The source of inspiration

I believe that inspiration is a release of positive qualities that already exist inside us. They are triggered by any number of things. One great inspiration for me is music. I can listen to a song for a long time and be moved by the rhythms of it without even hearing the words. Another day, the words come through to me and it’s a whole new song.

When you watch a movie, there is a soundtrack playing in the background throughout its length. So it only makes sense that we should have a soundtrack playing all the time in our everyday lives. Think how often a song intersects with an event and forever that song comes to serve as a reminder of that event or the feelings from that event. Even many years later. Powerful, eh? Yes, music inspires and instills.

This week, the senior dog at my house — Lacey — passed away. She had arthritis so crippling that she stopped walking on her own about three years ago and I became her legs. But don’t feel sorry for her because she did not skip a beat. I slid her onto a large piece of canvas and dragged her wherever she wanted to go: to the bedroom, to her pee pad, to the living room. I built a ramp for her so she could go out into the backyard. She would have expected nothing less from me and I did not even think twice about it. Dragging that 100 pounds of gentleness around as much as I did in a day was probably the most exercise I got some days.

The Eddie Vedder song, The Long Road, came on the stereo just before Lacey passed away. I was laying against her on the floor and could tell her time with me was getting short. Her soul had not left her body yet and I was telling her about everyone that was waiting for her: her brother Charley, her sister-friend Taylor, baby Paketo, lovely Layla… I was encouraging her to let go. I asked her to please keep an eye on us, but told her it was okay for her to let go now.

We all walk the long road. Cannot stay…
There’s no need to say goodbye…

Lacey passed with me beside her while it was playing.

For the history of it… I found Charley and Lacey as young pups, a couple months old. I saw them down by the old wooden bridge on my way to work one morning. Seems someone may have been aiming for the creek with them, but the creek was dry. Often when a dog is “dumped,” they stay where they were dumped waiting for their family to come back and get them. They were still waiting when I came home from work that evening.

I pulled over and started talking to them. They looked nothing alike. Charley was an orange-tan color and, in later years, I called him Charley Tan the Man. Lacey was mostly black with some Australian Shepherd ticking on her hind legs that looked like lace, thus Lacey. They seemed so happy to have someone to talk to — just two roley-poley balls of puppiness. After we talked a bit, I asked them if they would like to come home with me. They tilted their head sideways — as they had done through much of our conversation — then ran over and jumped in the car.

That was more than fifteen years ago. I lost Charley to cancer about a year and a half ago.

I am constantly awed by how moved we are by animals — our own pets, internet videos of birds mothering kittens, squirrels playing with cats, deer playing with dogs, and even mosquito fish and dragonflies frolicking in a spray of water from the hose.

One of my fondest memories is of a dog I named Walter that had been dumped on a corner near me. Long story short, he came to live with the woman next door who has a horse. We had a particularly heavy rain one evening and I felt so bad for Magoo, the horse, because he had no shelter except a tree to go under. I guess Walter was feeling the same sadness because he came out of his doghouse and stood outside the fence but as close to Magoo as he could get and the two endured the storm together.

With regards to animals, I see it as my responsibility to help them where needed. Sometimes I wonder if we have just misunderstood our place in this world all along. Perhaps we are here to serve them — and not vice-versa. But maybe at some point we mutinied to overcome that position and haven’t looked back.

But perhaps we should look back. We are all essentially climbing the same mountain, but from different sides, different angles and different perspectives. However each side, each angle and each perspective allows us opportunity to offer our hand to another in need. It is simply the kind thing to do and it is the right thing… even if there is nothing tangible in it for us.

The Native people of North America believe that it is the animals in your life that will decide if you enter heaven when the time comes. My joy is the thought that I will see so the many friendly faces whom I have known in my lifetime and miss terribly. Hopefully, they will invite me in.

Of Lacey’s passing this week, a friend wrote: she is not gone, she has just gone ahead.

I believe that.

I don’t know that I can inspire you as such, but I will ask you to open your heart to being inspired. And once inspired, follow the feeling, follow your heart. Then you are being true to yourself. And therein lies the good.

Please keep our homeless animals in your thoughts and do something for them everyday — SHARE their stories, ADOPT from a shelter or rescue, FOSTER a pet in need, VOLUNTEER an hour a week to a shelter or rescue, RECYCLE your gently used towels and such, DONATE a bag of food each month or every week, SPONSOR an animal in need, GIVE a monetary donation perhaps on a monthly basis. Step up. Every little bit does help.

Have a great weekend.

Ciao. Holly

ps… just curious. What song inspires you?