It’s been a while since Sue of Dreamwalker’s Sanctuary and I started following each other’s Blogs and from time to time Sue sends me an email with something for Learning from Dogs. On the 20th March, I published a guest post from Sue called the Winds of Change. If you didn’t read her wonderful poem then do go there and read it.
Anyway, just a couple of days ago Sue sent me an email with a link to a YouTube video. Put aside a few minutes and be entranced.
So you have just watched the video. How do you feel? I bet that your feelings are not a million miles from the realisation that, like Fiona the dog, being ‘lost‘ is an uncomfortable, unsettling but necessary step along the journey of being ‘found‘. As I wrote in the concluding part of my story Night messages, “The message from the night, as clear as the rays of this new day’s sun, the message to pass to all those he loved. If you don’t get lost, there’s a chance you may never be found.”
When the bond between a human and a dog is expressed as deep love, as it so often is, we relearn the most important lesson of all creation. That mankind’s only hope for the future comes from the pool of love.
No better portrayed than by the photograph below that I presented in a Post on the 17th March, Change out of Hope.
The power of love.
“The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog.“ Samuel Coleridge
Sue has been a wonderful supporter of Learning from Dogs for which I am very grateful. Sue is the author of the blog, Dreamwalker’s Sanctuary and I do recommend that you pop across there and read her wonderful Posts. Recently, I read a beautiful poem that Sue had written and not only did she give me permission to republish that Post but also offered the following introduction. Thank you, Sue. The rest is all Sue!
First my thanks go to Paul who continues to awaken our knowledge to the Earth and our environment and whose posts are in-depth and informative posts on subjects which we should all be immersed in.
For Planet Earth is our Home and she is dying. And we Humans are still in a slumber as to the destruction we have inflicted upon her.
Our Native American Brothers knew long ago that we have to balance nature and we should only take that which we need.. But we have used Greed as our cutting tools and we as a species have become out of balance with nature and ourselves.
Paul has kindly asked if he could re-blog my poem . This poem speaks of those changes we all feel is happening within our world. I firmly believe like the Native Americans that we are united in Consciousness and that extends to our Earth Mother. We are linked together As One.
…oooOOOooo…
The Winds Of Change
The Winds of Change.
The Winds of Change flow across our land
Sweeping us up like the grains of sand
Twisting us round to look in the mirror
Cutting us deep to make us consider…
~
Our past which holds so many stains
As Ego rules in a world full of pain
The winds of Change are here to uplift
It’s time for Humanity to embrace all her gifts
~
But before we fly along with the wind
Mankind is reaping all his sown sins
The Anger, the Hatred, the Greed and his Pride
Will no longer have any places to hide
~
For the Winds of Change a tornado will swirl
As into the Abyss the Material will hurl
A river so deep into Oceans will run
With all tears cried from when time first begun
~
A cleansing of hearts as each soul will cry
As the Winds of Change blows into our eyes
Eyes that will open as we come awake
And Mankind will realise he can no longer take
~
The road of discovery can often be hard
A lonely walk as the Winds they bombard
It strips us bare to reveal our true souls
In a journey we’ve walked from Millennia of old
~
And as our tears fall they wash us all clean
Of the lies of the Past and all that has been
The Winds of Change it whistles in our Hearts
Get ready to fly – for we’re soon to depart.
~~~
Many things are happening around our world right now, and for many we are all going through some personal changes.. Change is always hard, and painful, for we resist it as we cling onto that which is familiar. But without Change we do not grow, or progress..
Some of those Changes which are taking place around our Earth are bringing with it tears..
Tears we weep help cleanse our inner-most souls as we wash ourselves from within and we release our emotions.
So, too, our Earth Mother is getting ready for Change… her Winds too are blowing a warning, as she is releasing her tears as she lets them spill as rain..
Too long has she held them within…
We are One with Mother Nature… Watch her, as she is stirring..
Be Ready..
She is Changing, and as she does we will feel her shake, as her body sobs.
By sending out your love,
By loving your selves we are helping each other over these Changes..
We are helping Unite ourselves and Mother Earth once again in Harmony
~~~~
A tree knows how to bend in the wind, or it breaks and falls..
