Great White Heron Selfie
Great White Heron Selfie, original photo by Carol Kay, %22selfie22 by Anda Peterson
To capture
a Great White Heron
in Florida
on a log
in the Hillsborough River
but really
in a frame
on your wall
take a picture
of a picture
of a heron
a selfie
of hands
capturing
all
the beauty
they can hold.
Walks with Yogi: The Enlightenment Experiment
The blog is now a published book! It has both old writing and new. Quite a bit was cut as it was redundant or not what I wanted in the book. Overall, I am amazed that this long journey (five years) has led to this.
Thank you blog followers for helping make this book a reality!
Please see the publisher’s web page for the book. Here is the link:
http://www.shantiarts.co/uploads/files/PETERSON_WALKS.html
Here is the link for the catalog. My book is under Non-Fiction
http://www.shantiarts.co/catalog/books.html
Yoga and Meditation at Meeko’s
When the temperature drops to the 60’s in Florida, we put on our long pants to do yoga. The hardy among us remain barefooted. I prefer this weather to the humid summer to come.
My Buddhism teacher has said that preferences are a cause of suffering. I believe him. I’ve experienced many things I would’ve preferred to go my way. In fact, I get stuck sometimes in preferring that my past had not been my past. I would’ve preferred to have grown up wealthy in a less dysfunctional family with a father who thought I was his princess.. Alas…For some reason my spirit chose to inhabit this situation. So be it. And it could be so much worse, I really have no reason to complain. None. Not when I see the news of the cruelty in Syria, or the homeless on our own streets, or the black people who fear being stopped for a broken twilight that might mean their death.
I am back at Meeko’s after two days at home. The inside of my car looks like I live in it. And I sort of have been this month as I bring stuff to Meeko’s house and take stuff back, or decide I should leave some of it in the car, just in case. For example, you never know if I might need the rolled up hammock or the pint size cooler. Maybe that bag of books will come in handy. And that sweater and red skirt for when I have to teach. That means I need my textbooks too. The backseat is not a minimalists dream,
Yoga this morning on the beige cement patio behind Meeko’s house is lovely. The air is dry and cool, the sun plays with the wind to make shadows of tree leaves on the patio. Someone has a fireplace going and the scent of burning wood drifts past. I prefer this to the humid summer to come. Seldom do preferences match with what one actually prefers. This is how our minds are, usually dissatisfied.
Meeko, unlike some dogs I know, isn’t interested in my stretches or that I am at ground level. Other dogs would immediately pounce on my chest to join in the game, or crawl under the bridge I make with downward dog pose. At those times, I usually give up the yoga “game” much to their disappointment. Meeko, however, is much more interested in flying bugs, squirrels running along the fence and humans who walk by. I read that American Eskimo dogs are bright, quick-witted, loyal and good watchdogs. Bingo. Meeko is all that. You’re more likely to catch his interest more if you are trying to break into his house. He prefers watching. Everything. His bright dark eyes are only heavy lidded after a day of watching. His upright ears, like a little fox’s, lie back only when he is questioing something, like when I tell him he can’t just stand on my stomach as long as he wants.
When I sit to meditate on the mat after yoga, he comes over for some petting. I use this moment to be mindful of his soft, snowy white fur. It’s part of my meditation. My preference might be to be uninterrupted, but when I dog sit, I let go of preferences like that. I can’t explain “later” to a dog.
I’m thinking about preferences today. Meeko’s versus other dogs. Mine, versus other people’s. It’s easy to notice someone’s preferences when you come to their homes. For example, Meeko’s mom doesn’t use the back patio and may be surprised that I spend time in an area she considers Meeko’s bathroom. She is more of an indoor person than I. But the area is big enough that, fortunately, I’m not aware of any unpleasant smells.
If you were to dog sit at my apartment you would see pictures of the outdoors, mostly scenes of water and birds. One picture is of an abstract pink and gray giraffe covered in purple and blue circles. A white wooden buddha, the size of a big book, sits on a table under a mirror that reflects the sky and trees outside the window on the other side of the room. I have displayed a few pictures of dogs who shared my life in the past, but not many. One is a myself with my arms around a friend’s grandkids who became my pals. Another is me at age six holding a little blonde boy’s hand another is of my brother with my dog, Yogi, taken at a scenic spot of a mountain near Asheville, North Carolina. I was still youngish (early 50’s) and cuter than I realized. If you looked at the pictures and photos you would notice though that I’m single and have more luck with dogs than men. Also, I don’t care to have many photos of my dog family or friends and family. The past only makes me sad because the good times are gone. I spend too much time in the past as it is. Buddhism teaches me to stay in the present and when I do, it’s better for me.
