my first dog

was a little yellow mutt named Penny.  sad to say i don't remember her - as a person i was going to say...oops...did i just show my cards?

in the two photos of us together, we are on a weedy hillside. i have just learned to sit up (hence the moment's being captured, i guess) and Penny has slid across my lap and is lying still.  we both have our eyes closed.  in one picture, my arms are outstretched above her as if measuring her length or, in my preferred interpretation, as if commanding heaven's attention.  in the next, i have leaned forward and my hands are on her side in a perfect baby-as-healer pose.

those of us who have raised children or have ever taken care of one that age realize that if there had been a third photo it would likely have been of my doing a face-plant onto the dog.  i'm not so crazy, yet, that i don't realize i'm an old craggyface making up a story about being a healer-baby. but this is a particular delusion that i simply love.  oh, i wish it had been true.  i wish those pictures had been more than coincidental...captured some essence of me...some enduring quality that i could hold up against reality as my proof...my shield of redemption.  see!  it would shout...i know what i'm doing!   i always have!


so i'll continue to enjoy that fantasy even as i offer this...


that if you look at those photos in reverse, i have placed my hands together on little Penny and then whoa!!  the energy is so strong it blows my arms wide apart and opens me to heaven.  i like that interpretation even more and it's probably closer to the truth cause i have found, always, that my connection with the creatures of the earth is my gateway to transcendence.

my vision is renewed, my understanding expanded by the owl, hawk and creatures of the air;

my spirit is tenderly exposed and uplifted by the turtle, the frog, the sailfish, the whale...warm and cool blooded of the sea;

i accept their grace and i am forgiven by the field mouse, coyote, the feline and canine, who walk beside me.

i mean these things literally.  i am changed at each encounter as they reach out to me, continuously.

it is no accident that they're in our lives.

they are the healers.