How Big is Your Word 'We'?

Look at a tree, a flower, a plant. Let your awareness rest upon it. How still they are, how deeply rooted in Being. Allow nature to teach you stillness.

~Eckhart Tolle

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Tucker on our adoption day.[/caption]

Greetings to our friends and community,

Four years ago on a bright September day, Donnalynne Shaw, Thule and I were headed down to pick up Tucker, an 8 month old silver poodle, at Dharma Rescue in Torrance. What excitement we had to welcome another evolutionary ally into our hearts!

When we deeply connect to another in the non-human branches of the animal kingdom, so many blessings manifest. For us humans, I think one of the most important blessings is that it can blaze a trail to a deeper connection not just to others in the animal kingdom, but open us to the plant kingdom, the mineral kingdom, to deep time and a universe that is vast.

We have the opportunity to grow from a narrow, limited, anthropomorphic point of view to an ever expanding and inclusive point of view, rippling out to embrace all. Our relationships with our four-legged friends help us re-define family. Our relationships with our four-legged friends help us learn to see through the eye of the heart. When we see through the eye of the heart we naturally move more sustainably, consciously, and all life rejoices. Animal, plant and mineral.

Upon our return, it became apparent that there were many, many things that young Tucker had not been exposed to in his first eight months…bikes, stairs, skateboards…and so, under the expert tutelage of his godmother, Donnalynne, Tucker began his exposure to the ‘big world’. Thule's job was to mentor Tucker as a future PF pet therapist, and to enjoy having a poodle play mate. There are few things in life as delightful as playing poodles. Big joy generators!

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Tucker in his majesty. Image: Victor Rocha[/caption]

Four years later, Tucker is a happy, healthy guy that is fully integrated into PF. Thule's job is complete as Tucker has stepped into his own majesty and assumed the PF 'pet therapist' mantle.

I have such gratitude to Donnalynne, to Thule for his masterful mentoring, to Auntie Edie for providing lots of puppy playtime and love, to Tomi who visits daily, loves him up and walks him, and to all of you for the ‘love exchange’ between branches of the animal kingdom which occurs daily at Paradise Found.

Yes, it does take a village to raise an evolutionary ally!

Blessings of bounty and balance for this upcoming autumnal equinox,

Teresa, spirit of Thule, Tucker and all at Paradise Found