The dog days of Austin begin with a cat.
Believe me, I’m curious, too. I am a fervent dog person, so why would this memory ride start with a cat?
If I dissolve the resistant why, I soften into trusting the instinctive impulse to welcome the intelligent life-force propelling the story.
In the creative trusting, I drop a bit deeper into receiving heightened, spirited understanding from those dog days. And I wish to dig deeper into those dog days of Austin. This nine-month span of time in the Lone Star State enthusiastically tail-wags as exceptionally happy and pivotal in lessons that continue to transform my daily life.
So, let the memory bloom, and here emerges Jasper, the ancient feline who meditates on a throne of plush floral pillows strategically placed to overlook the dusk-draped backyard.
I tiptoe to his regal side. I take delicate steps, but the bedroom floorboards creak, a sound intrusion that ripples into the pool of hushed reverence billowing around him. He’s gently bathed in fading streams of sunlight and darkening shadows, and his butterscotch eyes are half-open, resting on my approach.
The house is still. His owners are vacationing, and so I am his attentive keeper. I schedule his visits for sunset, and refresh his water and serve his supper on crystal dishes reserved solely for him by his pampering parents.
I pause and reluctantly fish out my phone to take the obligatory photo. The local pet sitting company I work for requests that I send documentation of each visit to the paying owner.
Jasper is the easiest cat to snap a photo of – he never moves from this perched pancake of pillows. (But he must eventually stretch and slink off to go feast because I spend most of my visit picking off stranded and dried pieces of wet food from the etched designs on those crystalline serving dishes.)
And though it’s smooth picture-taking, I’m concerned his owners will think I just keep recycling the same old photo; so, I angle the camera overhead, crouch down to depict his bemused face illuminated in the hues of twilight.
Snap. Text. Send.
And now, I can leave, I can swiftly depart. My job as a pet-sitter complete. And I almost do, mind humming about the next to-do, until I’m almost at the bedroom door and realize, my job is incomplete. I forgot the most important part, the aspect of the position not detailed in the job description, but the one that gives this work meaning.
I place my phone on a nearby dresser and respectfully walk back to Jasper’s side. I tenderly stroke his precious head, massage behind his fragile ears, lightly trace my fingertips along his back. Beneath my fingers, underneath his paper-thin coat of white and black spotted fur, I feel the currents of purring.
I ease out of the mental narrative eager to rush, hissing that I am losing time, because that is engrained capitalism fueled by scarcity, running on fear.
I am in the presence of a sentient being that lives in the intensity and the serenity of the now, and only in the now. I practice gifting Jasper the gift he unconditionally and generously gives, like all enlightened four-legged friends do: presence.
My dog days of Austin train me to be present, to slow down, to create the time for the spaciousness, to connect, to notice and pay affectionate attention.
Sugaree, a spunky blue heeler, teaches me this, repeatedly. She’s enthralled by a chew toy, an orange tube riddled with ardent teeth marks and endearingly titled The Kong. She barks and spins to initiate the PLAY of tossing the Kong across the yard so she can race, catch, and prance gleefully away to gnaw until it’s time to restart the game.
She sniffs out any distraction. If my mind ever drifts into a daydream, she yelps and resurfaces at my feet, pressing the Kong toward my sparkly tennis shoes, demanding my whole self to participate in this afternoon play.
Sasha, a golden retriever mix who resembles a honey-highlighted polar bear, moves like molasses on our walks. She’s spellbound by every scent, by every sound. Our strolls up the block take the entire time of the scheduled stay. And often, my own irritation nips at my heels. I pull her along, marching ahead, and she languidly saunters behind. I dislike hurrying her, and then shift to see that this is her only time that day to be outside, to bask in the stories of smells, in the streams of sunshine.
I relinquish my agenda. I slow down my pace to match hers. Our walks reveal new worlds within that one lone block: a cactus that towers like a castle, historic homes that murmur in memories of what Austin was like before the popular surge, and flirty squirrels zigzagging across magnificent trees.
Cooper, a noble and old pound-rescue of a gentleman, prefers energized romps around his suburb. His recovery from hip surgery zips fresh zeal into his long limbs. We happily trot over sidewalks and gladly jog around the cul-de-sacs. Cooper’s bright-eyed, bushy-tailed enthusiasm animates my own joy-lit embodiment – to feel the pulse of my heartbeat, the run of my blood, the movement of my arms and legs carrying me forward through air and space.
Cooper instructs sheer and simple enjoyment in aliveness.
Sasha returns me back to the flow of a life that is beyond the illusion of human-designed time.
Sugaree appears as the tough-love mama, barking, “BE HERE.”
They all walk me home to myself.
These dogs and cats are unexpected and essential healers who materialize when I answer the whisper to reroute and leave the professional setting of nonprofits and leap into trust.
A few linear people in my life at that time make off-handed comments about my current career pivot, but I know the teachings I receive and the medicine from those teachings align with my real life-work: to activate into my fullest, brightest potential.
Those Texan dogs and cats teach me how to be human, how to live an awakened human life.
I hope everyone takes a chance on a dog-days chapter. I wish everyone the breath-steadying courage to activate the momentum to change course, a course that clicks with the soul. That off-the-main-road venture may lead to the pillow throne of an ancient feline whose meditative existence instinctively stirs the deeper chambers of a stillness that you intrinsically know to be you.
The path to enlightenment may begin in pausing long enough to meet, to truly see, to hold in a loving gaze the reflective eyes of another – an essence purring in reassurance that life can be lived in this natural and ecstatic ease that consistently communicates connection and unity.