Thank you, Tre L. Loadholt , for coaxing me to respond.
Yes, it will surely be an explosive day ahead but it will also be a very quiet day.
I was married to a wolf-dog for over 16 years. She taught me so very, very much!
When she was young she had a very negative experience with fireworks. I don’t remember what holiday it was but there was a big crowd at the house and the kids were shooting off fireworks in the back yard. Some kid lit some fireworks and tossed them out onto the yard. Being a canine, my beloved doggie ran after what was tossed and she had fireworks explode right in her face.
She was not hurt but she was traumatized. For the rest of her long life whenever she heard fireworks she would run inside and hide in one of her many ‘safe spot’ hiding places. She had become profoundly incapable of enjoying fireworks.
One time — I don’t remember which holiday it was — I followed her inside. I found her hiding under a table in the living room. I got down onto the floor and laid down beside her in hopes of comforting her. I began stroking her large, very, very soft ears. I knew this always worked. Her large ears were not only super-sensitive to sound but they were also psychic antennae.
And I loved rubbing her ears. Gosh, they were the softest things in the entire world.
In any situation, the moment I started rubbing her ears she would immediately calm down. Her ears were her magic spots. She went into a state of bliss whenever I rubbed her ears. I tried to rub them at least a few times every day.
But that day while fireworks were exploding outside I laid there, my face just inches away from hers, and I rubbed her incredibly soft ears and the more I rubbed them, the quieter the fireworks in the background became. As I rubbed her wonderful ears and she looked at me with her loving brown eyes the war-like sound of the fireworks faded away to nothing. Eventually, I could no longer hear the fireworks at all and I could only hear my beloved doggie talking to me.
That wolf-dog was one of my greatest teachers. I miss her so much.
That night she taught me how to “enter the silence amidst fireworks.” Together, we entered a state of consciousness that was totally beyond all the noise going on outside. I could no longer even hear the fireworks. I entered the silence amidst the fireworks….
…. and my doggie taught me how to do that.
It was a truly transcendental experience.
Ever since that day I cannot hear fireworks without thinking of my beloved canine soul-mate. I can close my eyes and feel her incredibly soft ears in my hands. And I am transported to a dimension of silence and stillness that supersedes any situation I might be in. Rubbing those ears in my mind I can find the peace in any situation.
And I can also connect to her in my heart.
As I write this it is only a little over an hour until midnight on New Year’s Eve. As with every year in this town, fireworks will go off. When they do I will be rubbing my doggie’s ears in my mind and I will enter that sacred stillness and quiet amidst the fireworks cacophony.
It will be a moment of bliss.
The challenge is to carry that bliss forward into the cacophony of everyday life in the new year. Although I cannot go forward into that new year with my beloved doggie soul-mate I can still go forward with her in my heart. And because of that I can always find bliss.
It is always there amidst whatever fireworks are exploding at the time. It is always there underneath whatever war is raging.
It is always there.
