As Spiritual as a Slug

Higher Level Living?

Because of our intellect, humankind has come to believe that we’re all living at some “higher level” than the rest of our earthly companions: animals., plants, rocks, rivers.

Lately I’ve been wondering about that. I’m questioning it is all. So humans have invented the iPad, high rise apartment buildings and gigantic mono-culture farms. Okay. We can entertain our brains, live in great stacked groups and eat, eat, eat. We are awesome at consuming and reproducing and generally dominating the life cycles of just about every creature we live in proximity with – but is this living at a higher level?

That we have the resources enough to allow us the freedom to ponder the “I am”-ness of life doesn’t put us in the present any more than the male cardinal singing what amounts to about the very same thing in the tree in my front yard. Does it?

In the Moment

Does a slug experience a natural nirvana?

The goal of many a spiritually enlightened practitioner is to experience the “being in the moment” aspects of life, hence meditation. A worthy goal indeed, but how is it we who are so clever don’t see that pretty much we’re the only ones who struggle with that? I can’t prove it, but I think a lioness laid out in the sun, a snake basking on a rock, a slug paused on a rested garden rake are all in their moments quite purely. Maybe we wouldn’t call what they’re experiencing having achieved “nirvana” but could be we’re quite mistaken.

I don’t think we’ll ever know for certain either because they may not be able to mentally grasp what not being in the moment is like. We’d ask our smartly crafted questions and the cat we’re interrogating is going to look at us in the way they do – you know the look – they’ll do the ol’ squeezy-eye and we’ll be all, like, “Awwww, cutie-pie kitty guy…” and meanwhile the puss-cat is caught in the outflow of the Oneness of Being and quite beyond (let’s not say above, shall we? It’s so judgmental.) our material grappling in that moment. This won’t be a language problem, it will be an issue of a root level conceptual incomprehension. I don’t think their brains have a capacity to not be in the moment – the thought that such a way of being could exist will be invisible to them.

So who’s living the more meaningful life, eh?

I don’t know. Like I said, I’m just asking questions.

Creative Consideration

Think about it too, if you like. Pick some creatures or objects and wrap your thoughts around how they might be experiencing their existence. Take notes. Jot your thoughts down. Take snapshots and work it out who you think has the better life.

Better Life?

I know, right? That’s judgmental. Maybe just look at how the differences in experiences play out for others. Make a note of who might be doing things in ways you wish you could.

Adjusting Subtle Energy

Uncomfortable Places

Stuck Energy

Sometimes a space feels weird. A room has an odd ‘energy‘, a house gives you the willies. This can happen for animals too. A stall agitates the horse who tries to rest there. A dog won’t relax in your new apartments.

I’m not saying we’re talking about hauntings because I think that concept calls up a lot of pulp fictiony, cartoon-style imagry and vulgar, misleading interpretations.

I am talking about energy, specifically, energy that’s trapped or otherwise stagnated that, rather than dissipating, seem to spiral in uncomfortable vortexes, that, while we can’t see them with our eyes, other ways we connect with our surroundings seem attuned to. These semi-trapped energy bundles seem prone to collecting in corners and other tight spaces.

Brand Named ‘Bad’ Energy

Stuck energy bundles are created from a variety of means mostly having to do with mood and intention as emanated by the occupants or former occupants of a space and go by a whole bunch of different identifying ‘brand’ names assigned by various philosophies and religions: demons, ghosts, spirits to name some popular choices.

Ever since I saw the movie “The Exorcist” with its frighteningly demonic depiction of energy I’ve turned away from such explosive interpretations. Those scare tactics designed to instill fear seem truly counter productive to creative peace, happiness and personal spiritual enlightenment so I shun them. However, the truth from which these interpretations draw is the energy I’ve described. That exists.

Imagination and religious branding can turn it into various scary forms to be sure, but conscientiously dealing with it using some simple, almost folkloric, tools is perfectly do-able even for the non-spiritual.

