Walking Meditation II

Note: This is a revised post, originally posted 7.19.2009

It is another partly cloudy day. The last one I expect to see this week. I could base my prediction on the local weatherman's forecast of lower than normal temperatures and thunderstorms. Instead, I look at the trees for conformation. The breeze grows stronger throughout the day and the silver undersides of the leaves are exposed. The silver maple sparkles for a moment. This is how I know tomorrow will bring rain.

We are walking, Marshall and I. He is a good walker. His toenails tap the pavement as he bounces next to me. I call his happy walk "tip-tip-tip". His head is up, his whippy tail reminds me of the Wacky-Waving-Inflatable-Flailing-Arm-Tube-Man outside the local Chevy dealership.

Marshall is a happy puppy. I'm realizing as I write this that he only has a few short months until he is no longer a puppy. He will be two in November. People always think he is much younger and mistake him for a sixteen-week old Rottweiler. The truth is we don't know what he is, a Heinz 57 mutt that most closely resembles a German Pinscher, the dogs that are the ancestors of Doberman Pinschers, Schnauzers, and Affenpinschers.

His prance has been passed down from three hundred years of working dogs. Marshall walks with pride. He has a job and he does it well. I am currently working with him to be a service dog. My service dog.

I am one of the thousands of people with an invisible disability. People with Epilepsy, Autism, Diabetes, Alzheimer's, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and other serious psychiatric disorders fall into this category. Marshall is being trained in medical alert and response, certain tasks to help me in my daily life, as well as all of his public access standards. I may have periods of recovery where I may not fit the definition of disabled and meet the requirements to bring Marshall with me. I actually hope for those times. We continue training regardless of what the future brings, trying to stay in "the now".

He is off-duty right now and enjoying the scents coming to him in the pre-rain breeze. We stand for a moment in the shade of an oak tree, close our eyes and smell. Someone is burning leaves and yard waste and from far away someone is grilling. The scent of sun-ripened blackberries down the path beckons me. I start to walk ahead, but Marshall is not moving. He has firmly planted himself next to the tree.

When I move closer, he nudges my knee. It is one of his gentle alerts. I take my pulse and realize I do, in fact, need to sit down and continue the deep breathing we were doing before. The tightness in my chest builds then subsides and I breathe through it. A few minutes later, I feel a tug on the leash. Marshall is standing on the path with his happy wagging tail. He tap-dances at me to tell me it's time to get going and I'm ok again. It is time to finish our walk, side-by-side.

I am reminded at this point of a quote by Thich Nhat Hanh's "Faith as a Living Thing".

Faith is nourished by understanding. The practice of looking deeply helps you understand better. As you understand better, your faith grows.

My faith has been fed today. And I think Marshall's has, too.

Walking Meditation Beginnings

Note: This is a revised post from 7.8.2009. It appeared as part of the collection of blog entries on mindfulness and meditation.

This week I walked with Gus. He is a Silky Terrier who stays with us most of the time. His owner, Heather, is a friend who was staying at our house for a while. She works long hours and spends most of her days off helping her family. We get the benefit of having him when he is not with her.

Gus was a former puppy mill puppy. Through his puppyhood and early adolescence he was kept in an 8'x8' pen with four to five other litters. Surrounded by so many dogs, he never learned how to develop the social skills or bonding needed for mental and physical development. His only human interaction was being kicked out of the way when someone cleaned his cage or decided to change the water and food.

When the ASPCA had enough evidence to close the mill, he was taken to a rescue on the border of Ohio and Southern Michigan. I found him through a search on PetFinder.com. My friend was looking for a Yorkshire or Silky terrier but also wanted to adopt rather than go through a breeder. His picture showed a scraggly dog with matted hair, looking up hopefully at the camera.

I spoke to the foster mom. She gave me a little bit of his background and told me that he's a little fearful of strangers. I've worked with socializing shy and fearful dogs before, so that didn't seem like much of a challenge. Heather and I drove out to meet Gus at his foster home in late December.

