where vision lives
is wide and unfenced.
like a storm just passed,
leaving things washed and new.

i traded with coyote there,
sunlit and wind fed,
he laughed and laughed,
"the circus is in town, the circus is in town..."

i watched him chase a crow
to the other places,
but i didnt mind
i was warm and free.

the horizon danced its whisper,
drawing me near,
but always staying out of reach,
just like coyote.

Watch the dog.  He doesnt sweat the small stuff, nor agonize over debt, or worry about another Republican administration.  He just is.  Here and now.  And thats really what its all about.  Being here now.  (If i can reference a title of a book by Baba Ram Dass that was simply everywhere when I was a kid.  My parents must have owned a dozen copies;)

Self awareness.  And by that I mean that which seperates "Life" from "life".  As biological entities, we transcend the mere cellular processes of existence by the capacity to pause, watch for a moment the whole parade, and say "I Am."

Inspire others.  In the classic grass-roots model, put your money where your mouth is, so to speak.  Get out there and organize a volunteer effort to clean up your local river,...or a personal favorite, organize a petition and media campaign to resist strip mall development.  Not to brag or anything, but take a look at northern Dutchess county, NY.....not a Burger King or McDonalds in a 25 mile radius ;)

Something momentous is occuring at this very moment.  It has all the properties of force of nature, a great vast engine of unstoppable inertia, a swelling momentum of pure force.  Unlike other examples of powerful natural processes, such as eartquakes or tsunamis, this one builds where the others tear down.  Akin to them however, it will also serve to scour away that which was standing and leave in its place something new.  Forgive the rampant idealism saturated in the above metaphors, but watching the DNC with its...dare I say...triumphant chriscendo last night, left me with something I didnt expect to feel.  Ever.  After spending 8 years watching the fascist juggernaut ram lie after lie down the American public's throats, and seeing that despicible simian countenance smirking his way through one monumental failure after another, my standard cynical assessmnet of the human condition received confirmation time and time again.  Now, being fully aware that my knee jerks typically to the left, and that the picture is always more complicated than it appears, I still had given up on what I considered to be the sham that was the American promise.  But something happened last night.  Something that had been growing over the past weeks.   Could it possibly be.....hope ?

...an experience of both harrowing loss and miraculous reunion occurred yesterday...both now phasing in and out of each other, making it difficult to rate relative scales of intensity.  Suffice it to say that within the microcosm that is my world, it was intense.  My housemates and I, who ourselves have a unique and tremendous relationship, decided that the glorious late summer weather was too precious to let slip past, and they having just come back from an exultant sojourn amongst the Rockies decided without haste to head for the mountains.  Those within range of course are the Poconos, mountainous perhaps not in the Coloradan scale, but deep and high regardless.  Thus decided, our troupe assembled, gear amassed and water bottles filled.  Of deficit to my housemate's journey amongst the great peaks was the absence of the finest of pups, whose image graces this page, who goes by the name of Blake.  Of special intent was to have his company upon  a trail as he was unable to join them upon the canyon passes.  He is named Blake of course because of the one who threaded experience into his weave above and beyond all else.  As in all things, such knowledge comes at a price.

We arrive at this pristine encampment, pine and deciduous forest rippling over the geological remnants of pleistocene glacial retreat...a glittering lake to our right, we set off.  Hound is as happy as can be, pacing us through the brush on either side, nose to the ground, tongue flapping, darting through our own divergent cadences...but always registering our position..pausing when necessary...stopping when one of us called. 

An hour and a half passes.  We find ourselves in a region of forest that manages to block most of the radiant heat from the mid-afternoon sun...its oddly cool.  We make jokes and pause to guzzle water.  Its then that Puppy, who had been so good and so obedient, suddenly and without warning dashes into the woods with a speed and intent that was astounding...we see him dart,,smash...retrack....dash...then...vanish.  We call.  We keep calling.  This is unusual.  This is weird.  This is fucked up.  My chest starts pounding.  A few seconds go by.  No sound.  My friends go into the woods, calling him.  Nothing. I stay put, watching.  They split up.  I hear them calling his name, their voices becoming a little more freaked as their distance becomes greater.  The sounds of their voices become as about as loud as the sound of breaking branches.  I look at my phone and it says 4:47. Somehow it managed to have enough signmal for that.   I decide to continue up the trail we had been walking as I thought the last flash of motion I'd seen from Puppy was in a line that might have aligned with the trail further up.  So I start walking.  "He's fine"...."They'll find him"..........."This isnt happening".....

As I walk, I'm trying to whisltle into the impentrable woods I see on either side of me, recognizing all the while the futility as I sense greater and greater gravities on either side.  I no longer try to stay in vocal contact with my housemates...the last muffled call of my name went unanswered.   We all love our pets.  We seek having them for different reasons, but something happens when you raise them from their most vulnerable to their strongest.  What is that bond that unites us so strongly?  Is it some primal bond that predates practically everything ?? Sweet Blake exhibited nothing but love....indeed he is a truly pure spirit, without a milligram of aggresion or malice.  Pure and undiluted love. 

