26: Perspectives

This afternoon, kissed by the sun, returning from the beautiful garlic-green banks of the river into a wide field, I felt a nag and kept Baba-girl on the lead. At the lip of the next field we both spied three deer, still at first, then running. The were 45 metres or so away - small fry for a lean and zippy dog - bounding up the side of the field. 

They waited half way and nipped through the hedge, out of sight behind it, then I saw their heads above it, bounding back down. Baba was transfixed. She lay on the ground, staring at the spot we'd last seen them.
Minutes later, they (or three identical deer) were right over the other side. Neither of us had seen them pass us. I watched them for ten minutes or so. Baba (the most beautiful, but not always the wisest of creatures) was still transfixed on their last-sighting spot, fully ignoring their actual presence in a new field. I was reminded of myself, sometimes fixed on something I know to be true, because once perhaps it was. 

I'm aware of the need to meditate more, to centre, to ground in, so that the small trials of nowness don't tip me so easily off balance. I am meditating some. Such things are not instantaneous. Nor are they fixes. They are long, slow dissolvers of ingrained perspectives. There are rarely fireworks or other such epiphanies, just a gradual noticing of what used to be no longer seeming necessary, a reshaping of the eyes that see, not the objects they observe. 

This morning, a wonderful conversation with my beloved Victoria Sandison... a salve, a boon, a sweet nut by all accounts. And then a podcast practice with the inimitable bag of wise that is Sammy S. And later still, cousin Ruth. Thanks, tech, for the wonders you make possible. Thank you, good friends, for the perspectives you make possible.

Important post-script: current names for my dog:
Official name: 
Baba Yaga Claybourne (Baba)
Also: 
Barbara, Babs, Bubba, Bob
Chops
Barbara Streisand/Barbara Streisand Dog
Babaji, Ji, G
Baby Girl, Sweet Girl, Lady-girl, Girlface
Sausage, Sos-chops, Sos-mix, Sos
Dogs (collectively with the Handsome Mr Chops)

In case you wanted to know.