The sun did not rise over the Pedernal and shine through the window today at 7AM because it was snowing. I slept till 9AM.
Jack is a 170 lb Tibetan Mastiff. In Tibet these majestic dogs are flock guardians and patrol vast territory, thousands of acres. It is built into their genetics. Because the keeper of the flocks are usually women and children, these Mastiffs have a DNA distrust of stranger men. Jack and I go for a walk every morning and evening and before he can get busy he has to sniff around 5 acres…That warms him up, gets his elimination system primed and ready. Then something distracts him and we have to start all… over… again. It takes hours of exploration just to get Jack to pee.
The great thing about virgin snow is that it is a clean slate. Every story is written plainly. Today in the fresh snow while I was encouraging Jack to “get busy”, he was distracted by some enticing odor and we found enormous animal tracks. While I was wondering if it might be a bear and if it was wise to continue, Jack was pulling me forward as he surged through the snow. What I saw were the big tracks and then next to them, cat tracks tracking the big tracks. Maybe a Bob Cat or Lynx. I wasn’t paying attention to Jack. If I had been I would have seen him scoop up his prize as he started to chew it… The delicacy, elkish poopish; otherwise known as elk dung. Yep, the cat was tracking an elk, Jack was tracking the cat who was tracking the elk. I was being hauled along…
Life is like that. Sometimes we just allow ourselves to be hauled along…
Jack started down a very steep part of the mountain… I put on the skids… I wasn’t in control exactly, but I wasn’t been hauled down the cliff face either. Jack turned and looked at me accusingly and then “got busy” at an impossible slant down the hill. Jack doesn’t lift his leg like smaller male dogs. I guess trying to balance on three legs at 170 lbs makes no sense to him. Jack is all about his own “highest good” He doesn’t obey. He cooperates…if he feels it is for his highest and best good. So Jack squatted and I dug the elk poop out of his mouth…
Sometimes our prizes are taken away from us and sometimes others have clearer vision on what might be for our highest and best then we do. And mostly we are never, ever, in complete control. Even if we feel like we are. Although the universe allows us our illusions. Even the most evolved, educated, put-together-well, articulate, savvy, cool, individual, has one small flaw and one tremendous grace: humanity. We are all made up of the same genetic code. We don’t eat Elk Poop, and we don’t try to balance on three legs to eliminate…unless we are under the influence of something…
Sometimes the tracks are clear and sometimes they have been camouflaged and crisscrossed. Sometimes our path is smooth and easy, sometimes it is a rough tumble down a hillside, and sometime we toss rocks in front of us, just to proove we can go over them… I don’t know why! But we all do it. Even if we do it in secret.
So if we can get rid of the secrets, if we can get over the shame, the embarrassment, the blame, the judgment, the prejudice, the need to be right, the fear of failure; if we can get over all that, then we can begin the journey upwards. We can evolve into a world of balance.
I think it is time to stop sniffing around for the perfect place, and begin to create that place. I think it is time to “get busy”…