Energy: Art + Science

Quantum physics tells us a bunch about the oddities of energy and how it can seemingly bend what we tend to think of as solid realities with apparent quantifiable effects that warp the real time observances of the space-time continuum. Just because we can’t see an energy or a force doesn’t mean it isn’t there. We live with such magical ideas all the time. Gravity, for starters – the smartest among us still don’t exactly know what it is – just what it seems to do. Or how about Gamma rays? Or X-rays — the power of suggestion, too. Weird forces you can’t really get at with ordinary senses but are there and apparent nonetheless.

Older cultures attuned to their own perceptions of subtle energies came up with some perfectly wonderful ways to adjust their effects on themselves or their populations. Some of these methods have survived the often suppressive limitations of evolving modern beliefs and are easily attained and likewise easily used. There are several I use with some regularity to impact how interiors feel or seem to feel.

The Tools

Sage, Tibetan Bells and Wind Chimes.

Sage Smudge Stick

Sage smudge sticks are little bundles of leaves and sticks from the sage plant. They are meant to be slowly burnt so the smoke generated can permeate an area. You will see them mentioned when people are talking about ‘clearing’ a room or house or a tipi. This article goes into more detail.

Tibetan Bells or Tingsha

Tibetan Bells, or Tingsha, are sort of like little cymbals that hang down from a short length of leather. You’re supposed to hold the leather and bang the bells together so they ring clearly. They say the ringing, along with your intentions doing so, help the sound waves emenating from your actions affect stagnant energy, loosening it up so it can join the sound waves and move along and disburse.

Beautifully Tuned Wind Chimes

Wind Chimes work a lot like the tingsha except they’re more passive and react directly to the natural forces of weather when well placed. I believe their harmonics, tone and timbre are very important to the cleansing process. Great care should be taken when acquiring them, choose a set that sounds right or resonates pleasingly to you. Usually the better ones, those that have been mindfully tuned, have been designed to vibrate beautifully together and will cost a bit more. It’s always worth it.

Some Background

When my husband and I bought our 200+ year old log home we were told by people who had lived in it that it was “most definitely haunted”. They proceeded to cite numerous personal experiences that described how this had played out for them and the people that lived here.

The house seemed to echo with all the strife....

With such an old presence I had little trouble envisioning the house’s history being full of the after effects of many human emotions. As I came to know more about them I learned the people we were buying it from were full of personal turmoil with a tendency towards negative emoting initiated by a lot of explosive drama in their relationships with one another and those they came in contact with.

I felt the house we had just bought was full of their buzz so I took immediate steps to reverse the effects.

The Process

Step 1

Because we weren’t going to move in right away I decided to start the energy readjustment passively by hanging wind chimes off the side porch so the spring winds would catch them and start the new harmonics flowing. It was sort of a pleasant promise to the house itself that things were changing and peace would reign again. I spent as much as I could afford on that set that chimes away happily to this day in the very same spot.

The side benefit to this was even though I was still hundreds of miles away the energy our new house was being bathed in positive sounds every time the wind blew.

Step 2

Before we moved in our first load of personal belongings (after physically cleaning the place up top to bottom, inside and out – believe me the poor house was a mess) I then lit a sage smudge stick and slowly walked its smoke throughout the entire place; into every room, every closet, every hallway, into every corner — waving it slowly high and low until every spatial inch had been occupied with wisps of the smoke. It’s kind of an odd smell, sage is. A little like burning fall leaves with a sort of resin-y acidic ‘after burn’. Not altogether displeasing, actually.

Step 3

The tingsha help disburse stuck energy

Tingsha, the Tibetan bells. With a little practice you can get pretty good at ringing these. You’ll come to discover that you can actually hear for yourself when you’ve come close to some stuck energy. It’s usually found in corners and the residual ringing of the bells in your inner ears will sound ‘flat’ or off key. What’s really amazing, at least to me, is how you can hear the flatness be resolved as you continue ringing in this one spot allowing each ring to play fully out. You just bang the bells together allowing their sound to fully disburse until the next ring – repeating until the harmonics sound right to you.

