living with an imaginary dog

I live with an imaginary dog.

Her name is Bella, and she became my therapy dog the very day we met. 

It was through a movie* that I watched one afternoon before doing a guided meditation with my beloved mindfulness community, one that invited us to conjure up a circle of allies. 

Every time a new quality, embodied by a new ally, was called to enter, Bella returned.

She was Unlimited Kindness. She was Compassion. Unconditional Acceptance — oh, how she delighted in my Just Existing! — and Safeness.

—come to think of it, had four different beings emerged, wouldn't that actually have been a Square of Allies? ... Now, luckily that's nothing that I need to ruminate about, because Bella is but One in numbers. 

I guess she, in my mind and thus in this body, gives me what Jesus might (more reliably) give to others. —I actually do converse and commune and discuss and wrestle quite a bit with Jesus nowadays [maybe something I'll write later on: How I came to sometimes talk to Jesus in my mind, without it having to be necessarily 'Christian', without following a church or believing in a whole doctrine]; 

it's just, that whole wrestling part does more often than not present a little obstacle to 24/7-available-unfiltered-uncompromised-uncomplicated-Love.

Bella comes without the tinnitus, the bitter backdrop that millennia of misuse as excuse for unspeakable, for unimaginable violence and pain have painted behind my imagined Jesus.

And though sometimes, dealing with him, nurturing messages do come across and deep compassion is experienced,

the pure and utter, unadulterated joy that Bella brings; the dancing and jumping and licking (even the barking I enjoy when I do not actually hear it!) — That's just something that Jesus can't do. He simply has no tail to wiggle. 

So, these days, Bella takes me out for walks (we're still talking mind walks here), and sometimes Jesus joins us.

Of course, there has been timid thinking about somehow searching for an actual dog, bringing this body I live in to actually sense what otherwise I just imagine sensing. 

Of course, that prospect is one of proper impossibility. I can't move myself out of doors; how on earth could I care for a dog that is more than a thought? 

Well, fortunately, I don't need to deal with the downsides of living with an unimaginary dog either. There is no infinity of hair on the floor, in the supper or bed. No funky smells, no startling barking. No small talk on sideways (I am incapable, and very unfond, of small talk).

There is no love that is so deep that it hurts. No worrying about her health, no one-day- (pre-)grieving a dying friend.

Bella is a blessing that does not carry with it the burden of reality —or: of visible, touchable, hearable reality.

There is the reality of what I feel (and what could doubtlessly be measured, and thus be made visible, too).

I feel noticeably calmer. I feel joy moving through me. I smile reflexively. Breath becomes softer, wider, slower, deeper. 

None of that happens through conscious effort, through physical intention. I just imagine Bella looking at me, openly, and telling me in that wordless language of Life that I am Here, and This is Holy. Her eyes telling me she trusts me, trusts me without reservation, and that I, therefore, can trust myselves. — I Am (freaggin) Trustworthy. (Who knew??) ... She teaches me that That is what Safeness is. 

Please feel free to laugh now, because while what I've written might sound like I've lived with her for years (well, here's hoping that's the case by the time you're reading it!), it is 4:26 am, roughly 12 hours after I cried during the climax of the movie.

I guess something going on inside me wanted, needed to be made palpable with, to be put into words; and also, not writing this when happening increases the probability of overwhelm later on.

Bella's and my history is so young, so fresh, that it still fits onto a page (or two). I'm sensing that, if I wait any longer, if we make a few more memories, the cosmos of our relationship naturally expanding at high speed — by the time I've actually lived with her for years, there'll be no way for me to recall our emergence like I can do now; with the vastness of our whole Life together yet ahead. 

So, these lines grant a glimpse into our very beginning, right out of the middle of it, and at the same time testify to the hope I harbour heading forward with this beautiful and Love-embodying, Life-enhancing dog at my side in my mind. 

I am so curious, so warm-heartedly excited, as to what is going to unfold. Who we're going to become, and where we're gonna lead each other. 

friedo,

for a first time:

with bells snuggled up next to me.

* the movie is called 'a dog's way home'.