This week I've started morning walks again, a ritual I neglected with the heat. Within a block I'm aware of the value of this sacred thirty minute span as I greet and am greeted by crepe myrtles declining or reclining as I think of their coming winter's rest.
At one neighbor's home I savored half-dollar size pink morning glories overtaking a flower bed and beginning to climb a tree. A neighbor came out, nodded to me and I continued to converse with the neighboring flowers. At one corner, I stopped and let the sun warm me as I closed my eyes and looked skyward sensing I was being fed.
Yet the encounter close to home made me smile brightest and still does to think of him. Standing at the corner before mine I spied Cuff the black lab who's been in the neighborhood nearly as long as I. Both of us are sprinkled with gray, well me more than him these days.
The enthusiast and lover in me wanted to run up the block and cross the street to Cuff in excitement but paused. What would his owner think?
I significantly picked up my pace and called Cuff's name. His look conveyed a bit of confusion at first. 'Hmmm, she remembers my name?' It's more common in these peri-menopausal days for me to first ask: Now what is your dog's name?
I cheerfully greeted Cuff, who after his initial perplexed pause walked over somewhat stiffly to me, the walk with which I'm familiar some days. We locked eyes; I rubbed his black coat and salt and pepper face and talked tomatoes with his owner. Then we parted ways.
I had been the giver or so I thought. Yet I walked away more full than when I had crossed the street. Before I could ponder how that could be, I quickly realized Cuff had given to me.
How often do I think I'm the giver forgetting I receive.
The cycling of energy, good vibes and love, is a beautiful thing. Givers receiving. Receivers giving. No owing or debting, no interest rates. No foreclosures. I take that back, if there's a foreclosure, it's on my side of the equation because animals are always giving to me. There is no taking back. If there's a sense of owing, it's because a small part of me has been quietly accounting rather than freely giving. It's so simple.
Then just when I think this story's at an end (and maybe it should be), I remember tonight the president, whose hair is now sprinkled like Cuffs, gives his jobs address. Post speech if all goes as usual the air waves will be even more filled with how he's failing.
I know people need jobs to pay the bills, feed their children, pursue their dreams. My intent isn't to diminish the seriousness of joblessness or the longing for security. I get frustrated with the talking heads simplifying complex issues, spinning their version of the facts to suit their side of the debate, influenced by who's paying their salary or in the case of politicians, the lobbyists getting them elected.
They of course would say I'm the simple one not understanding this world in which we live and that's okay. Regardless of what is said post speech and in a thousand tomorrows, I desire my airwaves be more about what's beautiful in my neighborhood and world. I want my airwaves filled with the spinning of shared energy and experience, inspired by crepe myrtles, morning glories, the sun and Cuff the black lab down the street. This is the economy in which I want to invest. The Bank of Loving Energy.
-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 8 September 2011
dawn@imaginetheshift.com
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