As I trudged up that trail, the magnitude of the situation became undeniably present...Here we were in the middle of the woods, and somewhere, out there was Puppy...lost.  He never, never, never vanished like this before...not on a thousand walks.  He always paused, even as a little puppy to make sure where I was.  It was now 5:53 when I came upon a clearing and the grey snake of a road visible through a gap in the trees.  All I kept thinking was how I'd failed him.  thats when the tears started.

That road seemed to be vaguely triangulate with the trail and the piece of forest where we last saw him, so I decided to start climbing down and walk that road.

6:12..I'm walking down this random country road bounded by nothing but forest, whistling and calling like an idiot.  The few passing cars were filled with curious expressions.   And of course, no one paused to ask if i needed help.  

After awhile, I came to this hard and fast realization that I was about to get myself lost too and that I'd better head back up the road to where I'd gotten off the trail.  So I turned around, and started walking back up the road...still trying to whistle.  The sheer futility of my endeavor came crashing down on me and I almost didnt realize when I saw one of my housemates emerge onto the road from the woods ahead of me after he had continued going in a straight line through the woods from when we had initially lost him.  The instantaneous excitement and cautious expectation at seeing one another was immediately dispelled when we both learned that neither of us had found Puppy.
 
He without a word went back into the woods and I continued back up to the point where Id climbed down onto the road.  about 10 minutes later, I get there.  I climb back up the embankment, across this open space by a water treatment plant, and find again the acess point to the trail.  At this point the tears are no longer something I try to brush away.  Its nearly 7 pm.  I dont care about the bugs that are biting me.  I dont care about the fact that Im drenched in sweat and dirt.  I just ache.

I find the path again and am walking back down, wondering how we'll figure out the next step.  Will we try and camp out here even tho we dont have overnight gear ?  Contact the Park Ranger ofice somehow ??  Thats when I hear my housemate Jeff running up the trail from below me....as sweaty, cut up, bitten and dirty as me sayin the most amazing words..."he found us, ...he needs water.."  I toss him what I have left and follow jogging down to meet my other housemate sitting on the ground, cradling Puppy who is foaming at the mouth and damned near hyperventilating.....we pour the water into a bowl and he drinks like its the first time he's ever seen water,   His breathing is so hard and fast, we're scared he'll go into shock....he drinks and drinks and drinks until all our water bottles are empty.  This is 7:32.  We try to get him up to walk, but he wont.  All he can do is lie on the ground panting a thousand times a second.  Thats when I hear what happened.  While I and Jeff were both out scanning, my other housemate went back to the orginal spot on the trail where we'd lost sight of him.  She said she sat there for ever and ever, sobbing...and then just a few minutes before...around 7:10...she heard this slightest of jingles...like his collar tags...and then...waaaaaayyyy down the trail in the opposite direction she saw this black dot...when she started shouting his name, he ran faster and faster and by the time he reached her, he simply collapsed at her feet. 

He has scratches all over his face, upper torso, and belly.  He was exhausted, dehydrated and...terrified.  We took turns carrying him out of the park (not easy as he's a solid animal) as he was too wiped to walk.  He then, with only brief interruptions, slept nearly 16 hours straight.  We cleaned up the scratches and he is now acting like his usual self, and will be goin to the Vet first thing tomorow.  The question is...what the HELL happened to him ???
 

I really don't think so.  I see alot of theistic-based statements on this site which makes me wonder if some kind of theistic belief is necessary to pursuing a spiritual path.  But lets define our terms. Specifically an atheist is someone who lacks belief in a god or deities.  Thats pretty basic. They believe that there is nothing religion has done for the betterment of mankind than could not have been done by secular means.  And they recognize the danger  such beliefs represnt, as it inspires people to do any number of horrific and unhumane things.  "A spiritual path" for me is developing one's awareness of the interconnectedness of all life, the symbolic content of universal human experiences, the many-layered realities in mythology and art, etc.  An absence of belief in any of the personalities referred to as gods or goddesses does not necessarily preclude a spiritual awareness.  For me, letting those go is a necessary prerequisite to greater understanding.

I remember walking along a windy country road empty of all that was human, except myself and the asphalt snake beneath my feet.  It was the season of plenty, and all that surrounded me was bursting with growth, in some wild symphony of chaotic order.  There was this buzzing, this sonorous sub-tone to the terrain of sun drenched green and patchwork shadows.  A vast choir of unseen beings, tiny and encased in their respective exoskeletons chirped and sawed away between the oceanic grasses.

It was then that I came upon a barn, long ago abandoned and in the process of being reclaimed by the earth.  The roof had sagged and broken, exposing the bones beneath and I felt some eulogy was necessary, here at the site of someone's forgotten history.

I had a choice at that moment.  I could perceive that forlorn carcass as a testament to the ultimate futility of all human endeavor, or a temporary signpost in the never-ending cycle of transformation.  All is, and all is in flux.  What grand new world of plants sprang from the fertile decomposed wood...what perfect shelter was given countless animals as they birthed their young.

All is, and all changes, and all stays the same.

I saw this on a bumpersticker once, and it rang true....."Lord help me be the man my dog thinks I am"

Um....this question seems a decade out of time, as the explosion of blogging has shown, most people nowadays dont in fact get their news from the mass media.