Not Yet Ready to Let Go
Category Archives: Dogs
Whole Cathedrals of Touching and Loving
Imbolc Valentine Moon
Dogs. A friend wondered why we keep so many. And have done so for so long. Not an 
easy question to answer on the page. Much easier to answer on the couch or in the bed during our nap or outside working in the yard or when we come home and hear the baying the kitchen, the dogs having heard the garage door and the Rav4.
Dogs are not surrogate children. We don’t own them, even if we buy them. Dogs are fellow travelers, pilgrims on the journey. We love them, feed them, care for them, play with them, and grieve for their loss.
They are companions. Companions with a full and complete space of their own. As dogs. Not as replacements for something else, but as what they are, mammals like us, individuals like us, with a life to live, like us. They agree in their big hearts to share their journey with us.
We keep at least two dogs, preferably litter mates, for a simple reason. We believe dogs need canine companionship and who better than a brother or a sister? Actually, we know dogs need canine companionship. That’s the definition of a pack. It takes a pack to raise a puppy.
Our days and our nights interlace, interweave. I have my writing and my Latin. Vega and 
Rigel have holes to dig, rabbits to run to ground, each other to chase. Gertie rolls in the snow, plays with stuffed gorillas and squirrels and cows, searches for food to steal.
Their outside world is largely opaque to us. We let them out and they run, always run, to the sheds to look for critters. Down the fenceline to greet or respond to other dogs. Into the woods to find opossums or groundhogs or raccoons or, as twice this last summer, turtles. We do human things inside. They do dog things.
We come together for meals, for naps, for time on the couch or individual time. We all seem to need it, from each other. And, this is part of the magic of dogs, we seek it out 
from each other. A house with many dogs is a house filled with interaction, with a pat or a nuzzle or a lean or playful nip or a crisp bark that signals a need to go outside or a readiness to go to bed. The web of these interactions, often brief, would make a thick matrix on any given day, horizontal pillars on any given week and, over the years, whole cathedrals of touching and loving. Come to think of it, I think this is why we keep dogs. And so many. And have done for such a long time.
English Dog Feeds Self
Winter Seed Catalog Moon
This is Freddy. He lives in northern England with a friend of my sister. He’s a smart boy. And a pleased one.
2013: Second Quarter
Winter Winter Moon
The first day of the second quarter, April 1st, is Stefan’s birthday and was a gathering of the Woolly’s at the Red Stag. I made this note: “Here we are seen by each other. Our deep existence comes with us, no need for the chit-chat and polite conversation of less intimate gatherings. The who that I am within my own container and the who that I am in the outer world come the closest to congruence at Woolly meetings, a blessed way of being exceeded only in my relationship with Kate.”
The “doing work only I can do” thought kept returning, getting refined: “With writing, Latin and art I have activities that call meaning forward, bringing it into my life on a daily basis, and not only brought forward, but spun into new colors and patterns.” april 2 On the 13th this followed: “Why is doing work only I can do important to me? Mortality. Coming at me now faster than ever. Within this phase of my whole life for sure. Individuation. It’s taken a long time to get clear about who and what I’m for, what I’m good at and not good at. Now’s the time to concentrate that learning, deepen it.”
The best bee year we’ve had started on April 16th with discovering the death of the colony I thought would survive. While moving and cleaning the hive boxes, I wrenched back and the pain stayed with me. That same day the Boston Marathon bombing happened. In addition to other complicated feelings this simple one popped up: “The most intense part of my initial reaction came when I realized what those feelings meant, the emptiness and the sadness and the vacuum. They meant I am an American. That this event was about us, was done to us.”
Another theme of this quarter would be my shoulder, perhaps a rotator cuff tear, perhaps nerve impingement caused by arthritis in my cervical vertebrae. Maybe some post-polio misalignment. But over the course of the quarter with a good physical therapist it healed nicely.
Kate went on a long trip to Denver, driving, at this time, for Gabe and Ruth’s birthdays. While she was out there teaching Ruth to sew, Ruth asked her, “Why did you become a doctor instead of a professional sewer?” When Kate is gone, the medical intelligence of our house declines precipitously. That means doggy events can be more serious.
Kona developed a very high fever and I had to take her to the emergency vet. She had a nodule on her right shoulder which we identified as cancerous. This meant she had to have it removed. At this point I was moving her (a light dog at maybe 40 pounds) in and out of the Rav4 with some difficulty because of my back.
This was the low point of the year as Kona’s troubles and my back combined to create a 
dark inner world. The day I picked Kona up from the Vet after her surgery was cold and icy, but my bees had come in and I had to go out to Stillwater to get them, then see my analyst, John Desteian. That day was the nadir. I was in pain and had to go through a lot of necessary tasks in sloppy slippery weather. That week Mark Odegard sent me this photograph from a while ago Woolly Retreat.