You can also help this process along by gently moving the vibrating bells up and down and side to side to sort of create a path for the stuck energy to follow. Do this all throughout every room or stall or office or space in the place you’re adjusting. I have done gardens and cars and art fair tents too. I would plan on spending about 10 minutes per room or space – though it could be more or less – your ears will tell you!

Summary

That’s the 3 step process I use for deliberate energy cleansing. I follow up with some prayer flag placement and other sort more day to day positive energy influencing – addressed in other posts. I have had repeated great good luck with it! Since moving into our grand old home I have never had any ghost like or bad energy experience here. Nor have any of our guests or animals that I’m aware of. I’m often told our house feels comfortable and homey. I don’t think people are just being polite.

Other Tools

• Gongs
• bells
• incense
• chants
• drums
• music
• pictures
• prayer flags
• colors
• plants
• candles, etc.

You can start to see where all of these items when used intentionally, actively or passively, can help ‘adjust’ the energy of a physical place. If you’ve got a favorite or one you’re particularly drawn to — use it!

Fox Seeking

Introduction

Around where I live they do this thing on horseback called fox hunting. Basically they talk a loud batch of spotted dogs into running over hill and dale baying as they dash after the scent of a fox and the people follow at breakneck speeds on willing horses.

The whole thing is nuts. Back in the day when lots of folks relied on their flocks of chickens for day to day sustenance foxes (Vulpes vulpes) became villains due to the easy pickings in the coop yards. Thus a grudge was born and perpetual open season on foxes began. Being that these people tended to also keep horses and hounds and maybe ran a still down yonder holler for medicinal squeezin’s or what-all a sport was invented. I think the guy with the biggest flask and baddest taste in clothes was elected head of the outfit. Ostensibly that red jacket made him an easier target to follow as they all galloped pell mell. I mean why go out and shoot a fox w

hen you can track it in the most circuitous and vociferous manner for an afternoon and then witness its unceremonious demise at the teeth of the dogs all woozy and knobby kneed astride your sweaty heaving sided equine? That’s fox hunting as far as I know.

Fast forward to modern times and everything pretty much is as it was then except nowadays foxes are largely left out of the equation and everyone – hounds too – follows the scented trail laid down by some poor sod chosen for the task who’s ment to drag a stinky bag hither and thither for the gang to lurch after later in the day. Of course this is an excellent time to practice diabolical orienteering. What with laymen buying their eggs from agri-congloms and all the vendetta has cooled, becoming less personal apparently.

Fox Seeking

Fox seeking is completely different. First off you’ll notie how not loud it is. You don’t need a posse, nor a passel of dogs, a flask, or even a horse – though including any or all of these is certainly acceptable though may cut into your chances of actually seeing a fox. The point with fox seeking isn’t to spook the furry orange wonder, but to catch a glimpse of something rare. You have to patient, and savvy to the ways of foxes. Or lucky. Or have a trampoline in your backyard.

Fox seeking entails forming a desire to find, discovering how to best your chances of being successful with that and then employing this knowledge going forth with your intentions. Seriously, this is how to accomplish anything creative. So I’ll go over those again.

1. Discovering how to best your chances of being successful
   Maybe this is research, looking stuff up, watching instructional videos, reading books, asking experts, attending clinics, workshops, classes….
2. Putting that knowledge to work intentionally
   Getting started, breaking through the barriet of not-doing to doing. This part stops a lot of people in their tracks. Maybe here is where they hear from others about how not successful they’re going to be, or how hard this kind of pursuit is – maybe these same negative thoughts are being self-generated; in any case they are non-productive and should be abolished or ignored if you want to get on with it.

Creative Consideration

Practice Fox Seeking in a way that pleases you. You know what would be ironic? Looking for a fox hunt to go watch or participate in. Not the killing kind, please. They do it in horsie areas. Otherwise go someplace where foxes live and see if you can find one. Or, last choice, decide to acquire some knowledge or learn some new skill and make the effort to do just that. Keep a log of your progress!