Water finds its path as it flows into ALL to find its own level
So too we must go within that flow and follow our hearts
We need to be that Oneness,
We need to stop hurting one another,
We need to breath in that Light of Love
And Share it in Unity of Oneness
This is the Time of Change
Let the Winds blow
Love into your
Hearts
Native American Indian Quote
“You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of your grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.”
~ Unknown ~
Don’t worry, this is not going to be some chest-banging Post! I leave those for Monday to Friday. 😉 No, I just wanted to offer a couple of examples of the power of goodness and how making a positive difference is no more than wanting it. As Perfect Stranger commented last Tuesday, “A single candle may light a thousand others and they in turn many thousands more” – Buddha
The first example is about how a group of upstanding citizens rescue a school of dolphins that became stuck on a beach in Brazil.
The second example comes from closer to home. Ginger I. is a Board Member of the Humane Society of Central Arizona and is based at Payson. Jean has been a volunteer at the Society’s Thrift Store for some time and has got to know Ginger well.
Ginger recently emailed me this; it has already done the rounds of the WWW, and quite rightly so. It reminds me of the book Dogs Never Lie About Love, written by Jeffrey Masson, from which comes the following,
This ambiguity, which includes a certain ambivalence as well, has been memorialized in our speech, in our sayings, and in our tributes to and about dogs. Sir John Davies, in his epigram In Cineam (written in 1594), observed:
Thou sayest thou art as weary as a dog,
As angry, sick, and hungry as a dog,
As dull and melancholy as a dog,
As lazy, sleepy, idle as a dog.
But why dost thou compare thee to a dog?
In that for which all men despise a dog,
I will compare thee better to a dog.
Thou art as fair and comely as a dog,
Thou art as true and honest as a dog,
Thou art as kind and liberal as a dog,
Thou art as wise and valiant as a dog.
Ever since Madame Roland said in the eighteenth century “Plus je vois les hommes, plus j’admire les chiens” (The more I see of men, the more I admire dogs), generally what has been written about dogs tends to be positive. Sometimes it is even wonderful, as in William James’s statement “Marvelous as may be the power of my dog to understand my moods, deathless as is his affection and fidelity, his mental state is as unsolved a mystery to me as it was to my remotest ancestor.” Or it may be delicious, like Ambrose Bierce’s definition in his Devil’s Dictionary, “Dog, n. A kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world’s worship.” Samuel Coleridge, in Table-Talk (May 2, 1830), was one of the first to note that “the best friend a man has in the world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter … may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to him … may become traitors to their faith…. The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog.”
Just read that last sentence again from Samual Coleridge as you look at the photograph below, “The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog.”
All my life, well all the years that I have appreciated a ‘tea-break’, stopping for a cup of hot tea has been laden with symbolism. A chance to let the brain catch up with whatever one is doing. When working with others an opportunity to stand back and evaluate how the particular project is going. When sharing a project with a loved one, an opportunity to lay down memories for future years, and so forth. (Jean and I were building a chicken coop yesterday afternoon.) Sure there are millions of people that share these feelings.
Anyway, as many of you have been aware, the last 10 days or so on Learning from Dogs have been pretty ‘full-on’ in terms of man and Planet Earth. It started with me publishing on the 27th February a Post called Please help! – A plea to those who understand climate science so much better than I do!. Then on the 2nd March, I republished a Post from Patrice Ayme called The collapse of the biosphere.
That there were a total of 6,313 viewings of those Posts and 69 comments (OK, that doesn’t mean different individuals) was incredibly gratifying – a very big ‘thank you’ to all of you that read the Posts, and likewise to those that commented.
But one of the most wonderful aspects for me was the incredible sharing of ideas and resources. So the point of today’s Post is to bring all those links and contacts onto one ‘page’, so to speak.
Martin Lack was the first to point me in the direction of the book, Merchants of Doubt. There are a number of videos on YouTube but the one below is a good introduction to Naomi Oreskes.
On October 28, 2010 historian of science Naomi Oreskes gave a presentation at Forum Lectures (US Embassy Brussels), based on her new book, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, about how right wing scientists founded the George Marshall Institute which has become a key hub for successfully spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt about climate change, along with other environmental issues, and how myths about science enable these political strategies to work.
An in-depth video of over an hour from the University of Rhode Island’s Spring 2010 Vetlesen Lecture Series, hugely worth watching, is here.
