My Best Friend

Starting to enjoy alone time. Like, really embrace it. I enjoy being calm. I don’t think I ever quite realize just how tense I get. But walking with Scooby helps so much!
I was doing a walking meditation, and wasn’t quite sure of the path, because it’s been over 6 months since I’d been on this trail, and it was night. The moon was fairly full tonight though, so I could see quite well. I don’t enjoy flashlights in the least.

     But in my meditation, I learned that I needed to stop worrying, because the path was unfamiliar, and I was concerned. But I took a turn at a fork that just "felt" right. And it was. It was a ways before I knew it was though.

    Then, at the clearing where the second fork is, Scooby took off in the bushes after something. He growled as though it were a dog he were playing with, and raced after it again. It concerned me, and distracted me from my meditation. He kept peering into the bushes as we were walking, as though there were something there. At one point, I heard something too. I thought maybe it was a deer?

   Last time we went on a walking meditation, something followed us too, it was a bird of some sort, making hooting noises as we went. It was as though it were following us and flying, then landing tree to tree to complain at each branch.

 There was a spot the trees are really thick, and you can’t see very well. It looked like a tree had fallen over the path on one side. The other side looked like it could have been a path too. I saw a dark shadow in the distance that looked like it could have been my dog, so I started walking towards it. Scooby came suddenly running from the other direction, and bumped into my legs gently, making me exclaim, "oh, THERE you are buddy!". He then ran back from where he came. It was as though he knew I was going the wrong direction and was correcting me.

Right at the end of today’s walk, there’s a big clearing of just Canadian sheild, and I never really liked it in the daytime. But tonight, it was beautiful. The clouds were low, wispy and thin. There were gaps between them where I could see stars. The moon had a big clearing of cloudless sky as well, and lit up the whole scene. Scooby was standing a ways ahead of me. I just breathed in the cool night air, and looked around me at the beauty of everything, and realized I felt love, for whoever created this world.
     I took a few minutes to enjoy it, and just stood, watching the clouds move. Like watching the world go by. When I took a step, it was as though I was choosing to move with the speed of the rest of the world. But I felt like standing, so I did. Before I could think much more about it, Scooby got the "zoomies" and starting running around like a crazy dog. He started coming at me full speed. I know him so well, that his 120lb frame doesn’t intimidate me. Rather, it makes me laugh like a child would at the prospect of being tickled. He usually runs past me, then comes back at me more slowly. This time, he decided to give me a body check. Not hard enough to knock me over, but enough to make me feel it! It was as though he was saying "let’s go already mom!"

Then, after all that, once we got back to where my car was parked, he played the little "I’m going to run away when you try to grab me" game. lol… silly puppy. I love him so much. Guess I’m never really alone, am I?