The Constellation Learning Newsletter
July/August 2008

Animal owners, I rejoined your ranks for a few weeks. Took care of someone else's pet. That can be taxing, both physically and emotionally. And like most opportunities to grow, stretching your trust muscles is required.

I had forgotten how important that is. Can't get what you're unwilling to give.

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~ Monthly Message ~

“I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves
as we honestly bestow elsewhere.”

-- Henry David Thoreau --

I've had a chance to exercise my trust muscles this month while caring for Koda, my son Michael's large freedom-loving canine. Koda is a full bred Husky, sleek with a jet black coat and white face, with arresting ice-blue eyes that'll stop you dead in your tracks (as it did one neighbor) if you happened upon him in a forest. A sweet-natured animal, he nonetheless looks (and acts) wild.  He can't help wanting to wander the woods; it's in his blood.  It's also been the bane of my son's existence the past six years: keeping Koda contained. He has gotten away on regular occasions, my son often receiving midnight phone calls; "Uh, do you own a Husky? Well, we've got him here."

Years ago Mike got an electric collar which Koda wears whenever he goes for "long walks" in his own neighborhood and gets let off the leash. In Koda's mind this heavy black box of a thing pressing tightly into his neck means he's going for a BIG walk and will get to RUN FREE off the THING THAT TETHERS him. He gets excited when it gets put on.

Michael went through the whole routine with me when he brought Koda to the island. But it seemed such a bothersome thing. After all, very few people were here for him to annoy with his appearance.  So we developed our own routine, and though he "visited" various neighbors (I have since discovered) he always returned home. The electric collar went on a couple of times, but he was so good I thought it extraneous and stopped using it. After all, I reasoned, I was choosing to trust him and he was responding.

One day I returned from some mainland errands and couldn't see him on the dock as I approached the cottage by boat. I had left him unattended for an hour, trusting he'd be there when I got back. Wondering whether I would be going on a great dog-search through the woods, my eyes searched the shore. No Koda on the porch above. No Koda on the dock below. No Koda within view.

I gave one call as the boat pulled to the front dock and from around the corner bounded a dog delighted to see his feeding machine return from across the great unknown.  He was playful and affectionate without seeming frantic from relief. Apparently he had trusted I'd be back as well.

Amazing what freedom trust provides, if you're willing to give before you get. Yes, you might get hurt, you might get betrayed or deceived, but you will also, on more occasions than not, find that your investment garners huge returns.

Until, of course, you get to "walk the talk."

Koda went missing this past week. I had just returned from conducting the Trust Program, during which time my mother, who had arrived at the cottage the previous week, cared for him. I left completely assured—smug, in fact—that she would have no problems with Koda while I was gone. And she didn't; he saved that for me.

It ain't good to get smug, about anything.

He disappeared Tuesday afternoon. For two agonizing nights I did everything I could to find him: walked the island, checked with neighbors, made calls, all the while remembering my smugness and feeling very sorry for it; blind trust is no trust at all, I reminded myself. This needn't have happened had the electric collar been on, I chastised myself.

I was a complete mess by the second night. Parks Canada protects 500 acres of forest land in the interior of Hill Island. It is very wild indeed and I had heard the coyotes bone-chilling kill yelps followed by a deathly quiet sometime in the wee morning hours of Wednesday. Picturing worse case scenarios (Wayne Dwyer calls it "awfulizing") I could not concentrate on anything other than Koda's possible demise. I understand the laws of physics and the essential intricacies of the quantum world well enough to know that that kind of visualizing wouldn't help anything. Besides, deep inside I felt Koda was safe somewhere. But I wanted proof—and soon!

Welcome to the difference between faith and trust. I believed Koda was safe, but wasn't acting like it.