Then there is the powerful blog site, De Smog Blog. As the site explains, “The DeSmogBlog Project began in January 2006 and quickly became the world’s number one source for accurate, fact based information regarding global warming misinformation campaigns. TIME Magazine named DeSmogBlog in its “25 Best Blogs of 2011” list.”
Moving on. One of the challenges is knowing how to look up some reasonably reliable information about a person who is claiming this or that. That’s where SourceWatch is invaluable. The website describes itself, “The Center for Media and Democracy publishes SourceWatch, this collaborative resource for citizens and journalists looking for documented information about the corporations, industries, and people trying to influence public policy and public opinion. We believe in telling the truth about the most powerful interests in society—not just relating their self-serving press releases or letting real facts be bleached away by spin.”
Let me give you an example of how SourceWatch works. In my Post A skeptic’s view, Dan offered extensive comment about U.S. Senator James Inhofe’s book The Greatest Hoax. A quick search on SourceWatch revealed (a) (my emboldening)
Arthur B. Robinson is one of the three co-founders of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, a group best known for organising a petition disputing the scientific evidence for human-induced global warming.
On January 7, 2009, the Willamette Week reported that Robinson is “in the vanguard of a small but vocal and persistent collection of scientists, industry advocates and commentators who dismiss human culpability for climate change. … Robinson’s critics say his analysis is simplistic, but it remains persuasive a decade later with powerful policymakers like U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a visible and effective player in blocking a bill to limit greenhouse-gas emissions last fall.
James Mountain Inhofe, usually known as Jim Inhofe, has been a Republican Senator for Oklahoma since winning a special election in 1994.
Oil
James M. Inhofe has voted in favor of big oil companies on 100% of important oil-related bills from 2005-2007, according to Oil Change International. These bills include Iraq war funding, climate change studies, clean energy, and emissions.
On to another book. I forget who recommended the book by James Hansen, Storms of my Grandchildren but it’s another ‘must-read’ for all those wanting to better understand the risks that lay ahead. As the book’s website explains,
In Storms of My Grandchildren, Dr. James Hansen—the nation’s leading scientist on climate issues—speaks out for the first time with the full truth about global warming: The planet is hurtling even more rapidly than previously acknowledged to a climatic point of no return.
On that website there is a section Hansen On The Issues that includes this 2-minute YouTube video of Dr. Hansen talking about his book.
I can’t close without mentioning some other wonderful websites. There is Skeptical Science, described thus,
Explaining climate change science & rebutting global warming misinformation
Scientific skepticism is healthy. Scientists should always challenge themselves to improve their understanding. Yet this isn’t what happens with climate change denial. Skeptics vigorously criticise any evidence that supports man-made global warming and yet embrace any argument, op-ed, blog or study that refutes global warming. This website gets skeptical about global warming skepticism. Do their arguments have any scientific basis? What does the peer reviewed scientific literature say?
Then there’s ClimateSight, a wonderful effort by Kate, “Kate is a B.Sc. student and aspiring climatologist from the Canadian prairies. She started writing this blog when she was sixteen, simply to keep herself sane, but hopes that she’ll be able to spread accurate information about climate change far and wide while she does so.” Kate’s interest and passion in the subject is unmissable and it’s a real pleasure to subscribe to her postings.
Bill McKibben’s famous site, 350.org, is a must for the thousands of people that are working for a better future. As the mission statement opens up,
350.org is building a global grassroots movement to solve the climate crisis. Our online campaigns, grassroots organizing, and mass public actions are led from the bottom up by thousands of volunteer organizers in over 188 countries.
350 means climate safety. To preserve our planet, scientists tell us we must reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere from its current level of 392 parts per million to below 350 ppm. But 350 is more than a number—it’s a symbol of where we need to head as a planet.
350.org works hard to organize in a new way—everywhere at once, using online tools to facilitate strategic offline action. We want to be a laboratory for the best ways to strengthen the climate movement and catalyze transformation around the world.
RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science. All posts are signed by the author(s), except ‘group’ posts which are collective efforts from the whole team. This is a moderated forum.
There are so many more fabulous sources of real caring about the society we are and, more importantly, the society we hope to be. In this category comes Wibble. Then there’s Dogs of Doubt, that I shall be referring to tomorrow on Learning from Dogs, and The Green Word and so on and so on. It shows the power of ‘hands across the ether’ that the modern world of web sites now offers. I put great faith in this power becoming the power of truth and the power of change. (If you have a blog or a website that resonates with the ones mentioned here, please do drop me an email giving me details.)
