Deeper Streams

One of the great things about having a dog in New York is that you have to walk. A lot. Sometimes very slowly. Canines collect information by sniffing, and none of it happens on anyone’s schedule. When we are “onto something,” it is a singular focus, and if it doesn’t involve a subway grate, a pile of poop on the sidewalk, or a half eaten meal under a park bench, we ARE going to follow where it leads.

This picture is of a garden just inside the entrance of Ft. Tryon Park, across from our apartment in northern Manhattan, and it’s the first thing we see every time we enter. The trails in this park are hilly and we eventually climb to the far side of the Cloisters Museum where there are magnificent vistas of the Hudson River, the palisades, and the George Washington Bridge. Violet and I have a couple of cherished meditation spots up there. By the time we arrive she is ready to relax, having discovered all the smells that exist in her quantum field.

And then it’s my turn. On our bench, I get to do my own “sniffing.” Can I call it prayer? Yes, I think so. Is it reflection? Definitely. Meditative, mindful? Yes! I have waited for to complete her practices, and when we get there, she allows me mine.  She’ll stay as long as I want, and I often do.

My sense in this place is that I am in the world but not always of it. I hear the sounds of traffic below, horns honking, tires screeching. I can watch and hear the barges heading down the river, helicopters zipping past, or the airliners preparing to land at LaGuardia. But I might as well be at Walden Pond, for though I am aware of what is going on around me, I am not necessarily connected to it. I am in the field of all possibilities, much like when I spent millions of lazy hours in an old rope swing that hung from the Buckeye tree in the Ohio of my childhood.

Everything was possible then. Everything is possible now.  For you, as well!

David