Friday 15 June 2018

Zen and the art

Coinciding with my learning Transcendental Meditation, the puppy has grown into an amenable good boy who wants to sit and watch as the people hurry to work. We sit on the grass and smile at the sprites that notice. The idea that we are all one- that there is one unified field- becomes stronger every time I take him out. I never knew dogs liked to sit down so much but I am very happy that they do. Often we will sit for quite a stretch simply feeling the slight breeze ruffling us up and it is very nice.

There are all kinds of great things that people write about the benefits of having a dog but one thing missing is how it slows you right down and makes you see things on the tiny level. A bit like having a toddler where you are on magic time, you begin to notice the smallest corners of every greenspace.

Remembering nature from when I was also little and so invested in every season. The memories of pink sunsets over Weeley towards the reservoir and the tide-sound of the trees are now closer than before. That sports day resonance where the grass is painted white and the sky goes twice as enormous. I can feel it again- perhaps the awareness is always there but we just can’t get at it.

McGroggin runs me through the back of bushes where kids have made trails, little cathedrals of briar. There are secret worlds everywhere and lost gloves in luminous colours. The park garden is gone absolutely psychedelic. Sometimes the flowers are so bright they sort of cut you a bit, they stink! It’s brilliant.

I am not sure how I ended up with a Zen dog, sometimes I wonder about the Chow in him, guarding the temples. His nose and ears are like tiny receptors, they suss it all out. He is as lazy as me- you hear about these old white men who walked tortoises in the days when appreciation was in fashion. Well, a lazy dog does the job just as well. He will take you into the smallest detail, right into the fibres of the wallpaper.

40 minutes a day I sit with my mantra and sometimes I can feel all the other people. Often I think about breakfast or hard words but I let it happen and look onward. It’s nice to be still but what I’m aiming for is much finer creative intelligence. Making more and all the new ways of making. I like poems but there are other things. Maybe I will write a whole book about my puppy. It would be mostly for me, but that would be just fine.