By the end of the month though Kate was back and April 27th: “Yes! Planted under the planting moon…”
For a long time I had wanted to apply my training in exegesis and hermeneutics to art and in this time period I decided to do it. In the course of researching this idea I found I was about 50 years late since the Frankfurt School philosophers, among them, Gadamer and Adorno, had done just that. Still, I patted myself on the back for having thought along similar lines.
Over the last year Bill Schmidt, a Woolly, and I have had dinner before we play sheepshead in St. Paul. His wife, Regina, died a year ago September. “Bill continues to walk straight in his life after Regina’s death, acknowledging her absence and the profound effect it has had on his life, yet he reports gratitude as his constant companion.”
By April 29th the back had begun to fade as an issue: “Let me describe, before it gets away from me, submerged in the always been, how exciting and uplifting it was to realize I was walking across the floor at Carlson Toyota. Just walking.”
Kate and I had fun at Jazz Noir, an original radio play performed live over KBEM.
In my Beltane post on May 1st I followed up my two sessions with John Desteian: “John Desteian has challenged me to probe the essence of the numinous. That is on my mind. Here is part of that essence. The seed in the ground, Beltane’s fiery embrace of the seed, the seed emerging, flourishing, producing its fruit, harvest. Then, the true transubstantiation, the transformation of the bodies of these plants into the body and blood ourselves.”
Then on May 6th, 5 months into my sabbatical from the MIA: “The third phase requires pruning. Leaving a job or a career is an act of pruning. A move to a smaller home is an act of pruning. Deciding which volunteer activities promote life and which encumber can proceed an act of pruning. Last year I set aside my political work with the Sierra Club. Today I have set aside my work at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.” That ended 12 years of volunteer work.
“When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life.”
| — | Jean Shinoda Bolen |
It was also in May of this year that Minnesota finally passed the Gay marriage bill. Gave me hope.
May 13 “Sort of like attending my own funeral. All day today notes have come in from docent classmates responding to my resignation from the program.” During this legislative session, I again became proud to be a Minnesotan.
As the growing season continued: “If you want a moment of intense spirituality, go out in the morning, after a big rain, heat just beginning to soak into the soil, smell the odor of sanctity…”
On May 22nd the Woolly’s gathered to celebrate, with our brother Tom, the 35th year of his company, Crane Engineering. The celebration had something to do with a crystal pyramid. At least Stefan said so.
A cultural highlight for the year was the Guthrie’s Iliad, a one person bravura performance by veteran actor, Stephen Yoakam.
Friend and Woolly Bill Schmidt introduced me to High Brix gardens. I decided to follow their program to create sustainable soils and did so over the course of the growing season. I got good results.
Our new acquaintance Javier Celis, who did a lot of gardening work for us over the year, also finished up our firepit and we had our first fire in it on June 7th. It was not the last.
On June 12th Rigel came in with a small pink abrasion on her nose. She had found and barked, barked, barked, barked at a snapping turtle. Kate removed the turtle from our property. The turtle came back, hunting I believe, for a small lake not far from us in which to lay her eggs. The next time Rigel and Vega still barked, from a safe distance.
And on Father’s Day: “Is there anything that fills a parent’s heart faster than hearing a child light-hearted, laughing, excited? Especially when that child is 31.”
During her visit her in late June grand-daughter Ruth went with me on a hive inspection: “She hung in there, saying a couple of times, “Now it’s making me really afraid.” but not moving away.”
My favorite technology story came on June 27th when NASA announced that one of the Voyager spacecrafts would soon leave the heliosphere, the furthest point in space where the gases of the sun influence matter. This meant it would then be in interstellar space.
And, as Voyager entered the Oort cloud Tom and Roxann made their way Svalbard and the arctic circle. Thus endeth the second quarter.
More Fun at the Vet
Samhain Winter Moon
Another dog day afternoon with Gertie in for removal of some surgical detritus that broke 
loose and gave her a lot of pain. This surgery was why I stayed home last week. She came home wagging her tail and sporting a day-glo pink bandage on her left rear leg. When she’s healed up, Monday or so, we imagine she’ll be back close to normal. Which will be something since, with only three legs functional, she still managed to jump the fence into the orchard. The original trauma was an athletic injury to her knee,
Vega, our big girl, broke a nail and a toe. But, as Roger Barr, our vet said, “She’s a tough girl.” Nothing much to do for broken toes but restrict movement. We’re supposed to stop her from doing anything crazy. We’ll see.
Vega ran outside as soon as we got home to join her sister Rigel who spent most of the day hunting varmints that live under our machine shed/honey house. The sisters bark and 
bark and bark and eventually, mostly to get away from the decibel level, a few critters run out from under the shed, figuring anything is better than more noise. At that point these 100 pound dogs jump on whatever lives under there: rabbits, mice, voles, woodchucks. Could be any or all.