Finally, I’m closing with this. If it all sometimes feels too much for you and you want to drift away into the world of the inner consciousness, into the world of dreamtime, then you can do no worse than to call by Sue Dreamwalker‘s wonderful website. Try this, for example. Dan and I had no idea what we were getting into. 😉
For me that quotation sums up how I would like to reply to not only my dear friend, Dan Gomez, who is a denialist of anthropogenic climate change, as last Monday’s Post illustrated, but also to skeptics everywhere else.
I should also add the important qualifier that I am neither a scientist nor have any expert skills in the relevant areas. But, then again, neither does Dan. He and I are both citizens of Planet Earth with a passion for the truth.
So where to go from here? There is no question that the Earth’s climate is complex and endeavouring to understand ’cause and effect’ relies heavily on mathematical models. But many complex aspects of our world are treated similarly, therefore so what! Dan and I share with millions of others a lack of scientific competence, ergo we have to be rely on the scientific views expressed by those who do have the scientific competencies.
Would one challenge the competence of Scientific American magazine, that in an article on March 18, 2007, (five years ago!) opened thus,
Paris–The signs of global climate change are clear: melting glaciers, earlier blooms and rising temperatures. In fact, 11 of the past 12 years rank among the hottest ever recorded.
and continued later with this, [my emboldening]
For example, after objections by Saudi Arabia and China, the report dropped a sentence stating that the impact of human activity on the earth’s heat budget exceeds that of the sun by fivefold. “The difference is really a factor of 10,” says lead author Piers Forster of the University of Leeds in England: compared with its historical output, the sun currently contributes an extra 0.12 watt of energy for each square meter of the earth’s surface, whereas man-made sources trap an additional 1.6 watts per square meter.
Or what ‘influence’ might be at play when the British newspaper The Guardian reported earlier this year that,
Wall Street Journal rapped over climate change stance
The Wall Street Journal has received a dressing down from a large group of leading scientists for promoting retrograde and out-of-date views on climate change. In an opinion piece run by the Journal on Wednesday, nearly 40 scientists, including acknowledged climate change experts, took on the paper for publishing an article disputing the evidence on global warming.
The offending article, No Need to Panic About Global Warming, which appeared last week, argued that climate change was a cunning ploy deployed by governments to raise taxes and by non-profit organisations to solicit donations to save the planet.
It was signed by 16 scientists who don’t subscribe to the conventional wisdom that climate change is happening and is largely man-made – but as Wednesday’s letter points out, many of those who signed don’t actually work in climate science.
Later in that article Suzanne writes, referring to the 40 scientists, [again, my emboldening]
The letter goes on to note that some 97% of researchers who actively publish on climate science agree that climate change is real and caused by humans. It concludes: “It would be an act of recklessness for any political leader to disregard the weight of evidence and ignore the enormous risks that climate change clearly poses.”
There’s much, much more evidence that shows that the science is clear – mankind is risking the future viability of this planet for the species homo sapiens and countless other species!
One of the important points made by Dan in that Post last Monday was about the book, written by Senator James Inhofe, The Greatest Hoax. Dan wrote, “This is all about money and power, not weather.”
There are a number of independent websites across the world where one can quickly research the credentials and background by name of any person. Try Skeptical Science as an example. A quick enquiry using Senator Inhofe’s name came up with this: Quotes by James Inhofe – Climate Myth/What the Science Says. Read It! And read this on the website Think Progress. There are other websites where one can do that type of research.
In an email just a day ago, Dan wrote, “My message/warning remains the same: “Follow the Money”. When the “End-of-the-World” is the message, what politician can resist?” If only it was that easy.
OK, I’m going to start rounding this all off by first asking you to watch this 4-minute video that I came across thanks to Pedantry’s blogsite Wibble.
Next I’m going to repeat something that I have previously mentioned on Learning from Dogs. There’s a saying in the aviation industry, “If there’s any doubt, there’s no doubt!” That saying underpins the culture that has turned commercial air transport into one of the safest means of travel in history.
Let’s ponder that idea of doubt.
