CANINE COMMUNICATION AND THE MAGICAL PATHWAY THAT LEADS UP AND UP

           

I heard a slight yelp, a little cry, and I looked back to see the husky dog had called it out. This was strange, rare. He is spry, proud, individualistic, agile, highly-highly-highly intelligent, and knows what he is doing. Yet, he must have stepped the wrong way on a rock or branch hidden under the floor of leaves that cover the forest there. I and the other, his sister by adoption, a Sheppard mix, - waited and crouched down to tend to him. He limped a little bit. But, he talked to me three times and each time assured me in his own way that he was fine, and needed to walk it off. I, the doting father and worrisome guardian/custodian, - told him I wanted to see it, - just to make sure it was nothing serious. But you have to know him, have to spend time around him, have to be in his energy to know his spirit, his ways. He is not normal, and everyone who has met him has known it. He is special and his sister is also. Now, - everyone feels this way about their own, - but in this case it is true. Well, - he jumped on me twice, in order to reassure me, and he kept going. In a few strides he had worked it out and was prancing and dancing and running once more. Fine, I thought, fine so be it. We continued,- looking around, having adventures, seeing a woodpecker that to my astonishment did not flee, but stayed doing its work. So we went, along the path there, - strange crab apples in the sun, peculiar cotton flowers that fly in the wind and dance. Moss. Old discarded branches. Squirrels. Chipmunks. The far away sound of traffic as if from another world but echoing into the forest environs somewhat, somewhat, somewhat. Spirit showing itself through what would be to anyone’s standard or metric some friggin’ wildly odd cloud formations. And up and up the path towards where the sun watches down the valley. The slight yelp now ancient history as they say,- an early chapter in a series of events that happen fast but dance and tingle and mingle like a song sung by everything but somehow sung in a sort of sacred silence. And I wonder what happened to that old woodpecker sagacious and pretty with the splash of red feather atop his head just so.

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THE FOREST THAT LIVES UNDER THE GOLDEN SUN--

The sun was soft, relaxed, golden, and it waited near the far end of the sky. It seemed to have gotten ready to begin its descent and I thought of how early it still was and about the change of seasons. Well, the vast forests have even to be shared sometimes with other souls, but sometimes, just sometimes, if you are in it for the long run and have certain patience and rhythm, a good thing can happen. For instance, this time I was pleasantly surprised to arrive and see that there were was nobody around. Well, - there was another car, - but I figured they went the other way and then saw that they did because they had just arrived. So no leashes, no worries, no constraints, - and this is the greatest way, a grace and a gift. Off we went. The sun, watching. The trees, quite still and the wind gone away for then. Tall Evergreens. Strange autumn flowers blossomed with a kind of cottony billowy innards flowing out. Sometimes this will catch the wind when the wind does come past. The earth, terrene in places, rocky, sandy in others. A rock, pebbles, thorns, leaves colored rouge and yellow also. Verdant, - deeply verdant moss on rocks and logs. The whole world there, - like a painting. And far away, a large red barn watches the one-lane highway. It sits atop a cement foundation and under a blue sky. Such funny shades and swirls in the air. A plane goes past. A small bird goes past. A moth or something similar, quite small, almost like a nature fairy, flies around and disappears just off the path. Trees fallen over. The valley and its floor shown by the leaves. The air, somehow even the air feels sacrosanct. We walk, and sometimes we just stand and wait, as if for a message from above or inside. If one comes along from spirit say, fine. If not, that is fine also. The important thing is that we are there amidst the natural parts of the day, where and when the sun was soft, relaxed, golden and waited near the far end of the sky. 

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DIVINE MOTHERS AND DECORATIVE LIGHTS

The temperatures drop and the inner lights of the shops there glow a soft yellow. It’s a yellow that feels golden, and such is not overwrought or too much. Rather, the watcher of the world can hear clinks of glasses or mugs and the easy conversations of the upper middle class and higher yet than the upper middle class. There is behind there the moon and certain clouds come past and try to obscure it. This is difficult because then anyhow, the moon well she is huge and confident. There could be people or beings inside of there.

In the daytime the man had stood on the summit of a large place and inhaled Source, Divinity, White Light and Energy, while exhaling the World,- its misfortunes and dark intricacies of greed, power, pride, so on- but more so and beyond, he exhaled the residue of these things, the atmosphere of these things. Then the wind comes and the sky cannot be watched forever so he walked on. He thought, 

Leave it to the fates, leave it to the gods, and leave it to the Whole. What shall be shall be. Some say that the destiny, the longevity and lack thereof and what happens INSIDE of that longevity or lack thereof is not decided by free will, by choice, or even by some outer causality,- but just is. So we shall call that the gods, the fates, the Whole. Besides, what can one really do? - Other than the regular things…

And unlike other people, full of ambition, the man was joyful in that, and walked along. In the night, when the temperatures dropped, - the leaves rustled and the world’s objects seemed to melt into one another, - out there. Save for the lights and the moon that is. Inside he made some lights, a string of lights, and they sat in the air and lit up the world just so. Osho said plant a rose garden and world will be yours. The man thought,

I have planted some lights, a string of ten, and they each make a little chapter or seem to,- in the night, in the air, in a room,- poetic and enduring,- and all together they make a story, the ten lights on a string.