Others people I dog sit for prefer photos of their families everywhere in their homes. On each wall, several on tables in each room. In one family everybody just got married by the looks of the various wedding photos. Their families are the center of their lives, as animals, nature and Buddhism are to mine. Just preferences. Yet we base our identities upon them. Meeko prefers to watch; Brutus prefers bouncing small balls off his nose or standing in water; Paco needs to be on someone’s lap as often as possible, Snickers loves to chew things to smithereens. Preferences. My old boyfriends preferred blondes or long, dark straight hair when I had neither. Sometimes we think we can make an outdoors person into an indoors person. I wanted sober. He wanted drunk. He wanted perfection. I wanted acceptance. He wanted to be taken care of. I didn’t want to be his mother. That kind of thing.
You say potato, I say tomato. This often makes people part and dogs put up for adoption. I have been more accepting of my dog’s preferences than of my old boyfriends. It’s one of the reasons I’m single, I’m afraid. I was never able to be an outside person with an indoor person. And the guys I was with had the same problem.
I admire those of you who have the kind of love that allows you each your preferences enough to stick with it and through it. May you continue to be so blessed!
Breakfast with Meeko
This morning I made a big mistake. Much smaller than anything that matters, fortunately, but it ended up with Meeko winning.
I made two slices of toast covered with peanut butter and jelly. I was hungry and out of my cereal. I was looking forward to that toast. I set it down at the kitchen table and went to look for my cell phone. There is a chair at the table—you may are already know where this is heading. I’ve seen Meeko jump up on that chair several times.
I came back with my phone and found him grabbing a piece of toast from the plate. No way could I get him to drop it, although in my fruitless chasing, jelly splattered on the floor. He ran from me in a most jaunty manner, then jumped on the futon in the TV room and ate the toast happily. while I wiped the floor clean.
The futon is his choice to go with a treat, I think, because sometimes I eat there while watching TV. I guess it is our recreation space and he was recreating. The living room is for a different purpose. He perches on the top cushions alongside the big window. You never know when enemies like UPS trucks might dare arrive.
By the way, he got the best piece too. Did he know which one was the best? I was stuck with the heel of the bread..Mind you, he had already had his own breakfast. Oh, foolish human, as if that makes any difference!
I slipped up on my knowledge of dogs and tables and food on the tables. When I lived with my own dogs I knew to follow the commandment Thou Shalt Not Leave Food Where the Dog Can Reach It. However, I have to admit that it’s always very cute when they get away with their thievery–at long as the food is not bad for them. Perhaps I am anthropomorphizing too much, but they sure do seem proud at winning the forbidden prize. At those times I know I am not so agile and clever. I forget that, like with a child, you are being watched. A lot. Nearly all the time unless a squirrel or mail carrier comes by. Otherwise its all eyes on the giver-of meals, thrower-of -squeaky-toys and petter-on-call.
Reading Thoreau in Meeko’s Yard
Henry David Thoreau and Meeko are good companions. I curl up with each of them at different times. Last night when I had turned off the lights in the bedroom, called Meeko to bed and turned on my side to sleep, I felt Meeko put his rubber squeak toy at the nape of my neck and then lie down. I felt honored.
Today, in the yard, under the Live Oak on a lovely Spring day, I read a compilation of HDT’s essays. His style is more verbose than we modern folks are used to. I do not understand some of his archaic terms, and I admit to skipping over some page long paragraphs, yet he startles me with thoughts that are so contemporary that he could be writing in 2017. Reading his essays is like mining for gold—which he thought was a dishonorable activity, by the way— but you are sure the nuggets are there and they are and there are many. Like this.
(I’ll be right back. Meek is nosing his bowl telling me he wants his dinner). Okay, I’m back. Here are some his thoughts that startle me in how familiar they seem. This passage describes so closely what Buddhism teaches me.
“If we have I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality. Our very intellect shall be macadamized, as it were,–its foundations broken into fragments…If we have thus desecrated ourselves—as who has no?t–the remedy will be by wariness and devotion to reconsecrate ourselves…We should treat our minds, that is , ourselves, as innocent and ingenuous children, whose guardians were are, and be careful what objects and what subjects be thrust on their attention.”