I knew immediately he would be a difficult rehabilitation. While all the other foster dogs ran to meet us at the door, Gus only peeked out from around the corner. It took almost an hour for him to let me pet him without shaking. Heather had decided it was love at first site. "He's going to need a lot of work. I can help, but it's going to be a long road. It's not too late to change your mind," I told her as we walked back to the car. She nodded sincerely but could hardly contain her smile as she said, "I know."

By the time we got him to my house, Gus was exhuasted. He fell asleep on the floor by the couch after meeting Ollie and Marshall. I tried to brush his fur to no avail. I knew we were going to have to cut it. Poor little Gus slept the whole time while I clipped and Heather thought of names, eventually settling on Gus-Gus after the mouse from Disney's Cinderella. A friend who does grooming cleaned up my hack-job Army haircut just before his appointment with our family vet.

His vet records said he was about eight months old. Our vet immediately showed us Gus was over a year old, perhaps older. "See the tartar build up here and here?" Dr. K said, pointing to the tar-like brown and black covering the top half of his molars and incisors. "Most of that is from not getting regular cleaning and chew toys. In my opinion, that level of build up wouldn't be able to accumulate in less than 18 months, maybe two years." Dr. K looked at the little shivering waif and you could see her imagining his life. "You struck gold, buddy. This is a really good family. You're gonna get your teeth brushed."

As I watched him over the next few weeks, I became fairly certain he was closer to two years old.

Two years. No human contact. No positive play or dog interaction.

Sheesh.

He was certain every sudden movement was to be feared. He had no understanding of how to relate to my dogs. He hoarded toys and socks in the corner of his crate or under Heather's bed. He guarded his food. He cowered and lowered his head every time someone tried to pick him up or pet him. We would joke that he 'hated how much he loved' belly rubs because he would be so happy being pet, but the minute you loosened your grip or moved he would run away. And when it came time to put on a leash he fought ferociously and would nip and yelp.

It's been six months since he first came home and hours of classical and operative conditioning. Now he enjoys snuggling and will fall asleep in my arms. In May he learned how to entertain himself and play by himself with a tennis ball. He is becoming more consistent with 'come', 'wait', and 'sit' but that's about it. We've had quite a few rough days. A lot of days he feels like a chore and some days I threaten to give him to a traveling circus. We have so much more work to do together and so much more training ahead of us.

Walking with Gus this past week strangers would comment, "What a cute dog!" and "What a happy puppy!" as they passed. I looked down at Gus prancing beside me, bright eyed with a 'smile' on his face. I realized I am seeing what other people see: a happy terrier enjoying his daily walk along the lake.

My walking message for mindfulness I learned today:

Take the time to realize small achievements toward your goals. Reward small progresses and use this awareness to see that others are working on their stuff too.

Walking Meditation

Walking is a pretty spiritual thing for me. It is a time to be aware of my body and my surroundings. I am fortunate to live in an area where there are boardwalks and bike paths that go around lakes and into wooded areas. The air is sweet and cool on spring and early summer days and the lake is fairly still. Swans and ducks and the occasional egret or heron enjoy the marsh by the boardwalk. Bullfrogs and turtles and leopard frogs rest on fallen branches.

The colder it gets, the more difficult it is to be motivated to walk. The neighborhood roads are usually plowed, though. And even when it is blustery and cold, the dogs always enjoy our walks. The snow and ice right now cover the naked branches and sparkle in the sun. Children ice skate on the lake. It truly is a beautiful place to live when I take the time to notice it.

I very rarely bring my iPod along when I walk by myself or with the dogs. I feel it breaks the connection down the leash as well as the time to listen to my body. I use walking as a meditation frequently since I don't seem to be doing well lately with sitting still and feeling present. When we walk, the dogs and I get a chance to see and smell small changes around us and within.

