The simple way of being (Lennys Travel)

Originally written and published alongside my beloved old dog in 2022, I want to occasionally share these personal writings with you—especially for those who are living with an elderly animal, walking through landscapes of immense beauty, but also experiencing worry, sorrow, and, eventually, grief. These writings and reflections, like most of my deeply personal work, are always in English.

Many humans, when they find themselves in a challenging, painful, complicated, or tough situation, say something like, "I wish I were a dog." That makes total sense. Have you ever reflected on a saying like that?

In this very moment, while my beloved human writes (of course, it’s her, but she’s more in tune with me than ever), I lay on my cherished couch. I am very old, quite sick, I breathe, there is still some life in me, but mostly I rest—everything is easy. That’s my mode. The human’s mode is—or would be—“Oh no, it aches here and there, oh my god, what is it? I must see the vet! But no, I hate those places!" (I do, she’s right; the atmosphere stresses me.)

What should I do with this terrible state? What is going on? I wish I were as fit and lively as I was five years ago—running and jumping endlessly. It’s so terrible. I had planned to travel, I wanted to go to Tuscany again, to the beach, run free in the water, but it’s not possible. How will she manage without me? It’s so sad. I feel so poor. Oh, what if it’s cancer? What if I die tomorrow?

Of course, you see the difference. I am simple and present, with no judgment, no sense of future or past. I simply am. Humans aren’t complicated, but their thinking minds start to wander around like crazy. They get restless even when they rest, and nothing is happening in that very moment—and so they make it complicated.

“Animals are simple. They are. They respond to inner and outer movements directly and spontaneously. They reside in the moment. They are never away from it. They do not know the concepts or wanderings of the mind, nor the need to 'have control.' So, relax—nothing is under control.”

It was, of course, not planned to write this first post about that. But that’s something I love about my human: she lets it flow. She adapts to my states and modes, and although, for her mind, getting upset as described above at times, it also relaxes her. Originally, she wanted to write more in detail about how I came to be here, my story. But she’s into this simplicity now too. Because she has a mind, because she has something called consciousness (I am conscious too, maybe more than many humans in ways of being present… so I would call it the thinking mind when constricted and conscious awareness when being still and wide), of course, the past is present in the present, lingering softly; nevertheless, that immediate presence is much stronger now. The presence of the chirp of the bird outside, the cars (wuuusch) driving by, louder than usual as it always is when it rains, the rhythmic sound of my breath, the fleeting taste of coffee on her tongue, her fingers typing, pausing above the keyboard, while that simple, beautiful moment enters into her being.

Just be. There’s nothing more. It is everything.

So, what will this blog be about? What will it contain? She told me she does not know exactly. What is sure is that it will transport and transmit life and being alive, and all that it contains. I will travel with her to places, outside and inside. Maybe telling and showing things from my simple view, maybe embellished with her complicated, yet beautiful, mind reflections. I lend her my simplicity, and she lends me her fingers, her words.

I never needed words; it’s not about them, the content. It’s about the tone. The frequency. Some essence they try to approximate. Sometimes she talks to me in a comic voice, in a language that doesn’t exist. It’s just tone and sounds, and I always love it. If she were to say “asshole” to me and the tone was soft, funny, cheering me up, I would be happy or relaxed!

So read and listen deeply into the words, not necessarily their intellectual meaning, but what can you sense behind them? What tone? What vibration? It’s more about that. Can you sense love? Compassion? Care? Admiration? Can you sense full presence?

I am still here, in my body. Yes, he’s having more and more trouble. But isn’t that natural, that decay? Of course.

This writing is, as she said, like a preparation. Not that I need it, but it seems to help her—or rather her mind—to handle the nearing change from form to formless. I additionally help her, because in the evening, there is a strange energy pulsing in my body, every ache is more intense, and I have difficulty finding rest. To help me, she started going to bed with me very early, turning off all the lights (that’s necessary to wind down my system), and only when she starts breathing deeply, slipping into a deep meditation mode that expands from her heart, creating a soft, ever-expanding space, will I come to rest. It does her good. One could say she meditates me to sleep. She helps me, and I help her.

There is infinite love. That is what it’s about.

“There is infinite love beyond time and space. That is what it’s about.”

And anyway... I am starnightsinfinity.