The following, which were first published in La Joie, are copyrighted. No Portion may be copied or used in any other work.
Hunting and gathering
Each morning as the sun rises and the bunnies and berries are plentiful this time of year, I rig up my little berry pouch and the dogs and I go out together hunting and gathering. We cross the fields, eager if alert, in imitation of what our ancestors would have done so many years ago. Read more…
Acceptance
I recently flew to France, and will be going again in two short weeks. Flying over the fertile French countryside, I always marvel at the rows and squares of perfectly patterned and proportioned wheat or sugar beets, all planted just so or “comme ça,” in French parlance, whose literal meaning is “like that” but whose actual meaning signifies the proper way things should be, and have always been, done. Yet when I stand amidst a sugar beet patch, I have no awareness of its geometrical shape; the plants growing just seem beautiful, but random. And yet the pattern is there…when viewed from above. And herein lies the acceptance part: first seeing our patterns (as someone greater and wiser might see from above) then coming around to accept them as such, even when we’re in their midst and can’t see clearly. Read more…
Socratic Dialogue with Dogs
In The Meno, Plato asks the question “Can virtue be taught?” Without ever formally instructing Meno’s slave, Socrates asks him a series of questions revealing that knowledge is innate, a thing within us. Of the boy he says, “he already has the questions in his soul.” Socrates’ idea of anamnesis, that the knowledge within us all is simply “recollected” by the soul through proper inquiry, is one about which I’ve given much thought. Read more…
Death Be Not Death
The miracle that came to us when Flash was given only three weeks to live on November 2nd of 2009 was also present when he died five and a half months later on April 15th, 2010. In the winter issue of La Joie I wrote about living with miracles, but I found that as our lives unfolded and I began living from my heart instead of my fear, these same miracles extended themselves, not turning away in the hour death, but instead reigning more present than ever in death and beyond. Read more…
Sensitivity
The smallest member of our family, mice and bugs notwithstanding, is a miniature dachshund named Flash who is also the only male of the household. Traditionally, though perhaps not historically, it is the male who represents courage and virility and the female, at least in recent human society, who stands for matters of more sensitivity. Read more...
Transformation and Transcendence
Day to day life rules the lives of most of us, but sometimes we’re given a glimpse of something beyond. We touch eternity with a feeling of peace; we touch eternity when we gaze into a dog’s quiet brown eyes or help someone in need; and we touch eternity when we feel joy just being.Read more...
Compassion
Compassion – Sorrow for the sufferings or trouble of another or others, accompanied by an urge to help. Deep sympathy.
Empathy – Projection of one’s own emotions onto another in order to understand him better. Ability to share another’s emotions. Read more...
Trust
In the past I’ve always said that without trust, there can be no love. And in the past I’ve always been referring to human relationships, but now, in this moment, I realize it applies equally to animals. Read more...
Patience
They lie at my feet as I eat a miso-mayo sandwich. Sasha wears a mournful mask of longing that tells me she’s never thought it fair that I can walk to the fridge and select whatever I choose to eat, while her food is doled out throughout the day like rationing. Read more...
Living in the Moment
As I get older, I realize I am losing certain memories and forgetting past experiences, my life rolling up behind me like a carpet. Yet instead of fretting, I’m deciding it’s a good thing. Read more...
Living with Miracles,
Present Moment Perfection
February 5th and snow falls silently possessing the earth. Filled with quiet wisdom the trees stand enduring their frozen world, while beyond the silence I hear them whispering, ‘Every winter turns to spring.’
And even our darkest nights give way to dawn.
Three months ago on November 2nd I took Flash, my thirteen-year old miniature dachshund to have back surgery. Only after a month of crating him and watching his suffering with each new flare up did I, with encouragement from my vet, have the courage to make this decision. Read more…
Wisdom of the Heart
And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart
that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.
-- The Fox, Le Petit Princearch 16th.
True wisdom may be very simple. Yet like most things simple it eludes all but the old, those experienced, expanded souls who, having realized the illustion of material pleasures bringing any sense of lasting hapiness, fall back upon the simple wisdom of their hearts. For true wisdom may be no more than listening to our hearts. Read more…
Listening to Silence
“Lots of people talk to animals…Not very many listen, though…That’s the problem.”
--Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh
I think one of the greatest virtues animals teach us is the art of being silent. So often we speak when really there’s no need. We listen and defend or listen and offer opinions, instead of listening to understand. Read more...
Letting Go
Letting go may be the most freeing step we can take in obtaining lives of peace and fulfillment. While seemingly passive, it is a choice of powerful action; we let go and let life begin. I recently had to let go of someone I loved very much. Read more...
From Briars to Bistros
Chance in France
“She wants to go where you go,” Rebecca, aunt of a friend of mine and animal communicator, told me over the phone. “She” was Chance, a tiny beagle mix, probably beagle and Chihuahua, who I’d picked up from the SPCA, and “where I was to go” was Paris, France. Read more...
Understanding Continuity
Who hasn’t known loss? Once past a certain age it befalls us all. Physics, nature, call it whatever, but call it certain. Yet perhaps only past a certain age do we begin to accept and understand it for what it is, beyond mere certainty, and even sense its value. For, if logically loss must follow life, then inevitably life follows loss. Read more...
I Swerve for Butterflies
That’s right, I do. I swerve for butterflies. I brake for turtles, rabbits and squirrels (still the domain of “crazy women drivers”) and all other life. I’ve been known to serve to avoid a Wooly Bear and to stop every five feet for the tiny toads so ubiquitous after a spring shower. All these beings are important and deserving of life—the dog, because of size or domestication, not better than the bug. The human not better than the dog. Just all and equally good. Read more...
For Holly
March 16th. It’s been two years now since Holly died, and nearly two years since I came to know her. I never knew her in her physical life; my awareness of Holly, an abused beagle saved from a chained existence in a neighbor’s yard, was born after her passing. No, I never knew her, yet she’s now and always a part of my life. Read more...
Simplicity and Joy
They are, from time to time, my greatest teachers—these dogs of mine. From my three dogs Flash, Chance and Sasha, especially in the quiet moments when time seems to still and from an intimate distance I observe, I’ve learned lessons unavailable in the classroom, and yet more valuable than algebra or composition--for I learned the qualities of acceptance, enthusiasm, living in the moment, dignity, forgiveness, joy, compassion and love. Read more…
Second Chances
Sometimes in life we are given a second chance. Often this occurs if we don’t get something right the first go round, just a gentle way of getting our lessons.
I was given a second chance in the form of a tiny ten-pound, mangy beagle. Her name was Chance. Read more…