 

And there were books and records and posters and the Virgin Mary watched it all, her heard aflame and sorrowful, but her demeanor calm, serene even. What a picture of nonduality, - encompassing both ways, - the sorrow and the stillness, - seamlessly. He could not see, but imagined, that as in statues, the snake was under her feet, - being crushed. And she had in her hand the white flowers, in her right hand. Her blue clothing seemed not bright blue, but a faded and matted one. And her eyes, - they also were blue. The true divine mother has blue eyes, - he thought. In that room anyhow, for he had looked into the eyes of Mother Meera and her eyes were not blue. The Mother comes in myriad forms. 

Then the windows, good and still new and solid windows, shuttered a bit nonetheless, for the wind was picking itself up, and the world was not always kind, nature included. Things out there were shaking and shaking, as if a small earthquake had arrived. But then the man just looked at the picture of the Holy Mother, and of the lights. 

The lights.

The Mother.

Both still.

Both lit from w/in.

Both enduring.

Both friends of his.

Friends in the deeply textured and mysterious dark hours.

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FOREST, FIELD AND OTHER

How grand and marvellous are the fields. To leave the regular set of cities and infrastructure and be amidst nature and her artifacts. There is a tree, impossibly tall; trying to mix itself with the clouds and doing a fine enough job of it. Old tractors, rusted, and the feral grasses grow through the wheels. Some black bird comes by in the corner of it and dips down, down, then up and up and turns away into the sky. It had rained, and thousands of drops stayed on the small and large leaves yellow, green, and brown. Those circular water droplets stay for a long time.

What was the night like? Did the coyote and other watch the storms from their dens? Does the hawk or owl put their nose inside the feathered wings? - do they do that? Did even the spectres, the phantoms, - back off, and recede down by the trees deep in the belly of the valley? What of it? Does the spirit say, for instance, to the other spirit, something akin to?

 

There is not even anyone to haunt. There is not a soul to guide. There is nothing to watch. We should rest…we, - the restless ones, and gather our strength to ‘go’ again in the morning.

There was something far in the distance, - a wild turkey? – A coyote? - But it disappeared as if by magic when the sight line changed and the small summit or wave-crest of the flaxen hill blocked the view. In any event, there was a great wind and it blew the leaves off the trees, - raining leaves. The canines ran, played, jumped, wrestled, sniffed, roamed, rested, watched, were content and joyful, and knew actual happiness and ease, curiosity, well-being, health that was mental, physical, and above all spiritual. Then the wind stopped and we went along. A snake was atop a sand pit. The snake probably thought,- 

Really? All the way out here I can’t catch a break and go for a slither in the sun? What are you doing here, in the middle of nowhere? 

I walk around where he is, look at him, see him, and observe his movements and then his stillness. He is caught in the opening between two sets of chaparral. Yellow makings against a black base, - medium sized for his brand, genre,-. I soon walk away and continue on. Let him be. Then there is the wind again, and the sun breaks a way through between some clouds.

Nobody around. The paths wait, and the rocks and berries, the strange small bamboo sticks or stalks, and the rest is all around. I walk through a series of paths. They walk and run, - I just walk. We are heading up and up, as if to a landing sight, as if to an Amerindian plateau, as if to something shamanistic or sacrosanct. But really there is nothing save for more trees, leaves, old logs, mushrooms, branches. 

And near bouts the top some birds break free of the tree lines, - tree lines taller than the valley below. We watch them fly off and away and they disappear into the infinite space of the sky.

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BY THE SWAYING MAGIC RED SUGAR TREES

In the far fields past the hidden valley and where the sky watches a wonderful mess of tree tops is where the hawk flies away back and back to an unknown home. There are feral animals that rustle and turn and take off back into the woods. Also, if you listen closely, certain birds call out to one another, - and what are they saying? - Where are you my friend? Come and see me. We will fly and eat of berries once we alight on the right branches. Perhaps they don’t say ‘alight. There was a small coyote that came running past the edges of there, and before he went into the wood, he stopped ever so briefly and looked back. Curious. Innocent. Spry. Kind of whimsical-dreamlike. Then he goes and disappears into the bushes, as quick as a bird, - a bird of the earth himself. Around there, but easy enough to miss are the swaying magic red sugar trees. They are not red, and they are not sugar-made, but they are there. Somehow they live just on the edge of the circular area where the tractors have gone to die. It’s the red small apple-like artifacts that wait on little stems,- these remind one of sugar for their look- not white,- but something better for I like to think they were painted red with a coating. And it’s not an elf or a gnome, a deva or anyone else, - but nature that did indeed paint them. So there they are waiting in the air, juxtaposed by the blue, safe for their good isolation, and swaying just a bit in the certain song of the wind. Watch them and watch them and watch them some more. They wait patiently and in time shall receive the rain and the snow and the blessings of new seasons.

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