I Love Trees

Trees are such awesome individuals. Like us, they begin life from a tiny tiny beginning; a seed and with time grow into large embodiments of the ideas held in that original encased potential.

They grow right where they are.

They don’t seem to particularly long for different conditions though they will definitely lean towards the favorable. They commit to place and get on with their business of living.  They drink when it is offered and dance when the air insists. They slowly compete for sky and as wee youngsters start seeking personal heights immediately.

Their arms hold the homes of birds – nature’s optimists. They may house innumerable species of creatures, big and small and be as full of neighborhoods as a big ol’ city!

You can count on a tree to be there.

They don’t go off to seek their fortunes in distant lands. They quietly create their lives in place – influencing the landscape with their presence, sharing their bounty with their presents:

• seeds
• shade
• sap
• shelter
• shape

There is everything to love about a tree.

Much to admire.

They don’t embarrass easily. They’re tough. Sturdy. Reliable.

They’re interesting too. Like how they can change dramatically to optimize their existence for different seasons:

Sun Gathering – leafed out.

Drought Coping – leaf dropping.

Fall Hope – seeds.

Winter Waiting – bare branched.

Spring Mayhem – flowers!

Their branches draw for us opportunistic paths found all throughout this universe: part pure randomness part perfectly predictable.

Trees are symbols of strength, hope, adaptability. Wherever they are life lived near them is more pleasant. I love trees.

Creative Consideration

Go spend some quality time in the company of trees. Document what you experience in whatever way you like best, photographs, drawings, recording, video, story, list of observations. Anything will do – do what the trees inspire!

Turning Ideas Into Action!

Ideas Like to Flutter Off

Many of us have tons of ideas. For some, ideas are the lifeblood that flows through our very souls connecting our hopes and dreams. But how do we get these esoteric beauties out of their glittery realms and into the harder world around us?

When we pick up a pencil, like dreams often do before we can give them our wakeful attention, ideas may floof coyly away. What are we to do? The solution is wonderfully and maddeningly easy: Just get started!

But start how? Where? And with what?

Consider the hummingbird. One fine day in spring her tiny self — along with her many wee cohorts — gets a bee in her bonnet and off she zips on a thousands + kilometer odyssey up to her summer haven. That impulse to go — to up and leave — and head somewhere on inspiration alone: that’s you and your ideas!

You fly and fly and replenish enough to keep flying. Maybe you don’t know exactly why you’re flying nor where you’re going, but you fly on and on. You keep going until you eventually arrive somewhere. Maybe just because you’re pooped or maybe because you get a right feeling a place; whatever the reason, you stop flying and switch gears.

That’s you with your unexpressed ideas. You’ve flown for miles and miles and now you’re perfectly poised to do what’s next!

And what is next?

Nest building!

This is the crux of the whole thing. To give foundation to ideas you have to build a safe place to nurture them.

The Start

For our hummer this means finding an out of the way space where she can start to build her home, where it won’t be molested by marauding crows, voracious squirrels or vagabond jays. What do you need to support the growth of your ideas?

• sketch or idea pad
• (sacred) daily time within your schedule (they say the muses attend to those who keep regular hours)
• an open mind (no need to self censor in these stages – let it flow!)
• potential outlets (ideas prefer arriving to places where they can grow)
• supportive resources

The Process

So now the place is found. Our tiny companion now transitions into nest building mode. She seeks items that will somehow fit and stick together to become something whole. Something that accommodates the goals inherent in the ideas. Which brings us to my favorite part of the whole process! The tipping point that transitions conceptual idea formation into dynamic attainment of the aspirations they’re meant to address.

Not everything sticks at first - or even ever...

This is where you ‘put one foot in front of the other’ and proceed. What I love about this part is this is the phase where false starts, little booboos and other mistakes (mis-takes) can be fairly easily absorbed by the process itself as long as the process continues. That’s the important point here: As long as the process continues!

For many of us after a series of little failures we may give up. That’s not cool. That’s where we abandon our nest because a few clumps of moss didn’t stick right.

