The Totem Canvas
Written Realms: Short stories and poetry exploring animal totems, archetypes, and nature to help us see life’s hidden patterns together.
Step past the surface of the everyday. Here, various animals such as the crab, the goat, the elephant, and the bull are not decoration but messengers — and each story becomes a mirror in which the reader meets some quieter, older part of themselves.
Featured Writing
Stories and poems that read the language of symbols
Short Story
The crab & the bucket
In a small town close to the sea there were crabs near and far as the eyes could see. There were crabs of all flavors, moving about doing what crabs do, they were busy working, relaxing, going to school. They were busy kicking back and stirring up. They were busy doing little and doing much. There was the Sun, there was the Moon, the light shined and glistened on all things except for those things collecting dust. In those places and spaces there was lack and limitation. In those places enough escaped quickly and came around slowly. In the marketplace the crabs gathered, there was laughter, fun, and fighting.
Poem
The goat
They scale the edge,
from the bottom it all looks formidable,
their hooves are built for the journey, upward and onward,
down,
around and sideways – they tread, over rocky roads and mountains, locked into nature,
pure instinct
surmounting obstacles.
Short Story
The crab & the bucket
In a small town close to the sea there were crabs near and far as the eyes could see. There were crabs of all flavors, moving about doing what crabs do, they were busy working, relaxing, going to school. They were busy kicking back and stirring up. They were busy doing little, and doing much. There was the Sun, there was the Moon, the light shined and glistened on all things except for those things collecting dust. In those places and spaces there was lack and limitation. In those places enough escaped quickly and came around slowly. In the marketplace the crabs gathered, there was laughter, fun, and fighting.
There was joy, pain, and there was crying. There was searching, hoping, forgetting, there was striving, and there was quitting. The crabs were takers, and the crabs were givers. The crabs were crabby; the crabs were willing and unwilling to exercise their crabby ways. There were crabs who held onto someday, and there were crabs who held onto today. There were crabs who were clever, and there were crabs who said, and lived, and gave never.
In that small town close to the sea there were buckets as far as the eyes could see. As a matter of fact, the town was a huge bucket. That bucket held all the other buckets that town, everybody, every crab used daily. It was their way of life; it was their world. Everything happened in and around the bucket until one day one young crab stayed behind with an elder crab and inquired about the nature of buckets. The elder crab grabbed the young one by the claw and told him to be on his way. The young crab was confused and refused to ignore his curiosity. He turned back to the elder asking, “Sir, if there are other buckets that I can explore why is it that I am expected to stay in that which I abhor? For I see clearly that there is more and I want it. So, please sir how can I get out? I want to know what other buckets are about.”
The elder told him, “come on young crab do not fight it, this is your life, it is only right that you follow the rest lest you be trampled under shell and claw when they discover you’ve got tools to climb far, besides, we need one another to make it high above the bucket to get out to find another bucket that is why.”
“Is there no other way?” The young crab inquired.
But before the elder could answer, the elder expired.
The young crab spent his days searching for others who could show him the way. One hot muggy, crabby day he stopped for a rest and found himself in front of a hut that read “Stay Away” that was all the motivation he needed to knock at the door to see what more he could find. Fore, he was on a journey to discover what was in the minds of other crabs who seemed to have found something that he himself was ignorant of.
These stories and poems are not answers. They are instruments for attention — ways of slowing down long enough to notice the pattern beneath the day.
Come and read the patterns with me
Explore the collection at your own pace, or subscribe to receive each new story and poem as it arrives. For readers who want a piece written toward their own totem or turning point, commissions are open by inquiry.
The Totem Canvas 