There is no question that there is a great deal of doubt. Back in 2010 Gallup Poll reported that “42% of adults worldwide who see global warming as a threat to themselves and their families in 2010 hasn’t budged in the last few years“.
Would you get into a commercial airliner to fly from ‘a’ to ‘b’ if 42% of the passengers saw the flight as a threat to themselves? No, of course not!
So one certainly wouldn’t fly then if 62% thought it was risky! From here,
The newest study from the National Survey of American Public Opinion on Climate Change, which is a biannual survey taken since fall 2008 and organized by the Brookings Institute, shows that 62 percent of Americans now believe that man-made climate change is occurring, and 26 percent do not. The others are unsure.
So back to the theme that started this Post. For the sake of all of us on this planet, for all our children and grandchildren and beyond, we need to start caring deeply about the future, changing our life-styles in as many ways as we can and demanding that our politicians and leaders are similarly committed to the future.
Not because the future is anything like certain – but to reduce the risks of a global catastrophy. I have a grandson who will be one-year-old on March 21st. I want to be certain that he has a viable life ahead of him for many, many years. That means caring ‘a whole awful lot‘, letting hope motivate me to change, and recognising that change is already taking place, as the following trailer so superbly demonstrates.
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
Ginger I. who works at the Payson branch of the Humane Society of Central Arizona recently sent me the following video on the magic of a flock of starlings. It’s … well, you watch it and fill in the rest of the sentence; I ran out of words.
A short film that follows the journey of two girls in a canoe on the River Shannon and how they stumble across one of nature’s greatest phenomenons; a murmuration of starlings.
A murmuration is a…
/merr’meuh ray”sheuhn/, n.
1. an act or instance of murmuring.
2. a flock of starlings.
Ginger also included the following in her email,
A mystery of nature:
No one knows why they do it. Yet each fall, thousands of starlings dance in the twilight above England and Scotland. The birds gather in shape-shifting flocks called murmurations, having migrated in the millions from Russia and Scandinavia to escape winter’s frigid bite.
Scientists aren’t sure how they do it, either. The starlings’ murmurations are manifestations of swarm intelligence, which in different contexts is practised by schools of fish, swarms of bees and colonies of ants. As far as I am aware, even complex algorithmic models haven’t yet explained the starlings’ aerobatics, which rely on the tiny birds’ quicksilver reaction time of under 100 milliseconds to avoid aerial collisions—and predators—in the giant flock.
Despite their tour de force in the dusky sky, starlings have declined significantly in the UK in recent years, perhaps because of a decline in suitable nesting sites. The birds still roost in several of Britain’s rural pastures, however, settling down to sleep (and chatter) after their evening ballet.
Two young ladies were out for a late afternoon canoe ride and fortunately one of them remembered to bring her video camera. What they saw was a wonderful murmuration display, caught in the short video above. Watch the variation of colour and intensity of the patterns that the birds make in close proximity to one other.
I also quickly found a second video on YouTube that seemed worthy of including in this Post.
This astonishing sequence was filmed by wild life cameraman and travel journalist Dylan Winter who is currently sailing around the UK in an 18 foot boat. You can follow his journey and see more of his work at www.keepturningleft.co.uk.
Now I know that as I get older I seem to be turning into an emotional mess! But a very happy mess! I mention this because both films had me in tears. Why? Not really sure. But I sense that when one looks at such beauty, such real pure magical beauty, and then reflects on the stupidity, greed and shortsightedness of mankind the contrast is almost too much to handle!
A wonderful enlightened approach to the challenges facing our beautiful planet.
Rob Hopkins is a remarkable fellow. In so many ways he is the most unlikely person to have kicked off almost single-handedly, a gathering world-wide revolution.
I am as guilty as the next person in promoting ‘doom and gloom’ when it comes to what mankind is doing to this planet. I devoted a couple of thousand words to that theme in a guest sermon that appeared on Learning from Dogs a week ago. That’s not to say that unless mankind, in the millions, changes in significant ways then avoiding a catastrophy to our species, and many others, is going to be hugely difficult.
But motivating us all to change is far better undertaken from a position of positive guidance and inspiration, than out of fear!
So when Jean and I listened to a recent BBC radio broadcast by Rob as part of the BBC Radio 4 Four Thought series we were blown away by the guidance and inspiration that Rob presented.
It’s 15 minutes of hope, and you too can listen to it from anywhere in the world by going here or by going here.