What does the hummingbird do? She carries on with her work even though not everything she brings back works. She goes with the law of averages instead.

Let me personalize this. This blog you’re reading is a nest. I build it post by post, sketch by sketch. Not all of my efforts ‘stick’ with every reader. Some fall flat onto the hard ground. But some do stick and eventually because I don’t give up it’s coming together into a cohesive whole. It is inevitable that this will happen. As I keep at it I can not fail.

Here’s the other thing. The eggs all this nest building is for may not hatch. It may be conditions external to my efforts won’t allow it. But that doesn’t mean my nest isn’t perfect! We nest builder have to remember that what we create may not accomplish the goals we sought through our building endeavors. I may compile the posts on this blog into a beautiful book no one wants to buy. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t created a beautiful book!

Let’s say the hummingbird’s nest contains unhatchable eggs gets plucked out of the tree by a birder who sends it to a natural history museum that puts it in a glass case where generation after generation of inquisitive human eyes come to witness this miniature piece of beak-built architecture. Maybe one of them gets the idea to create a whole new way of assembling materials based on the experience of seeing this wonderfully adapted work.

The original intention remains unattained but crazy larger accomplishments because of those original efforts is!

That is Storybook Ending C.

Storybook Ending B is: great nest, no hatchlings — second even better nest is built!

Storybook Ending A? C + B.

Field Play

When I lived in a hip Chicago neighborhood one of my delights in this quintessentially urban lifestyle was observing the squirrels who made their living in the trees grown up between the brownstone walkups. I would delight in their scamperings whenever I went outside. I’d sometimes sit in the front window and watch them deftly negotiate the many challenges of being a wild animal in the city with what, to my eyes, looked like a lot of good sense and great cheer.

I would place unsalted peanuts out where I could watch the little blighters come and snatch them away. One neighbor had taken his peanut doling to a higher level and could pass them right into their grabby paws. I admired that greatly.

The author's husband observing his grandfather and squirrel pal.

My husband’s grandfather also had a way with these ebullient critters and in the backyard of a small town Ohio house hand fed the brave to the great delight of all. He wouldn’t let them smoke though that was a treat shared only with his pug dog but that’s another story.

Activity

Spend some time with animals at liberty (free, unimpeded with leashes, shanks or other attachments to your person) whether in your suburban backyard, your inner city dog park or your country pasture.

Hang out with whomever shows up and however they do so. Soak up what they offer. If you like take a gander at the video below shot from the viewer’s point of view and join the animals of DogTrot Hill on a warm late winter day.

Discussion

• Do animals that are not physically attached to you (leashes, etc) behave any differently when they are free to move about?
• How does it feel when they choose to approach you?
• In the video did you notice any instance of what might be called play behavior? Who did it, what did they do and what do you think of that?
• What do you think might have changed in these scenes if wild rabbits had hopped through?

Creative Consideration

1. Using colorful ribbons, string, and yarn braid together a four to six foot length.
2. With sturdy paper or cardbaord and drawing or painting supplies create a batch of images, words, quotes or photos that represent your own dreams, hopes and wishes.
3. With a hole punch and more string or wire attach these to the end of your dream leash.
4. Hang prominently to remind you what you wish to be attached to.
5. Be careful what you wish for. 🙂

Sleeping In

Hibernation. Holing up. Going underground. These are all expressions of the wonderful skill many creatures practice in locations with seasonal stretches of hard cold environment. Times when survival is next to impossible.

They prepare a safe insulated sleeping place where their systems slow into a state somewhere beyond sleep but still this side of bodily existence.

When the surroundings are not supportive of life – these deft creatures simply detach until conditions change. Rather than struggle fruitlessly against environmental realities over which they have no power and from which there is no reasonable escape – they have a healthy instinct to wait it out as comfortably as possible.

