SHINY: Part II

I am Dog.  Must Have Stick.

     There are many shiny things in the world.  Some of them are just distractions, the kind the Mohawk refer to in their prayer, ‘keep me from being distracted from the things that glitter on the side of the road.’  Other shiny things are true light, to be followed at any cost.  

    Learning to distinguish between the two is a lifelong task, needing the wisdom and experience of intuition, which is developed by taking a lot of wrong turns, and a few right ones.  Luna, as it turned out, was a true light for me, guiding me into a deeper understanding of myself, making me better at loving others, healing some long broken places.  Animals of all kinds can do that for us, if we pay attention.  If we’re not distracted by the things that glitter along the side of the road.  

    So how did I know enough to push past my own limitations and keep her?   Well, partly that’s the nature of my being.  I’m a Sagittarius.  We resent limitations to begin with.  When they pop up, we try to stretch them.   But mostly, it’s like I said at the start.  It was all about love - both receiving and giving.   

     My husband loved me enough to give her up for my sake.   I loved him enough to get her back, for his.  It’s really as simple as that.  Very simple.  Just not easy.

      Some sayings I’ve learned in the course of therapy come to mind:  The only way out is through.   And this - The truth will set you free.  But first it will hurt like hell.   

    Love almost always asks us to go beyond our own limitations - which, mind you, is not the same as relinquishing yourself.  The first asks you to become more of who you are.  The latter asks you to slice off a piece of your soul.  The first is moving toward light.  The latter is usually making a false promise of something that glitters along the side of the road. 

I am Dog. Must Love Mud.

      And one reason having an interaction with animals is good for us humans is because they don’t make false promises.  They are pretty much what they appear to be, and we have to accept them that way.  Luna is smart, attentive, high energy and very attached to her humans, but she’s not human, and I need to recognize that. Though she recognizes words, and picks up on mood and emotion better than many humans I know,  she’ll always want to roll in poop, always need to be walked, always respond to the genetic code that makes it imperative for her leap into mud puddles, and retrieve sticks.  

      My cats, too, will always be cats, and asking them to be dogs, or otters or anything other than cats, would do them a great disservice.  I appreciate them because of their unique shine, just as I appreciate Luna because of hers, and my husband because of his.   

     As humans, our interactions with other species is about that shine, which invites us to enter into the realm of another consciousness, and so expands our own. I think dogs are unique in human history because of the way they’re also willing to enter our consciousness, but that doesn’t make them more valuable than cats, or birds, or the salamanders I find along the paths in the woods I walk.  Each species has its own thing to teach us, a different way of viewing what it means to be conscious.  They teach us to see things we couldn’t see with our own eyes, as we are willing to view the world through theirs.  

     Right now, I’m thinking of the hummingbird who tried to slam into the ceiling of a greenhouse.

     I was at a garden shop, looking for fuschia to feed my own local hummers, when I noticed a small female zipping about.  I tracked her, and saw that she was zipping up toward the plastic ceiling, ramming into it over and over. 

     Horrified, terrified that she’d kill herself, I got one of the people who worked there and showed her.  “Please,” I begged.  “Do something.” 

    The woman, older than me and very calm, considered.  “I could get a net,” she said laconically, “but then I might hurt her more trying to catch her.”
     “But - but she’ll kill herself,” I protested, wringing my hands.

     “Here’s the thing,” the woman said.  “I see them do this a lot, and what happens usually is that after a while, they get tired.  When they get tired, they drop down.  When they drop down, they see the door, and then they fly out.”
    As it happens, at the time I was in a dead end relationship with a man who wasn’t willing to do anything much for me, while I felt compelled to make the thing work.  Make it work.  Make it work. I’m sure other women know what I mean.

I am Hummer. Must Hummmm.

     But as I watched, the little hummer did drop down, and did see the door, and sure enough, zipped right through it.  I sighed.  The woman shrugged.  “Like I said,” she commented, and wandered away.

     She understood the hummer not from the human perspective, but from the bird’s.  Her willingness to do so probably saved the creature from being injured, and showed me what I needed to next in my human relationship.  All this, from a creature that weighs between .071 and .212 ounces.

    Animals teach us, in ever so many ways, if we pay attention to what they are, rather than asking them to be us.  And that, I think, is at the heart of what’s shiny, rather than what glitters along the side of the road. 

      Luna, of course, had a great deal more to teach me about who she is, and with every part of it, I learned more about who I might be.    

       If you want to read more about birds, try my novel These Dreams.  If you want to read more about how one young woman learns the difference between glitter and shine, try Something Unpredicatable. And here's another shiny recipe.

SHINY SMOOTHIE

   This smoothie, a fine breakfast, will make you feel shiny because it's full of everything good.  Of course, you might want to amend it, and sub out the maple syrup for honey, or peach yogurt for the peaches, and that's just fine because you know the rule:  PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD!

Must Also Contemplate Smoothie

 BREAKFAST SMOOTHIE

1 cup soy, almond, or regular milk 

1/3 cup blueberries (I use wild frozen)

1 tbsp. ground flaxseed

2-3 tbsps. maple syrup
2 teaspoons bee pollen, if you've got it.

1/2 of a peach (frozen work, as does some peach yogurt, soy or regular)

Put it all in a blender or food processor, pour it in a glass, and drink it up. Yum.