This is how the BBC introduces the programme,
Rob Hopkins, co-founder of the Transition Culture movement, believes that “engaged optimism” is the best way to face the global challenges of the future, be it climate change, oil supplies running out or the economic downturn. He believes initiatives enabling people to produce their own goods and services locally – from solar powered bottled beer to micro currencies like the Brixton pound – are the best way to build community resilience. Four Thought is a series of talks in which speakers give a personal viewpoint recorded in front of an audience at the RSA in London.
Producer: Sheila Cook.
So do listen to the programme and then click across to the Transition Culture website where Rob has posted a transcript of his talk. Please, whatever your plans today find time to listen to the programme and read the transcript. Here’s how Rob closes his talk,
I often end talks I give with Arundhati Roy’s quote “another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day I can hear her breathing”. I think we might adapt her quote, so that, in the context of this bottom-up drive for more resilient communities, communities better prepared for uncertain times, it is not only a case of hearing another world breathing, but being able to see her around us, already setting up local businesses, reviving her local economy, setting up bakeries, breweries, food hubs, mentoring scores of young people with business ideas, attracting inward social investment finance, creating the models whereby people can invest in their communities and see them being strengthened and supported.
That’s why I get out of bed in the morning, because I feel that the potential in our getting this right is so exquisite that it’s all I can do, and because the grim predictability of what will happen if we do nothing is just unthinkable, especially in relation to the challenge of climate change. If we are able to turn things around on the scale we need to turn them around on, to replace vulnerability, carbon intensity and fragility with resilience, it will be an achievement our children will tell tales about, sing songs about. I hope I am there to hear them. Thank you.
This is in response to the item that I republished last Thursday, originally on Nakib’s blogsite, Freedom to Survive. Do visit it. Marcia in response sent in the following poem.
The Onlooker
He stood across the street and sadly saw
The little match girl standing in the rain;
She looked as if she didn’t have a prayer.
He wondered why there wasn’t yet a law
To spare her from unnecessary pain,
And how could people just walk by her there?
He raised his head toward Heav’n in awe and fear
And let the raindrops hit his youthful face,
While speaking toward the softly weeping sky,
“Dear God, why haven’t you done something here?
“I have the faith that You’re nearby some place,
“But there’s no sign that you’ve been helping; why?”
Then God replied, “I have…it’s nothing new;
“For such a purpose I created you.”
Thank you, Marcia.
When I see how this new, virtual world connects us across the world with so many others that know what is truly important, I do have hope for the future.
As many of you will appreciate, this has been a bit of a week. It started last Sunday with my contribution to the national ‘preach-in’ for the health of our planet, and ended with the sad loss of Phoebe. I normally post something light-hearted or trivial for the week-end but seem to be in a more reflective mood just now (Friday).
For some time I have subscribed to the weekly spiritual offering from Terry Hershey and am going to republish a story that came out from Terry Hershey on the 13th.
Letting go and walking
February 13, 2012
Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go. Herman Hesse.
Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security. John Allen Paulos
When you let go of trying to get more of what you don’t really need, it frees up oceans of energy to make a difference with what you have. Lynne Twist
And now the story,
There is a Tibetan story about an earnest young man seeking enlightenment. (Earnest people must think this quite unfair–since they play a central role in most parables and stories about enlightenment.)
A famous sage passes through the man’s village. The man asks the sage to teach him the art of meditation. The sage agrees. He tells the man, “Withdraw from the world. Mediate every day in the specific way I will teach you. Do not waver and you will attain enlightenment.”
The earnest man follows the sage’s instructions to the letter. Time passes–and no enlightenment. Two years, five, ten, twenty pass.
It happens that the sage once again passes through the man’s village. The man seeks him out, grumbling that despite his best intentions and devotion and diligent efforts, he does not achieve enlightenment. “Why?”
The sage asks, “What type of meditation did I teach you?”
The man tells him.
The sage says, “Oh, what a terrible mistake I made! That is not the right meditation for you. You should have done another kind altogether. Too bad, for now it is too late.”