I like to think they enter the consciousness of the quintessential state of boundless creation and renewal - the place of dreams

You don’t see skunks skulking around arguing with snow storms nor grizzly bears railing against rivers depleted of their bountiful fish by the circumstance of winter. Too, in drought prone dry places the critters there hunker down zoning out until more clement times return. I like to think they – and all the others – enter the consciousness of the quintessential state of boundless creation and renewal – the place of dreams. The total opposite of the struggle they might otherwise experience during the cyclical hard times.

If not the genius of the individual but the wisdom of her species ingrained well within her DNA, this propensity to ensure survival in this way inspires me to think more deeply about not just reaffirming and rejuvenatory qualities of dreams but their flat-out protective ones too.

Activities

1. Describe your perfect dreaming den:

• temperature
• sounds
• the qualities of the covers
• how dark (or light) is it
• time allowed to stay there
• what co-inhabitants are present
• what is the best way to be awakened
• which direction does the bed face
• are there views available to see and what are they

Yes think about your ideal situation for sleep geographically is that helps you get started – but then spend some thought highlighting what that perfect place has in the way of fundamental characteristics. So without the expense of a trip to, say, the South Pacific maybe you can create a more symbolically positive sleeping sanctuary for your regular nightly ‘hibernations’ mindfully assembling the most comforting accoutrement.

2. List some ways you might alter your own situation to help you recharge rather than be depleted this winter.

• comfy jammies
• cozy sheets
• fluffy pillows
• uplifting bedtime reading materials
• other bedtime rituals (hot toddy? nightly prayer?)
• soft light
• ambient sleep noises or music
• un-jarring ‘alarms’ (sound machines or programmable music settings)
• what do you look at when you awake – windows? Posters? Inspirational somethings? (quotes, shrine, photos, etc)

3. List Dream Topics you prefer to spend time with in your slumbers.

Creative Consideration

Sweet Dreams Pillow Case

1. You’ll need:

• plain, unpatterned pillowcase (you’ll get cleaner lines on an unwashed new one)
• fabric pens and/or paints (any permanent markers work too!)

2. Prepare a sketch of your ideas on a separate piece of paper. Write poems that inspire you, draw pictures of places you want to go or are love having already been. Inspired quotes are good, wishes are wonderful. Things you’re grateful for – these are all good topics.

3. Slip some newspaper or cardboard into the case so you don’t get accidental bleedthrough.

4. Have at it! If you start with painted outlines let those dry completely before coloring them in.

Sweet Dreams Pillow Insert

Let’s say you like the idea of the pillow case but don’t necessarily want the world (or that part of it you let into your bedroom) to see what you’ve done. cover your hand decorated pillow case with your regular patterned one. OR you can decorate a simple piece of plain material and tuck in between the case and the pillow.

Happy Thoughts

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What? No Activity?

Usually I start each blog off with some sort of animal assisted activity designed to help illuminate a personal challenge in some new way. Today I’m breaking from that pattern just a bit and sharing a project I just finished. Because it was designed to help me focus using creative flow on just one theme I figured it fits as a stand alone for what we’re all about here!

Sure! It’s an All-In-One is all

All of the above sketches were done in the morning with a cup of coffee while still in bed, well before the day got off and running. They were created as a part of a Very Large Art Project coordinated by a group of enthusiasts in Brooklyn, New York. I’m including in our blog here at QuantumSparks because they illustrate just how quickly positive imagery can be – how unencumbered by technique – how off the cuff so to speak.

In the project I chose the theme “Happy Thoughts“, so each page is a little ditty done on something that when I think about it makes me happy. This is an excellent exercise for you too!

In today’s blog post the Activity and the Creative Consideration are one and the same. All you need to do is pick up a small inexpensive sketchbook and with a pencil have at it! Just complete the thing with a bunch of quick drawings about things that make you happy! No wait, I take that back – they don’t have to be drawings at all. You can also just fill the thing up with lists or cut outs of things that make you happy. The point is:

1. to do it a little bit every day for upwards of a week
2. to only include things that fill the bill

That’s it!

See the Originals!

To see my sketches in their full blown glory click here and an online flip book of the whole shebang will open in a new window.

