.

Whom did I see the Trickster or the Creator?

To this day I know it was a little bit of both: the Creator in honoring our deeds and commitment to the land and the Trickster because we got tricked.

We never imagined finding land that would increase in value - we only wanted something we wanted because we wanted it - period. The Trick that was played is this: our land has increased in value by over 800% in nine years - and that doesn't include what we've added in the way of our home. That is just the raw increase in the value of the land. And in this market it still holds.

So what is this lesson? Learn to know what you truly want. This is paramount. Then make a list and ask for what you want and then give that list back to the Universe.

Dream big; be open and ready to receive. And oh yeah, follow your inspired action and listen for the coyote's yip.