While at the vet, Kate said it would be fun to greet all of our Wolfhounds. And it would be the most special moment I could imagine. Such great, wonderful animals and so much sadness. So much.
Hail, Hail
Samhain New (Winter) Moon
4 females, one human and 3 canines, one male. All present and accounted for. The house 
is full again.
On the cold and snow coming. Yes. Yes. Three times yes. We live here in the north and for many of us our northerness gets defined in these three months when the snow and the cold come. What it will be like here when the boreal forest has fled further north and the winters have become like currently more southern climes I don’t know, but I know I don’t want to be here then.
Thank God It’s Frida
Samhain Thanksgiving Moon
Latin with Greg this morning. I felt like I’d made good progress with my work, but in doing the translating with him, I hit a snag. There was a long sentence, six verses in length, with a complicated structure, hinging on a definition of a verb that was, Greg said, esoteric. Getting that one out of whack made the entire six verses difficult, entangled. Just when I began to feel incompetent (not a feeling I enjoy), Greg pushed us further into the translation.
Once we got out of that briar patch my work improved. “Perfect. You’ve got it!” “It was just that complex sentence and ferunt (the verb in question) that messed you up. You kept at it. That’s the key.”
“Oh, tenacity I have. I’ve got too much time in this to give up now.”
Kate’s away at a continuing medical education event on pain. After Greg and I finished I fed the dogs, made lunch and took a nap. Gertie, who rehurt her leg, came in and snuggled up next to me. This afternoon she’s moving much better. Good to see since she’s been down for a few days.
Finished up ModPo with assessments of four other student’s essays and watched a beginning video on Dramatica Pro, the new writing software I purchased. I plan to use it to build Loki’s Children, but before that I have to learn how to use it.
With Latin on a steady course and ModPo finished, I’ve just got Missing and Ovid to occupy my days. And they’re plenty. With, of course, learning how to use Dramatica.
Yawn.
Fall Harvest Moon
We’ve had at least two break-ins here over the last week or so. Both during the day.
So when the dogs began barking this morning at 5:00 a.m. (5:00 a.m.!), we both wondered. Then we listened. No. Gertie had her excited bark, not her stay away or I will lacerate you bark/growl.
All three went out. All three came back in. And started up again at 5:30 a.m. (5:30 a.m.!) The two big dogs, Vega and Rigel, stayed out and Gertie came into our room. This happens rarely and it’s never clear what stimulates them. Presumably some animal noise. One we can’t hear.
This meant both of us have been a bit draggy today, sleep deprived even after naps.
Dog Leak Source Found. Medical Positives.
Lughnasa Honey Moon
I believe I found the egress. (see post below) Wired it up. I walked the whole perimeter, about half a mile, checking the bottom of the chain link fence for sign. These include scuffed earth, bent or snapped off twigs or plant stalks, areas where the earth has been scratched. Then, like the cowboys of old, I take out my wire cutters and my almost depleted roll of baling wire and anchor the fence to something solid. The good old empirical method will tell whether or not I was successful. Dogs in perennial beds. No. Dogs in back. Yes.
Also, forgot to mention here the good news about my shoulder. After six months of sleep disturbing and task disrupting pain, my physical therapy has eliminated almost all the pain. I would say I’m 95% back to normal. The p.t. was monotonous and frequent, but over time it pulled me back to good health. Worth it. Much better than meds.
In addition, as far as medical good news goes, as some of you know, I’ve mostly cut out carbs, lost 16 pounds and upped my consumption of fruits and vegetables. Just like your Mom was supposed to have told you, although I don’t remember those lessons from my Mom. My new doctor did an A1c test which measures average blood sugar over a three month period and mine was in the normal range. Barely, but it was there. I’m convinced that the change in eating pattern walked me back from prediabetes. I’ll stick with the new eating paradigm, healthier anyway.
One more piece of good news in the A1c’s trail. My cholesterol numbers stayed in excellent ranges in spite of the fact that I’ve increased my carnivorous activity. That’s all the good news that’s fit to print.
Local Fence Leaks Dogs
lughnasa Honey Moon
P.T. Barnum famously encouraged crowds, “This way to the egress!” First project this morning is finding Rigel’s most recent success in locating an egress from our fenced in yard. All three have used it, but I know this scene well enough to know that Rigel precipitated the event.
We have a wood slatted gate off our deck that leads into the perennial flower gardens below it. The first day, the very first day, she was here, Rigel got her head stuck between two of the slats. I had to remove one to release her. Later on she discovered a downed tree low enough to jump on and use as a bridge to the great beyond. See my post below about faith as a bridge to a better place.
Since then she’s prized open gates, dug under fences, several times and discovered weak spots in the chain link where she make herself small and wiggle out. This is a 130 pound dog. Who then gets followed by her sister Vega at 150. Vega loves Rigel and enjoys the adventures but never commences them.
So, until I’ve found the hole and plugged it up.