Last night a dream of a hotel room – Barcelona perhaps, somewhere woody and elegant and shadowy.
Our little cat was with me in this beautiful dark room of a dream as she was in real life last night (and often is, my constant companion) clingy and extra-affectionate after a long weekend of my absence.
Suddenly a large bird flew in through the open door – I caught a glimpse of it as it headed towards a corner and saw it was a hawk.
The cat of course began to react, to defend any incursion on her territory as she always does. In real life she will attack anything, including the massive 250lb dog next door and has ended up in his jaws, facing the possible termination of her existence with one quick bite and was saved only by the terrific training and high level of guilt drilled into this dog.
She still attacks him, the silly thing.
And so, in the dream, she began to puff herself up and the standoff began with hissing and screeching and growling and a show of fangs and claws and talons and beaks threatened to fly in a fury in all directions until I grabbed her and pulled her back, away from the hawk.
There was no need to fight.
Just leave the hawk alone, and he will fly away of his own accord.
This morning in the inbox, a weekly message I get of Pema Chodron quotes from the Shambhala Publications blog had a synchronistically birdy, conflict-evasion theme -
THAT BIRD’S GOT MY WINGS
One of my favorite stories about Jarvis Masters [a prison inmate currently sentenced to death row, who took vows as a Buddhist from behind bars] was when he unintentionally helped some other inmates connect with the absolute, vast quality of their own minds. There is a teaching that says that behind all hardening and tightening and rigidity of the heart, there’s always fear. But if you touch fear, behind fear there is a soft spot. And if you touch that soft spot, you find the vast blue sky. You find that which is ineffable, ungraspable, and unbiased, that which can support and awaken us at any time. And somehow Jarvis, in this story of trying to avert harm, conveyed this fundamental openness to the other inmates.One day there was a seagull out on the yard in San Quentin. It had been raining and the seagull was there paddling around in a puddle. One of the inmates picked up something in the yard and was about to throw it at the bird. Jarvis didn’t even think about it—he automatically put out his hand to stop the man. Of course this escalated the man’s aggression and he started yelling. Who the hell did Jarvis think he was? And why did Jarvis care so much about some blankety-blank bird?
Everyone started circling around, just waiting for the fight. The other inmate was screaming at Jarvis, “Why’d you do that?” And out of Jarvis’s mouth came the words, “I did that because that bird’s got my wings.”
Everyone got it. It simply stopped their minds, softened their hearts, and then there was silence.
Weekly Photo Challenge – Companionable
P.S. For some great hawk pictures (which I don’t happen to have in my own photo library) have a look here.