Disconsolate, the man returns to his cave. Staking his life on the sage’s instructions, and now believing he is without hope, the man abandons all his wishes and efforts and need to control his road to enlightenment. He does not know what to do. So, he does what knows best: he begins meditating. And in a short while, much to his astonishment, his confusion begins to dissolve, and his inner world comes to life. A weight falls away and he feels lighter, and regenerated. When he walks out of the cave, the sky is bluer, the snow capped mountains whiter, and the world around him more vivid.
There is no doubt that all too often, our efforts–to succeed or achieve or attain–get in the way of our living. It brings to mind my favorite Robert Capon quote, “We live life like ill-taught piano students. So inculcated with the flub that will get us in dutch, we don’t hear the music, we only play the right notes.”
I understand. I was weaned on a spirituality that predicated itself on artifice. In other words, the importance is placed upon appearance, rather that just being. (It was vital to “look spiritual.” Which begs the question, “What do spiritual people look like?” As a boy, I always thought the “spiritual people” looked as if some part of their clothing was a size too small.)
What is it we are holding on to–so rigid, so firm, white-knuckled in our determination? At some point, we’ve got to breathe. Just breathe. Without realizing it (and after the sage’s disheartening news), the man in the story “let go.”
He let go of the need to see life as a problem to be solved.
He let go of the need to have the correct answers (or experiences) for his “enlightenment.”
He let go of the need to see his spiritual life in terms of a formula.
He let go of the restraints that come from public opinion.
Abandon your masterpiece, sink into the real masterpiece. Leonard Cohen
Without realizing it, he took Leonard Cohen’s advice. He abandoned his “masterpiece”–the perception of what he needed to accomplish, or how he needed to appear, or what he needed to feel–in order to allow himself to sink down into this life, this moment, even with all of its uncertainty and insecurity.
So a big thank you to Terry Hershey for those words of wisdom.
Back on the 18th January we had a scare in that we lost Hazel for a few hours; I wrote about that here. The reason that comes to mind so clearly is that on the 19th we took our dog, Phoebe, down to see a specialist vet in Phoenix.
Phoebe in healthier times
Phoebe had been showing signs of blood in her stools but otherwise was a fit and happy dog and still eating well. Our local vet thought that a colonoscopy might throw some better light on the problem. In fact, the specialist in Phoenix rapidly identified swollen lymph glands, gave Phoebe a scan and diagnosed lymphoma. It was a bombshell, more so as the specialist didn’t give Phoebe’s chances at much more than 7 to 10 days.
A loving Phoebe right to the end.
One of the recommendations from the specialist was to put Phoebe immediately on a grain-free diet and we have subsequently learnt the dangers of many grain-based dog foods. We declined chemotherapy as her liver had already been compromised.
The change of diet plus boundless love and attention extended Phoebe’s life until yesterday morning when, around 3.15 am she had a seizure and entered a coma. By 7.30 am Phoebe was very weak and not registering the world around her. But she wasn’t in pain, and to the best of our knowledge, had not experienced pain during her last journey.
Last hugs before the last sleep.
Sometime around 9am Phoebe slipped away and Jean and I buried her a little later. She lies in peace, under the shade of a tall Ponderosa pine.
Lilly, Phoebe and Paloma - Phoebe will live on in their memories.
Phoebe was such a sweet, loving dog. Jean found her back in the Summer of 2004 when Jean was living, with her late husband Ben, in the coastal Mexican town of San Carlos. Jean had been running a dog rescue operation for years just out of her love for dogs.
Jean came across this young, female dog, about 4 months old, running through the village of Santa Clara about 12 miles from San Carlos. The dog was really thin and didn’t seem to belong to anyone so Jean brought her back to San Carlos and placed her in the lot where she looked after her rescue dogs while they were waiting for adoption by caring humans. Jean found that this little black dog was totally friendly and loving to all. But within a few weeks some of the bigger dogs in the lot started to pick on her and, Phoebe, as she was now known was taken back to Jean’s house and that was that.
And a final footnote.
Back to Phoebe’s seizure around 3am on Thursday morning. Something woke me around 3.10am and I rolled out of the bed to make tracks for the bathroom. Pharaoh sleeps on his blanket just inside the door to the bedroom and is always dead to the world until 7am, give or take.
But not yesterday morning. He was sitting on his haunches, facing the closed door and totally alert. He knew something was wrong in the room where Phoebe was, despite there being no sound at all. Jean and I like to think that the last message that Phoebe sent out to her world was heard by Pharaoh.
Learning from Dogs 