Biscuit Math

We humans have a charming habit of measuring stuff in relation to ourselves. Thus we segment areas in feet and report the height of horses in hands. Tiny things we say are thinner than a hair, presumably one of our own.

As earthlings we measure vast distances of space by their quantities of Astronomical Units (AUs) which are themselves the average 93 million miles between the earth and our (ha!) sun. Industrial designers necessarily take into account the average sized human when they concoct items for the mass market like dinette sets, keyboards and automobiles.

When I invite you to consider an ordinary chair, in your mind’s eye you do so and as it forms you have a sense in your whole body of how you might relate to that chair in space. Through habit, or experience, or familiarity with the function of ‘chair’ you sense the thing wholly when you consider it mentally.

Those who study cognition call this sense of self in space in relation to the external world exteroception. This includes the body negotiating itself within the volumes of the external world or proprioceptions as an auxiliary component to moving around without always banging into things. Fancy words for easy ideas. I want to shine a light on these concepts we tend to take for granted for a moment because it is these ways of being that cause us to have instant unquestioned reactions to what we perceive.

Enhancing the creative process often entails examining things heretofore taken for granted.

We humans are hardly unique in this ability to judge space. Many’s the pony who has figured out how to wipe an unwanted rider off her back by trotting under a low hanging branch. In her mind the accommodating limb was as high as a pony’s back but lower than a mounted child. Clever pony! I think it’s safe to conclude that this little equine has a well conceived sense of her physical self in relation to the world around her.

Song birds, when they fly back to their nests tucked in to the safe interiors of shrubs demonstrate a pitch perfect ability to slip themselves into these irregularly tight spaces showing an impressive full body dexterity. They zoom in, fold their wings at the exact perfect last moment and hop with nary a bonk to the beak.

My dogs seem to measure aspects of their days in biscuits. The beginning of the day is spent anticipating the peanut butter supplement hidden biscuit. Midday focuses on the after-visiting-the-barn biscuit back at the house. Then we’re on the Main Event of the Big Bowl of meat, rice and kibbles. We finish up with the evening last call for outside come back into the house reward biscuit with an occasional good dog bedtime biscuit. So time might be chunked into an equivalent of one Big Bowl = our clocked minute and one biscuit may = one second.

Activity

Define the world around you in terms of different animals observing it. Let’s say you chose an ant – how will he describe distance? Size? Speed? Will a cheetah do so differently? What are some terms a fast cat might use that are different from what a slug might say?

Creative Consideration

Construct a chart choosing various critters and the measured worlds they inhabit from their point of view.

Bonus Info

• Knee-high to a grasshopper
• In a coon’s age
• Dog tired

Discussion

Where I currently live (Lexington, Kentucky USA) they say we’re within ” a day’s

drive” from over half of the rest of the country’s population. Day’s Drive being the measurement. Indeed there are so many counties here (120) which is more than typical, because the early state planners wanted each county seat to be within a half day’s ride on horseback from the furthest point within that county. Now the measurement is in Horseback Rides. What other interesting measurements can you think of or create? Share them with your group or jot them down in your notebook.

Idea sparks:

• How many Snickers bars in a week?
• The meeting was how long in cups of coffee?
• That wait in the doctor’s office was how many insipid magazine articles long?
• The outside temperature is how many layers c-c-cold?

Subtle Energies – Meditation 101

We all have different levels of awareness and attunement to the world around us. Even throughout an individual’s life our signature set point will fluctuate as various moods, emotions, energies and awarenesses ebb and flow. What we eat, our hormones, our age, health condition and other physical circumstances will all have various degrees of effect on our abilities to process the environment and our perceptions of it.

Because we’re human we are forever questioning our progress through our lives. We note our position in an array of hierarchies we deem to be important — most of which have nothing significant to add to our physical well being. These tendencies get in the way of our natural inborn abilities to just be. We’re often projecting, planning and envisioning times that are not the present.

