Dear Friend,
In July, I started meditating (again). Each morning, weather permitting, I walk the 50 yards from my back door to a small wood platform that rests in a nest of moss, tall sword and lady ferns under a shady canopy of spruce, maple, and cedar. The river is a mere 10-feet away and she sings continuously, often accompanied by wind, jay, sparrow, kingfisher, chickadee, and osprey. It’s blissful.
And yet, each morning, when I sit down on the cushion, I notice how my mind spins, leaps, digs, climbs, obsesses, admonishes, ponders, dreams, fantasizes, complains, whines, grieves, and distracts me between fluttering moments of stillness. The neighbor across the river probably thinks I’m actually meditating the whole time–they couldn’t be more wrong… for now. The reason I’m committing to practicing stillness in nature (meditation or mindfulness) is because I’ve noticed that my refined habit of distracted mind-pinball has led to a life of distracted being, which is an oxymoron by any measure. Not only is it unhealthy and bad for relationships, it affects my creativity.
This morning, Pablo, our 10-year-old rescue, joined me as he’s done on many mornings. Sometimes he’s behind me on the ground, but this morning he stepped up on the platform and found a spot in front of me. Before resting his head, he listened, sniffed, looked around, then seemed to settle into a near sleep. His body language relayed, I’m here with you. My heart filled with gratitude for my four-legged teacher even though my knees felt like popping and my mind practiced its Olympic floor tumbling routine.
Then, for no reason at all, or any I could sense, Pablo sat up and faced me. Sitting like this, heart to heart, and eye to eye was a bit disarming. Usually he does a version of this when he wants to check in with me and usually I give him an exaggerated smile and imagine opening my heart to let him know I’m ok and usually he wags his tail to let me know he’s received my message. So I smiled and opened my heart, but he didn’t look away or wag his tail. In fact, he held his gaze for a long time. Our faces were so close that there wasn’t anywhere else to look so we rested like this for a while. Eventually, the corner of my mouth turned up, not with a smile, but because I felt a lightness of being. I understand, I told him with my eyes. Then he curled up again and rested his head.
What I sensed Pablo was teaching me, was that if I could hold an open and aware exchange with him, someone who I loved and felt deeply connected to, then I could do it with anyone or anything else I loved, including flora, fauna, and fungi. As long as I evoke a connection first by remembering my deep and ancient ties to place and beings then I can feel the unbroken and ever present love.
Feeling that connection, just like in the exchange with Pablo, is a beautiful way to enter into meditation. So I tried it right then. I felt the love and acceptance of this land as I “gazed” with willow, fern, river, and sparrow. With senses wide open, I had a brief moment of stillness and merged with place. Kinship. Then guess who came knocking? Busy mind got back to work and asked, What about me and that deadline and that injustice and...?
Dog wisdom, I’ll call it, and I’ll keep practicing it again and again, adding singular moments of stillness together, until I can sustain it longer and longer, and like Pablo, find a way to rest in calm awareness. Maybe you have a four-legged, winged, or finned teacher in your life. Or maybe an elder tree or wild ocean–someone from whom you can learn how to live a dog’s life.
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