What has been and what might have been point to one end which is always present.
—T. S. Eliot
I sit, trying to be more like my dogs. I know all around in my home there is stuff: To-Do lists on the counter. To-Do lists in my mind. Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, things, things, things, do, do, do. Things to do. I look to the dogs, all sleeping now save Sparkle who gazes out the window watching for the squirrel. They just are. They may dig a hole, search for moles, sniff the fall air, but always simply being as they are, never dissembling, certainly never multi-tasking, unless it’s to simultaneously sleep and dream of food, something at which Sasha is especially adept.
For many fall is a time of death and decay; for others like me, their favorite time of year—an inward time, yet like its sibling seasons, it too will pass. Just as birth and death are but momentary punctuations to the cycle of life, so too are the seasons part of the greater whole.
Sasha paces, stops, stares, barks, and resumes pacing. Isabelle, who now rarely walks without my aid, licks her one front leg, gazes up to me, then dozes. Stash runs up beside Sparkle and off they go scouting for rabbits.
When I step outside, I see patchy clouds drift across the sky. Leaves flutter as the wind blows. Some release, ride a current of air for moments then fall where they’ll turn to earth. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, our lives like the leaf, catching the ride of life for a moment then gone, back to earth. I watch as another leaf makes the journey, and know all those I love will one day, too. Then stillness. Even my thoughts still for a moment until the thought that I’m being more like my dogs breaks the stillness. I think of the wise words written by Teresa of Avila in the sixteenth century, “What matters is not to think much, but to love much.” I should go back in and work, but I sit feeling the joy of being, not doing—happy just to sit outside on this day in the tawny grass and do nothing except listen to the breeze blow through the leaves.
I know that whatever pleasures we derive from sensations are but a glimpse of the joy of being, of silent peace and stillness. Yet these experiences are beyond words, more akin to what I feel the animals perceive when I behold their quiet joy. Mindfulness, presence …they’re only words. I realize there are many who cannot afford the luxury of clean air, fresh water or sitting and doing nothing. There are children to feed or parents to care for, sometimes there is work seven days a week. All I can pray is that into these lives drop the little things—fall leaves, early darkness through the city streets, a lone bird—to fill up a pause and bring joy.
Out in the fields I hear Sparkle and Stash speak, picking up a scent. Sasha and Isabelle rest close by. And I have everything I need.