— by Bez Anyone who’s ever done a Zen ‘practice period’, an occasion to intensify engagement with Buddhist principles, knows how tumultuously transformative one can be.  At some point during a relatively warm, extremely dry 2015 Northern California winter practice period I awakened from a rare respite of dreaming sleep to a chorus of howling coyotes.   As heartening as nature’s calls tend to be for me these days there was something eerie, something urgent in this refrain.  Either as their conscious intention or projection of my own internal reality, their high-pitched yelps resonated the morning air WAKE UP, HUMANS WAKE UP!!! A few hours later, shortly after the wake-up bell while I was walking to the dining room for coffee, they started in again, this time much closer.  Half desiring, half fearing a face-to-face engagement with them I stopped, bowed solemnly in their direction and uttered: I hear you.  I thank you.  I’m awake.   The valley’s splendor makes it easy to tune-out events taking place “over the hill”, opting instead to float around in …