She is looking at me like she is wondering what the heck I am doing all day. Those clear, wise yellow eyes have shifted from the regular look of either curiousity or reaching out to concern.
The beautiful thing is that meeting those eyes is all it takes for me to slow down. All it takes for me to rest her head in my two hands, looking in to her soul as she looks in to mine , wondering what the heck I AM doing all day.
It is actually not about the doing, as the lists of stuff we need to do to make a living and live comfortably never ends. It is about how we do those things.
In my mind, in my world, I was planning tonight´s yoga lesson – after having rushed through dishes, washing and vacuuming – totally focused on the task at hand.
In Elsa´s mind I was totally lost.
What she saw was a human who just ticked off one thing on the list , moving to the next one , entirely not in the moment at all. As the body of the human was packing the yoga mat, the lesson plan, the water bottle, aura spray´s, philosophy books and car keys in the backpack for the class three hours ahead the mind of the human was already in the weekend after next planning the workshop to be taught by then.
In my world, years ago, I would have seen myself as organized, well planned and always on the ball in that very moment.
In my world now, I know my world is not mine. In what I call my world now I learn the practical sides of what the yoga philosphy teaches every day anew from these two husky ladies.
This combination of yoga philosphy and husky wisdom has turned what I thought was my world completely upside down, has opened more doors in both the mind & life than I ever could have imagined possible (and I do have vivid imagination, so that statment says a lot), has totally re-defined what I considered to be ”life” and what this ”life” was or should be all about in the first place.
John Lennon was right – Life is what happens when we´re busy making other plans.
This thing we call life is happening to us right now, in the right now, always, non stop.
It can´t be put on hold, it can´t be rushed, it can´t be slowed down, it can´t be sped up – all those concepts are something we have made up in our minds.
Honestly – how on earth could you put your life on hold?
Would you just park it like a car at the side of the road, step out and wait?
Go try it out if you´d like.
You´ll see that , as Lennon put it, Life still happens. Ain´t nothing we can do about that happening or not happening!
In 2001, when I was faced with a burnout and depression from exhaustion while working in Austria, a collegue of mine, Franz ,lent me a book – ”Being Happy !” by Andrew Matthews.
THE thing which stuck in my mind from that book, which I have not read since even though it still sits in my bookshelf (no, I did not keep Franz´ book for 15 years while moving 4200 km further north ;-). I did buy my own copy.) , was Andrew´s advice to practice the ”awareness of a dog” ; To see the world anew every moment just like a dog who walks the same route every day, with a never ending curiousity, living every moment anew.
Moving our bodies, then sitting still to observe, to take in, moving again, stretching a bit in between, breathing well, releasing what we don´t need any more – that´s what dogs do. And teach us.
I am sure there is no coincidence there is more than one dog posture in the yoga asana´s ;-).
Andrew Matthews planted a concept in my mind, Yoga is leading the way for me, but Akasha and Elsa are the ones teaching me how to practice living it.
Dogs do this ”shake thing” quite often.
They do however not only do the shake to dry faster after a swim. Dogs do the shake every time they are done with an action, every time they move from one action to another.
Maybe it is their trick to leave what is not needed behind, to create space for what is to come – to be able to be the most Present possible?
Let´s all do the shake more often!
How else are we going to find out ?