Many of my favorite quotes on mindfulness are by Thich Nhat Hahn, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk exiled in France. Rather than explain what I think of these quotes, I will simply include them and let you come to your own conclusions thinking on them.

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People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

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Walk and touch peace every moment.

Walk and touch happiness every moment.

Each step brings a fresh breeze.

Each step makes a flower bloom.

Kiss the Earth with your feet.

Bring the Earth your love and happiness.

The Earth will be safe

when we feel safe in ourselves.

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Be aware of the contact between your feet and the Earth. Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet. We have caused a lot of damage to the Earth. Now it is time for us to take good care of her. We bring our peace and calm to the surface of the Earth and share the lesson of love. We walk in that spirit.

Mu.

Prompted by an article shared by a friend, I thought I would spend this week on the history of our domestication of common pets and how it has historically affected our treatment of animals.

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In my spiritual studies back in college, I came across a Zen Buddhist koan that has stuck with me since. A koan is a question or parable whose answer cannot be reached through rational thinking, logic, or arguing. The answer is more of a meditation that one has to interpret intuitively.

A monk asked his Chinese Zen master: `Master, does a dog have Buddha-nature?'

The master answered: `Mu.' (or Wu-- the Japanese symbol for null or nothing)

I thought about this koan for days, walking to and from class. This one word, Mu, meaning "nothing" or "null set" in a literal translation, but in the meaning of the Buddhist koan, meaning the question itself is moot. There is no discontinuation of nothingness, there is no end to existence. In that one word, "mu" conveys that subjectivity and objectivity become one. The moment you ask the question, you lose your own Buddha-nature, your own innate ability to access the entirety of your mind and body and awakeness. It matters and it matters not.

I was instantly reminded of this koan when a friend brought a recent article by Marc Bekoff from Psychology Today to my attention. Bekoff is a Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder and in his article, he asks the question, "Are nonhuman animals more moral than human animals?"

For those of us who share our lives with animals, it isn't that surprising that Bekoff comes up with a the (almost) answer of yes. He goes on to explain that predatory behavior is not immoral, merely survival and the circle of life. He discusses the rarity of predators killing more than what is needed for the meal of an individual or pack. He explains how disputes over territory pales in comparison to human war and conquest. And while there are a few cases of violent 'scapegoating' or 'picking on' a weak member of the group, there is also evidence of empathy and compassion within and between species.

I related this article and my personal experiences to the Buddhist koan. I struggle constantly with the idea that we share the same space, resources, and energy with all animals (even mosquitoes) and all animals are equal life and all life has equal value. This koan makes our observations and clinical assessment or argument of the value of those observations like those in the article are moot. Thinking too much gets in our way of being present to experience the wonder that is sharing a life with an animal.

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And before the Wise Ones appeared,


Forty million years of ducks in the mud.

Blowing out a candle
ten thousand miles away


Cutting up a duck for dinner.

A dog barks at nothing,
a thousand ducks twitch--


winds of winter.

Has a duck the Buddha-Nature?


"Sssshhh!
Stop quacking like a duck."

- Michael P. Garofalo

Smell and connection

This whole week has been devoted to The Skunk Incident of 2009. Primarily my focus has been on coping with the smell of skunk musk and how it affected my relationship with Ollie and Marshall. I also had to cope with how it affected my home. I was obsessive about getting that smell out of my house, not just because the smell was offensive to my nose, but because it was disrupting my spiritual focus.

Scent is very powerful. Some studies have shown that scent is one of the strongest sense connected with our memories. Certain smells can evoke emotions, positive or negative, and activate physiological responses.

I am very connected to scents. I am particular about what scents I have on me in terms of perfumes, lotions, or shower gel. I have very strong opinions about how my bedroom should smell (warm sandalwood, vanilla, sweet tabacco, and earth), my laundry room (Bath and Body Works Fresh Linen), and my kitchen soap is always, always lemon.

