Signs

  Sometimes, when you can't know, no proof of knowing for surety, you "know".
There are signs.

  A day ago, as I was looking for Satya, I came upon a knowing, that she would not be found, or seen again.  As I searched the ground, the crawl spaces, the shoreline, near the place that reportedly she was last seen..as I rounded the corner of that cabin, I found a turtle shell, perfectly preserved.  Large enough, but not really big, beautifully shaped in good preservation and color, laying on the ground. I instinctively picked it up, and inside this shell, no turtle was to be found.

   My inner knowing knew, at that very moment, Satya had also left our sacred ground.  She wandered off to die--into the wilderness, of woods and ground and sky.
And I knew that it was true.

   Dutifully, I searched on, looking for her, looking for a trace
for an onward search to see her face.

Listening intently for her sound..
only Silence, her breath not found.

Up and down, around the road,
I continued my search, but none 
was found.

Someone said, "Perhaps she's dead. 
Dogs go off and die alone, they do that sometimes,
and there are a lot of woods here, all around.

Although I knew inside this Truth, I still pursued the Search.
The empty turtle shell, a sign.
She had left, it came to mind.

Today, I grieve and contemplate, 
and meditate, and communicate.
To touch the "unchangeable" with my mind,
and saw a host of other "signs".

First, on my table of Holy books
appeared upright, in plain sight,
a picture drawn and painted a few years ago
aquired by me, my heart desired.

I suddenly recognized the image, a dog, 
a little dapple gray and brown, with short legs,
in motion, silly face, no hound.
None other it was...
It was Satya!

An absolute likeness, her portrait revealed.
Had fallen from the wall upon my books, so still.
So bright, alive, a colorful sign,
a sight, that instantly brought her to mind.

A visitation, I'm still here you see,
a pleasant image of the old me.

I play my chants and recite the Gita.
I struggle to feel, and release the grief,
the loss, but She was boss!

When time to go, not for me to know.
alas, a freedom, a breath, a loss
to know, is shown in "signs"

As I sit, and then observe, 
a mother pushes out of the nest
two little birds.
They flap their wings, together sing,
descending gently to the ground.
I know the process will be found.
Again the flap their wings and fly
and I know that someday, they too will die. 

But now I listen and hear their sound
and know quite certainly
their wings they've found.

And as I lie in a corpse repose,
someone drops a shell upon my nose!
I pick it up, examine it closely,
sunflower seed, the shell only.
The seed was gone
It hadn't been long since before I fed the birds.
A sign. A seed. 
A picture, indeed!

The cycle of Life includes the dying,
here then gone, and returns
Un-dying.  
I see, that there's no use in crying.

Satya

Satya

 Satya is the unchangeable, that which pervades the Universe in all its constancy, absolute Truth, Reality. 

                                                                                                                      -wikipedia

     Oh, how we mourn. Eyes wide open, listening, looking.  Looking for that which we have seen, touched, experienced, but never to see, feel, hear, embrace again.

     She came to us, a little fat ball of fur, soft and vulnerable like a caterpillar travelling backwards towards it's cocoon. Fearful, confused, and a little disoriented, she did not know why we had taken her away from the home she knew since puppyhood.  Her Mastress, Felice, a former nun, had been a dog lover with three to place in new homes as she, herself, resigned to die peacefully in a hospice facility. Her pancreatic cancer had overcome her body and her time was short.  She would soon return to the Unchangeable Light, the God Mystery, her final home.  Little furball, "Twinkles" she was called, herself an old lady, 14 years in dog years (98 years in people terms), on medications for bladder, tremors, and general ageing came to live her final days with us.

      From a week of obsessive howling and disorientation, she finally settled in to her new routine.  She was quick to learn, and for us a bit like having a puppy again.  Her eyes, for all the distance of onset dementia, were bright. Her Hears raised and pitched forward in puppy-ish attendance, even though we knew she really couldn't hear much.  She breathed loudly like a helicopter taking off, and cried loudly her joyous yelps when we would arrive home at the gate, nosing for first pats and assurance.  She quickly endeared herself in our pack of three other dogs, our own family life.  She raised her head expectantly in certain moments of recognition and devotion.  No doubt, she won our hears with the joy and cuteness and specialness that parallels that of an infant with an elder.

     An object and embodyment of pure Love, overlooking all deficiency, lack, infirmaties, and frailties, this old dog was a package of pure Love. We called her "Satya," - "the unchangeable presence," her newly given Spiritual name. For the one month that she lived with us, she was our concious reminder of the frailty and temporal impermanence of Life on earth.  Her owner, Felice died only two weeks after giving up her dogs. Satya left us on Sunday, May 18, 2014 around 9:00 a.m.  We will never again see her little frail round body, dry straggly coat, sawed off tail, puppy ears, or beady eyes, or hear her unique vocal howls and joyful yelps, or nose for food, or observe her talent for opening cabinets, and tearing open packages of dog treats, or garbage, or charging the Spitz defiantly encountering him, or conversely in collaboration as an accomplice in dog mischief.

     She rose on Sunday morning, at our lakehouse in peaceful and early daylight, and walked away.

     I looked everywhere! Along the lake shore, under the crawl spaces of every cabin, drove the roads, alerted the neighbors.  DeJuana made all the appropriate calls and emails to rescue centers and the Shelby Humane Society. I called the name, "SATYA, SATYA, SATYA!" a chant I lifted to the Great Unknown, the Great Satya, the unchangeable, the Mystery, the Absolute Truth, the Reality. 

     Satya was gone.  We will only see her again in the knowing.

    "Twinkles", a little present of temporal joy, who in short stay, made her place, a welcoming, an opening to deliver us in knowing the greatness of truth, reality, deliverance from this life, in love. She won our hearts, so great is the power of love. She will always have a place, for her love is sustained in her absence, the unchangeable truth of love. 

     Like all of those unchangeable loves and relations, who passed in our presence, giving of themselves, their very lives a beacon of light and love, we shall see them as twinkling lights within the Heavens, as a candle in the heart of the darkness, a fire, the unchangeable, that which is beyond our knowing. But the flame of love that we feel, the emptiness, find the warmth, the measure of sensation deep inside our hearts and the fleeting glimpse of reality, as demonstrated by the cycle of life and death, the Truth of Satya, the unchangeable passes before our eyes, every day, whether we notice it or not. Take heart in that. We all belong to Satya.  We are not alone in this. 

   She has come, nested into our hearts, made her place there in short order, and left. It is a reminder of Universal Truth.  Life is short and precious in the moment.  Love your elders.  They will not be with you long.  One day, they will simply walk away from Life's daily trials - from disease, from old age, from the repetition of existance.  Like an old dog, who goes off alone, disappears into Satya.

   And Love remains.  And we are changed.