poo, Beth, and boundaries

A lot of outdoorsfolk say to watch the animals for how to behave in the woods. There’s an eccentric and controversial long-distance hiking guru named Ray Jardine who even feels we ought to poo as they do, whether we are indoors at the toilet or out. We should sit down, poo as much as we can, and immediately get back up. If we sit for hours at the pot, we train our bowels to excrete their contents leisurely. But over time, he is convinced, we can retrain our bowels to do their business and be done with it, just like the animals, and that this is actually healthier. But pooing is a rabbit trail; the point is watching animals.

I remembered that little Rayism this morning while I watched from the window as Beth made her rounds. She looked into a tire rut for muddy water, her favorite flavor. She meandered through the leaves, sniffing at one in particular, side-hilled down the embankment to the creek, and side-hilled back up. All along the border of the property she went, seeing what's new since yesterday, what's old.

She was a live picture of the concept of visiting your life’s borders, taking stock of yourself, seeing what’s new and what's old. This is something that can only be done in stillness, non-rushedly, even if there is commotion all around. Traffic buzzed by, cars and big trucks on the road, planes overhead. And Beth, apparently unaffected by these things, kept sniffing and looking. I want to sniff and look more too!

Sniffing out the borders is something big to me about now, because Jason and I are in a holding pattern, not making any sudden movements, and it's a good time to take stock. A lot has been on our collective mind. I will blog about it soon, but in a different entry or it'd be way too long.