While we are born with an amazingly fine tuned intuition it seems as we acquire language, culture and other of the human life filters we start becoming less aware of how we are instantly changed and affected by subtle energies around us. Apparently those aspects of Homo sapien life that are logical are easier to share overtake those that are more esoteric as we build our consciousness in relation to the world around us.

Not so with animals. After an earthquake what do people report their pets were doing hours before the shaking started? Acting strangely. They are sensing the shake well before any of our scientific instruments can measure it. What are they responding to? Subtle energies is what I’m suggesting. Unhindered animals start seeking higher ground well before any tsunami waves sweep over the land.

What are they sensing that we humans miss?  You’ve heard of dogs who know to alert their epileptic human partners of an oncoming seizure well before the human or her instruments might know one’s brewing? Equine clinician Pat Parelli says “Horses know what happens before what happens happens.”. He uses it in the context of training them to be lighter on the cues – I’m sharing it here because I think all animals know what happens before what happens happens with a lot more consistency and subtly then we usually give them credit for way beyond any formal training session. Until we start paying better attention that is.

The calm of a cat extends out from the physical kitty

It’s as though we’re all driving on Life’s superhighways but while animals stay focused on their travels we people are forever texting. Our acquired preoccupations seem to get in the way of our abilities to really be present in our world. We do a lot of living in our heads is what I’m saying.

Activity

With a Horse

Spend an entire day in the company of a horse or horses. My riding readers will be happy to note that any sort of proximity is perfect – even (maybe even especially) trail riding! Pay attention to your overall mood as the day spent in this way flows on.

• Does you attention shift to other things? What?
• Do you notice different things than you usually do? What?

With a Dog

Spend an entire day in the company of a dog or dogs who are at liberty to exert themselves without leashes or other specific guidelines. Arrange to take them to a dog park or other such place where they can be free as the centerpiece to this day. While you can put yourself in charge of the travel arrangements and logistics to and fro — do not be the boss during the play. Just be one of the dogs. Take their lead. Be like them.

Note: unleashed dogs sort out their rank order quickly and with minimal fuss when left alone to do so — generally it is the trepidation of their human companions who elevate chance meetings to unpleasant end — stay out of it! Dogs know how to socialize, let them.

Note to the Note: Be aware of people who might be present who do not get the concept of dogs being able to take care of their meetings for it is they who will unwittingly spark mean spirited outbreaks at the ol’ dog park.

• Does you attention shift to other things? What?
• Do you notice different things than you usually do? What?

With a Spider

Spiders; weavers, trapeze artists, horrific life-juice suckers are also practitioners of patience and creativity par excellence. They are consummate waiters with a knack for determining which triangulations in space will afford them optimal prospects. Go forth and find webs. Pay particular attention to their locations. Note their symmetry and regularity of the individual strands that make the whole. Then remember these are wee bugs doing this with their butts!

• Locate the web’s architect.
• Pay your respects.
• Find some more.
• Repeat.

Creative Consideration

Draw a picture of your favorite animal’s energy aura. Use your imagination. Play with color, shape and space around and within this creature. Add some glitter, draw yourself in there and have that energy envelop you in it’s effects.

Discussion

• What is it about animal energy that you think might be different from that of humans?
• Can we learn to re-discover our more intuitive responses to such energies? Why or why not?
• Are these energies measurable? How? Or why not?
• Are there similarities with BEing with animals to meditation? What are they?

That last discussion point is completely loaded. Meditation can be learned easily by practicing being present with animals. You don’t have to go all bendy legged and zen. You can just go out and spend quiet time with quiet animals. I think of horses as natural mediators. I have seen the ones I live with totally zoned out on the ickiest of all the weather days and instead of complaining or seeking shelter they seem to enter a state of existence where everything’s all good even though to me it looks simply horrid. Mind you, it’s not like they aren’t happy to come into the barn and eat some oats at that point – but that seems to be its expression of being present. What the heck – meditation isn’t about suffering, it’s about being! And sometimes one is invited to exist with one’s favorite snacks!

Creative Consideration #2

Go fix yourself a delightful snack and be present while you consume it.