Mister Dog

We've had this scraggly stray dog coming to visit us at the cabin. We've named him Mister Dog, a character in one of Bodhi's books. In the book, Mister Dog is a dog that doesn't belong to anyone, he belongs to himself. I'm not even sure if this stray that comes around to our place is a male or female, but for the sake of simplicity I will refer to it as a male. He lives somewhere in the woods and survives on whatever he can catch. He's light brown, shaggy, and his hair always looks matted down from all the rain and mud he has to endure outdoors.

Kim and I have had Lieutenant Dunbar from "Dances with Wolves" moments, enthusiastically waving our hands in the air trying to get Mister Dog to come closer to eat some of our leftovers. He's been very reluctant about getting near us. He's become this phantom that we catch out of the corner of our eyes and when we turn to get a better look, he scurries off into the woods. I'm thinking that life must be uncertain for Mister Dog. Most of the time I see him his tail is down between his legs. One time, however, I saw him at a distance, he pounced on something in the grass, ate whatever he caught, his tail raised up in a brief joyful wag and then it went down between his legs again as he disappeared into the trees.

In the book we are reading, "One Year Off", the writer, Daniel Cohen, makes the statement that people crave certainty. He goes on to write that certainty is an ephemeral illusion and that we cling on to routines to give us a greater sense of security about life. He cites a friend whose life took an unexpected tragic turn and uses that examples as one of the reasons he was willing to sell off everything and take his family on an around the world adventure. He believed that following routines makes it possible to put your life on auto-pilot. His hope with the trip was to disrupt his families patterns so thoroughly that they would be receptive to new options and possibilities.

I partially agree with Cohen. I do believe that we cannot, from our earthbound perspective, get a full picture of what's ahead and that some of the things we grasp onto our truly ephemeral. And I also agree that it is often good to shake up routines to gain a fresh perspective. I do, however, believe that we can balance the uncertainty question with a large dose of faith that we are attracting into our lives whatever our inner consciousness is putting out there. What are we going to choose to send out?

I've heard it described as a car ride on a dark road. You've set a course for where you want to go and you begin the drive. On the darkened road your headlights give you only a few feet of visibility. And yet you keep driving on with the faith that you are moving to where you want to be, knowing that you will eventually make it.

How comfortable can we be with uncertainty? The answer to that question is another question, how willing are we to leap with our arms wide open knowing the net will appear?

Kim and I have been spending a lot of time pondering the security and certainty questions. It's interesting how elusive the questions can be. As I write this post, I am aware that this may be one entry that I have struggled through the most. Throughout the writing of it I was really uncertain of what I was really trying to say. Perhaps it's because I was trying to intellectualize an idea rather than simply surrender into it. It's like Kim mentioned in her recent post, our job is to get clear on the "what" and allow the Universe to take care of the "how". As humans we want to get involved in the specific details of how something will be accomplished. We are action creatures that want to do something to get something done. All the Universe really wants us to do is to surrender and allow. But that takes faith and a willingness to let go.

What I am realizing is that there is certainty as long as you allow it into your life. There is certainty in knowing that what I am putting out from my inner consciousness is what I will be out picturing in my physical world. This has been proven to Kim and I time and time again. I must admit, that when I let go of my thoughts, I am enjoying the free fall.

For now Mister Dog will remain a shadow like figure that darts in and out of our living space. He is uncertain of us. We'll dance around this relationship and keep throwing out scraps for him to take if he wants. And of course, trust that he is living his life and we are living ours, following faithfully what is true for each of us.