I even go so far as to adjust my plug-in air freshener scents in cycles. Post-holiday winter is black currant, spring is lavender, early summer has some kind of lime, citrus, or lemon verbena. The early-harvest August through holiday season bring apples and cinnamon, pumpkin, orange and clove, and fir and balsam.

These scents are not just for ambience. Scent, being so strongly attached to memory, is also attached to actions. The changing of scents are a cycle that generates thoughts and behaviors that help me connect with the season. I associate the fresh scent of lavender with activities that freshen my life and home: cleaning, organizing, letting go of hibernating hurts and grudges. Citrus smells make me feel juicy and full of energy, active and ready to take in sun and connect with earth. Apples and cinnamon make me long sleeves, long walks, and long fireside discussions over cider. The smells of the holidays encourage me to breathe deeply and focus on the warm feelings from connecting with those I love instead of associating the season with frenetic urgency, irritation, or stress.

I find that when I am having a hard time connecting spiritually, scents of wood and leather help me find roots. When I having a particularly difficult time with forgiveness of myself, others, or the world in general, lighting my citrus and sage candle during meditation or thoughtful reading helps me release the anger blocking me from healing my hurt and also helps release whatever ties that bound me to that anger.

Maybe this is why TSI of 2009 brought about so much change for me, so much reflection. I had to restore my house, my furry four paws, and myself to their own true scent to feel that connection as strongly.

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True nature is always elusive,


Only the heart of no-heart
can grasp-it.


Up in the mountain,
the burning jade stays brilliant.


And in the roaring furnace,
lotus blossoms keep their fragrance.

- Ngo An, Korea, (circa 1090)

I Talk With My Hands

I am one of those people.

I talk with my hands and most of the time I don't knock over stuff, but sometimes I do. But when it comes to dogs, I have always talked with my hands in a very literal sense from their Homecoming Day and onward using hand signals.

Thank Heavens.

This week has been very long and not fun for my furry friends. I've been sick and mostly in bed or on the couch with tea and Kleenex and in various stages of losing my voice. However, I am still able to tell Ollie, Marshall and Gus (and to a lesser degree, Orange Cat) that I need them to move, be quiet, sit, wait, back up, relax, come here, or snuggle.

(Orange Cat knows my hand signals for 'snuggle' and 'come here', lately it's just a matter of if he *feels* like coming or snuggling. Cats were once worshipped by an entire culture and we humans will never live that down. Ever.)

Dogs understand hand signals well before they understand the verbal command or cue. In part, this is because their eyes are designed to detect small movement. While most dogs don't actually 'see' very well (about a human equivalent of 20/70), their eyes are able to detect slight changes in the way we walk or move even from great distance. Their ears are designed to hear noises from great distances with incredible directional accuracy, evaluate pitch and volume at much greater frequencies than the human ear is capable of.

Unfortunately, that does not mean they are good at differentiating human noises. Our words become a foreign language to them.

When teaching a foreign language, one of the best techniques is Total Physical Response method which is basically immersion with overstated, exaggerated movements to show what the word or phrase means. (Note: It does not help to just stand there and repeat the phrase louder over and over and hope the other person understands what you are saying.) Essentially, since we are teaching dogs human language, that is what hand signals accomplish. Dogs will never be able to replicate our vocalizations, but may learn correct responses to 30-200 verbal commands and gestures given the right training.

As the week goes by and I have to communicate what I want or need from my dogs without any verbal commands, I'm realizing how much we look at each other to make sure the message got across. I had forgotten sometimes to look for the body language that is asking essentially, "This is what you want, right?" and reinforce the behavior. I am realizing how much I talk.

And how much I don't need to.

And how much I talk with my not-furry friends.

And how much I don't need to.