I utilized every technique I teach—Tai Chi, Yoga, faith statement, affirmations—grasping for some sort of equilibrium and noticed that whenever my thoughts wandered from the present and tilted toward crisis, careening off the road of rationality (What if he was the reason the coyotes were celebrating? What if he'd met another porcupine? Or been wounded? What if someone snatched him?), a loon would appear. Very suddenly and very close. It happened three times within three hours. We've always had a pair of loons in our part of the river. Call it crazy (and there are those who would) but I have never, in over fifty summers here, ever had a loon pop up from where I stood on the deck (trying way too hard to perform Tai Chi), not five feet from shore, spread it's wings and flap them vigorously while emitting a sharp rapid fire call, looking directly at me, and then duck down and away. All in three seconds.

Probably just a coincidence, (some might say) but by the third time I thought I'd check the Animal Speak bible by Ted Andrews: "If a loon appears in your life, ask yourself, are you letting your imagination run wild?"

The next day, Thursday, I went to the large old quarry several miles away in the center of the Parks Canada land. I don't know why, it just seemed the largest open spot where my voice might carry, Koda might hear me and come running. I needed to do something.

I made my way to highest point in the ancient quarry and called until my voice wouldn't call anymore. Childhood memories of Timmy and Lassie washed over me.  There was nothing more I could do. I was left to simply be. To be alone with the loss.

The sun was shining and the entire quarry was awash in summer wild flowers, gone thick from so many years of disuse. A breeze blew and they swayed in undulating waves of unified cohesion. It was incredibly beautiful. There being nothing more I could actually do, I did what seemed natural in that still, beautiful place—I performed Tai Chi, this time easily, naturally. Nothing forced about it.

I began to focus on a happy homecoming. After all, Lassie had crested the hill just as Timmy was burying his dog toys. Oh, the joy! The unspoiled simple beauty of the place and the quiet stillness of the place lanced the terrible boil of fear in my heart and by the time I completed a few movements, I too felt still and grateful and at peace. I even tried to feel some concern. But what was, was. And if Koda was gone, then he was gone. And it would all be fine. "All manner of things shall be well." And it was damn well time I started acting like it. It was damn well time to begin walking my own highly practiced talking.

Gazing one last moment across acres and acres of shimmering, shimmying wild flowers, I turned to leave. It was then that my cell phone rang—the only place it would have received a signal was in that quarry—and it was my son. He had just received a call from an island dweller who lived miles from us, and who, owning five huskies himself and needing to leave the island on Tuesday night, had taken Koda (whom he had discovered outside his door at 4 am) with him as a precautionary measure. Wednesday he'd gotten side tracked and hadn't called until Thursday. Right as I was doing Tai Chi. Right as I reached a place of peace. Right as I relinquished it all. Right as I "got" the lesson. (Probably all coincidences, but to be safe, like Bart Simpson, I am writing "Do not confuse smug with smart" 100 times.)

I retrieved Koda from his rescuer Thursday evening. The mutt didn't even have the good grace to exhibit any remorse whatsoever. While I had been worried about him he'd been having a sleep over with extended family. He'd been just fine. He'd trusted the whole thing. It was I who fell flat on my face when confronted with the opportunity to exercise my trust muscles. Apparently, smugness saps their strength.

Some lessons take longer to learn and I'm convinced, after lo these many decades of personal searching and learning and stretching and leading, that the conscious choice to trust (especially in the face of challenging circumstances) is the most difficult thing in the world for a human being to do. We're simply not hardwired that way.

Here you are, extending your trust (with no guarantee or any return) in a situation or person or organization or philosophy or ideal. Marriage is an act of trust. So is having a baby. Or taking that new job or launching out on your own. Or trusting things will turn out all right when your child's (or your own) heart is breaking. Or believing in a "friendly universe" as Einstein once said, referring to a primary issue for all human beings: whether to choose to believe the universe is a coherent, friendly place, or not, suggesting that that choice would order all others.

Believing this apparently chaotic world adheres to a set of laws (whether we humans do or not) is hard; manifesting that belief in an active way--really exercising trust—is harder still.  

It's always the more difficult choice: to walk the talk.  

But oh, the joy!

“Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.”

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson --

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