Category Archives: Fang & Claw

Doggifying

He did not come easy into this.
But he came.
And now the pillow holds him
and the dark is soft
and whatever was asked of him before
is done.
He has earned this.
God, he has earned this.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Your Gut Is Your Faith

Keeping Things Whole, by Mark Strand/photo by Nick Farrell

http://pedrocabiya.com/tag/rosana-diaz-zambrana/ Something in you already knows.

Before the argument. Before the evidence. Before the committee of your better angels.

Something electrical fires.

A small weather system moves through you. Neurons pass signals along so fast, chemistry turns into motion so instantaneously, a subconscious choice is made before conscious choice can put its shoes on.

It’s called confabulation. The brain inventing reasons after the body has already moved. The gut decides. The mind follows, rationalizing and tidying up, pretending it was there first. It makes for a great timer, too.

But there is something about a dog park on a good morning.

It is nothing short of heaven on earth, and it’s the only one that awaits us. No waiting room. No cubicle. No commandments or gospel. Just pups whose only expectation is you.

When did that fatal trait evolve, expectations?

The dog does not deliberate. He (or She, definitely or She) moves toward what matters, and only the heart and body get a sayso.

No committee. No struggle for power between co-heads. Just signal, motion, conviction. Chaotic but somehow choreographed.

This is faith in its oldest form, older than any adult fairy tail about a sky Santa who awaits us with a tree full of presents.

The dog says: Fuck that. At the park, presence is the present.

That’s why they are beautiful. They know everyday is a week. Their gut knows it.

Hemingway trusted the gut. He called it a built-in detector for the false thing. One read of a paragraph and he knew. James Joyce too. Neither knew writing that way would work. Both believed it would.

That’s the trick.

We live in an age that worships likes and retweets and friend counts. Remaining true to the dog is tough.

But the things worth doing arrive without documentation. You move anyway. You trust the signal. You go.

Then a door opens. You arrive somewhere you had no map for and find it exactly as you imagined.

Revelation.