I think I'm learning why monks take a vow of silence-- not so much to learn a 'new' way of communicating with the earth and the beings here. Rather to return to a very natural and basic way of communicating. I'm thinking that some of my frustration the last few weeks is from talking too much and not listening-- not hearing-- what other's silences are saying.

De-Skunking

With all this talk about The Skunk Incident, I thought I might pass on a few tips and shortcuts I've learned over the last few years.

De-Skunking Tips for Dogs

• Be prepared. Starting in spring, I make an Emergency Skunk Kit: One large box of baking soda, a gallon of distilled white vinegar, a small bottle of apple cider vinegar, two large bottles of hydrogen peroxide, baby wipes, rubber gloves, Dollar Store leashes, and a couple rags.
• This is most likely going to happen at night. If you have more than one dog, check and see if each was skunked. They will be scared and shaky and possibly foaming at the mouth with significant nasal mucus in response to the spray.
• Take off the dog's collar. Trust me, it's too much work to get the odor out, especially if it is leather. Pitch it, but make sure to get the license and ID tag off first!
• Use the cheap-o Dollar Store leash as a lead by creating a slipknot. (Put the connecting end through the loop and it should cinch around the dog's neck.) This will keep the dog from slipping the collar if he tries to pull away. Check periodically to make sure you aren't pulling the lead too tight.
• Bathe the dog first with regular dog shampoo. Skunk spray is oily and this will help break up the oils. Rinse throughly.
• Lather De-Skunking mixture (recipe below) into your dog's fur, starting just behind the ears and cover the whole body. Use a washcloth on muzzle taking care to avoid the eyes. Let the lather sit for three-five minutes. Or, in my case, while you lather up the other dog.
• Rinse throughly. Towel dry with a towel you've been meaning to throw out because you've had it since college. Use toweling dry to pet, talk in happy tones, good dog pep talk and give the pooch a biscuit.
• Use the baby wipes two times a day to gently wipe muzzle, forehead, and area in between eyes.

De-Skunking Tips for the House

• Close all the open windows for at least five hours. This prevents more of the "skunk cloud" from drifting into the house.
• Turn on all fans that push the air out of the house, not recirculate.
• You'll need eight small glasses. I use juice glasses. In four, put in 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar. In the other four, put 2-3 tbsp of coffee grounds. Put one of each cup in the main rooms of your house. The vinegar absorbs odors, when it starts to get cloudy in a day or two, dump it.
• Fresh Wave natural odor products work the best. I'm not saying this because they are all natural. When it comes to skunk, I personally don't care much about chemicals and how harmful they are as long as they get rid of that God-awful smell. The odor absorbing crystals and spray are not cheap, but worth every penny.
• Oust. Oust. Oust. Every hour or so, just walk through the house spraying. (Not where candles are lit!)
• Febreez odor neutralizing candles are pretty awesome. I'm not sure they do anything, but made me feel like it was getting better.

De-Skunking YOU:

• Yup, you smell. If you care about the clothes you were wearing through the dog de-skunking, strip down and put them straight into the wash with two cups of vinegar. If your washer has an option for an extra rinse cycle, add another cup during that cycle. Dry as usual.
• If you were part of the skunking (ninja skunk attacked while you were on a walk) one of the best ways to get the smell out of your own hair that doesn't involve peroxide is feminine douche. I'm not joking. Massengil could re-brand their entire line of non-scented douche as Skunk Be Gone. It works for the dog's fur, too-- and can be used as a second line of defense for breeds with thick undercoats.

De-Skunking Mixture:

Mix in a metal bowl:

1 quart hydrogen peroxide

1/4 cup baking soda

and 1 teaspoon liquid soap (any mild dish detergent)

Update: April 24, 2010

If your dogs have managed to kill a skunk like mine did yesterday, don't forget to hose down the kill site. Otherwise, you might have a dog who wants to relive his victory and roll in the grass where the animal had been.

Oh, and someone sent me this link I thought I would share Mythbusters: Ancient Death Ray Skunks