HDT would like that I was sitting under a tree while reading this. He would applaud my urge to always be outdoors. I think he and I share a lot in common—like his hermit tendencies that are mine also. Today I feel close to old Henry. I think he would understand me. Both of us pretty much loners who have a difficult time in polite company. It comforts me that he writes about the emptiness of much of what we consider “success” and he called “industry”—how the industrious man was praised all for making money, and yet a philosopher, a writer like HDT, is seen as lazy, a failure even. I think even Ralph Waldo Emerson, his friend, criticized him for lack of ambition.
Like Thoreau, I could never make myself work for money. My work needed to be meaningful and helpful to others. As a result, I am not rich. Neither was Thoreau, and I , like him, can sometimes feel like an outcast in my society when it comes to owning a house and a new car. And I have to watch my mind, as he suggested, to keep it from thinking of myself as a failure because I don’t have “fame” and fortune.
It wasn’t easy being Thoreau. And maybe he was no fun to be in a bar with, but I sense him in the room with me as he says, “I shall be a benefactor…if I can show men that there is some beauty awake while they are asleep.” He was speaking of taking walks in the moonlight, but I understand it to mean what Buddha meant. You are my benefactor HDT, even if you had a lousy personality. Smiley face.
“
Dogs Are Almost Perfect, But…
Dogs, like people, can be difficult to love sometimes. Every dog family has its dysfunction. It’s not nearly as bad as it can be in families that are all human, but, it can still be a trial.
I love all the dogs I dog-sit, but they are not without their quirks. One has a bark that, inside, is painful to the ears and I worry a little about damage to my hearing. There are too many FedEx trucks in the world! And why don’t mail delivery people just toss the mail from their vehicles as they pass the house. Why in the world do they need to storm the house like invading armies, the dog wonders.
All of them tend to scratch my arms because it seems I do not notice that it is time for someone to get an ear scratch. My skin is thin and the blood blisters on my arms are not so attractive! Usually a long sleeve sweater helps, but not always.
Another dog has terrible separation anxiety, maybe because his parents travel a lot and leave him or maybe he was born with that trait. Either way it can be heartbreaking to leave him even to go to the store for a little while. The panic in his eyes is painful to see. It’s worse when he freaks out and jumps like a whirling dervish—he is a big, strong boy and his nails on my back hurt.
Sometimes I can’t tell what my pups want. This must be what it is like with an infant who cries no matter how the parent tries to soothe them.
I take out the leash and say “Out?” He lies down and looks at me. Okay, not out. ”
“Chew thing?” Another blank look; it’s not that he doesn’t like chew things, he seems to be saying, but not this chew thing. He looks at me like I should know this by now. And actually I do, so why do I keep trying with that chew thing. Some of us never learn.
“Cookie?” That always get a positive reaction and all is right with the world. For about an hour. Then it’s time for ball tossing. This guy is very smart and has me trained. He looks up at the drawer in the bureau where the balls are kept and gives a slight bark. I get the ball. He is a talented ball player. I especially admire how when I throw the ball and he hits it back to me with his nose.
So I am trained by my dogs to be patient, to pay attention, to go out, to sit, and that’s just the truth!
Meeko’s Tree
Live Oaks are ubiquitous in Florida. Most people think of palm trees when they think of Florida, but the oaks are just as plentiful. I certainly didn’t expect to see such trees in here when I arrived from New England. Now that I’m a Floridian, I’ve fallen in love with them because of their grandeur and the yards of shade they provide. Only foolish developers reject the gift of cooling the trees offer. There are two in Meeko’s yard. It’s clear they have been here for many decades judging from their girth. Naturally, I try to hug them as any old hippie would, but I cannot reach my arms around either one.
What I find interesting about Meeko’s trees is how much they have stretched and bended to fit their environment. These two are remarkable in the way, over the years, they took on such yoga-like postures. They have extended themselves six feet or more from their dense core, their branches–like small trees themselves–reaching over the roof. Yet they have not toppled and remain firmly rooted. How is it they can stretch so deeply without crashing to the ground from the burden of their weight?
They reach for the sun of course, so here is more proof that the longing for life is powerful; a tree that is meant to stand upright decides, in this situation, it cannot. Here is intelligence embedded in bark. Here is proof that even these beings who seem so massive and rigid are not static. Here is the genius of adaptation. We are the only creatures that believe to be strong we must remain rigid when instead, we ought to bow in surrender to our conditions and grow in new directions.
