Coyote Mentoring Core Routines: Mind’s Eye Imagining
What It Is—and Why It Matters
Mind’s Eye Imagining is the practice of using inner vision to deepen understanding and connection to nature. It invites learners to build mental pictures, engage sensory memory, and visualize places, animals, or experiences with rich, layered detail. In Coyote Mentoring, this routine strengthens “inquisitive focus,” “aliveness,” and the ability to track with the imagination—not as fantasy, but as a tool for awareness.
This core routine matters because it builds a bridge between the outer world of sensory input and the inner world of memory and reflection. A mentor might say, “Close your eyes. Remember what the forest smelled like this morning. Picture the color of the sky. Where were the jays calling from?” This simple act of recall strengthens neural pathways of connection and intimacy with place.
It also helps learners practice invisibility. A person who can see a trail, an animal’s movement, or the shape of a landscape in their mind can move more quietly, more intuitively, and more respectfully. This form of inner tracking trains the attention just as much as external observation. In a world filled with distraction, Mind’s Eye Imagining helps learners focus, remember, and feel their place in the natural world—not just with their bodies, but with their minds and hearts.
What It Might Look Like
The mentor asks a quiet question.
“Can you remember the robin’s song from this morning? Where was it sitting?” The learners close their eyes. Slowly, a scene re-emerges. A branch. A rustle. A red breast puffed with morning light. This is not make-believe—it’s memory, sharpened and re-lived.
A group imagines animal movement.
In tracking practice, the mentor invites them to imagine the coyote’s gait. “How would its feet fall here? Where would it pause to sniff the air?” They walk the imagined trail. They embody what they picture. This blend of mental rehearsal and sensory awareness deepens both empathy and skill.
Learners practice night-walking in their mind.
Before heading out into dusk, the mentor asks them to visualize the path: the feel of gravel, the cool of shade, the curve around the elder tree. They walk it in their minds before they walk it with their feet. The forest becomes familiar, even in the dark.
The inner landscape comes alive.
Eventually, learners start to use this practice on their own. After a day in the field, they lie in bed and replay what they saw. They remember the heron’s flight, the way the wind moved in the pines. Mind’s Eye Imagining becomes a lifelong tool—a way of carrying nature inside