Meeko
If you came to this earth as thousands of cells that want the experience of being an American Eskimo dog, you are snow-white and have a fan-like tail. In this form, you are alert to the smallest gnat that might fly by. Your ears stick straight up and open so no sound can get past you. You zoom around your big yard on dainty, thin legs and feet, but you are not a dainty soul. You are harsh with passers-by, especially other dogs, and bark in short bursts of passion.
Your favorite activity is watching. Your ears twitch, small black eyes search and scan the air, the ground. So, you love the outdoors where everything is happening, almost too much to take in. You love the outdoors so much that you leap into the air at the closed kitchen door until I open it.
I am dog sitting Meeko at the west end of St. Pete, near the beaches. I’ve been here once before, but not for long and this time I am here for another nine days. Meeko and I share the love of being outside and watching. Just watching. There is so much to see from the single spots we occupy, I on a beach chair in the yard, he in his favorite corner close to the street. Each moment has its own quality. Meeko and I know this. I feel the breeze move, cool and weightless at this time of year, refreshing. In a couple more months, the air will be heavier and damp. Then the breeze builds into a hefty wind that shakes the trees which make a swooshing sound while while the palm fronds sound like dry brooms along the floor. Three old-growth, twenty feet tall pines stand on one side of the yard, and an equally tall cypress, filled out with soft green needles, stands at another. In Meeko’s corner is an eight foot sawgrass palm that offers shade on his spot. The sunlight moves with the minutes to create new shadowy shapes of tree branches and palm fronds on the surface of a round cement patio .
It’s a quiet street, barely a car passes. The minimal sounds of a plane passing overhead or an occasional car door closing do not disturb the meditative peace. . However, when school is out, the passing school boy will get an ear-full. Meeko chases him along the fence shouting frantically at him for taking this route. During my stay I will find out if this is a daily occurrence or if the boy took the hint.
It’s no surprise to me, but I do notice that I am not much of a house sitter because I do not want to be inside. When I return to the houses I dog sit in after an errand or outing , I immediately head out the door. If I was unable to open it and someone was nearby, I would jump up and down like Meeko to be let out. That I’m sure of.
Snickers
Snicker’s owner is one of the friends I dog sit for, other people I sit for are mostly acquaintances. My friend lives in a comfortable ranch-type house and there are many pictures on walls and tables of her grown children, her recently passed husband, their extended group of friends from up north where she lived a few years ago. She has been widowed for a year now and admirable for her acceptance of the loss and her grief. I feel the grief as well when I look at a picture of her husband. He was a warm, kind person and I miss him. His being is both palpably absent and at the same time present in some way. He was a couple of years younger than I am and now that I’m nearly 70, mortality has taken on a new, sharper reality.
Snickers and I meditate on the patio when I dog sit her. I sit in the chair opposite her and set the timer for half an hour. She is more enlightened than I so she gets up after two minutes and investigates the geckos, the grass, bugs that fly overhead.
My own meditation includes noticing that she brought me the red rubber kong to toss. First we must tug at it for a while. She is very strong and I let go soon, then let it fly.We do this a number of times. This is mindfulness of rubber tongs and tossing them. In between, I notice the scent of honeysuckle from the vine that climbs a trellis along the back of the patio. I listen to the mockingbird who is here every morning singing an aria of all bird calls. Next the sunlight on the treetops at the front of the house, and the Stop sign.
The Stop sign is a good message for me. I should make one to carry with me and pull it out every time I start worrying about old age and my poor finances. Stop. Breathe.
Breathe. I have to train myself to breathe. Buddhists stress it for good reason—most of us don’t notice how shallow our breath is, how often we hold our breath. Stop and breath is a good mantra. Simplicity is always best. Simplicity is the doorway to the profound and I miss what is profound in the rush of my crowded, complex thoughts. Thoughts that tumble over each other, over and over until there is a huge tumbleweed of fear or doubt or illusion of some kind.
Snickers noses my knee to get my attention. She wants to climb into my lap, but she weights somewhere around 70 lbs, so I veto that. Later we will sit on the couch while I watch something on TV and she will lie half of her body on my lap. I will stroke her short, bristly fur and she will breath and then let out a long breath. And in this way we will stop for a sweet while.
