It’s a great day to be a dog in Boulder. Actually, Boulder is good in general if you’re a dog because there are at least three bakeries catering specifically to dogs (all right next to cafés so people tend to use picking up treats at the bakery as an excuse to be in the neighborhood of a café so they can have another late.) Boulder’s also good for dogs becausethere are more trails for walks than there are bike paths, and the people you live with are referred to as “caregivers” rather than dog owners. This puts a better slant on the hierarchy of things. Also, dog rights are possibly more important to some in Boulder than are human rights—which is good if you’re a dog and not so good if you’re trying to have an intelligent conversation with certain caregivers. And people here seem to worship upward and downward dogs more than most places, so that’s good. Plus, there are several stores, like McGuckin’s, where those accompanied by dogs actually get preferential treatment.But today is particularly good if you’re a dog because it’s snowing. Snow upon snow. It’s just stunning—large flakes and the kind of pile-up that’s going to be glistening tomorrow.Looking beyond one’s own snout, it’s pretty obvious that the snow is good for people too, especially at this time of year. They call it the “holiday season”, but it seems anything but relaxing and holiday like—it’s more like a frenzy. The snow softens all that. You can feel the calming effect in the air and it makes everything seem connected and clear. Even people who do yoga (which makes up about 90% of Boulder’s dog caregivers) seem to get a little wigged out by the holidays. But then when it snows….they do yoga. They can’t jog, they can’t play tennis, they can’t hike or drive to the mall or plant a tree. So they run out of reasons to avoid yoga and they do their upward/downward dog worship.The combination of doing yoga and it being a snowy day has a double calming effect. And that’s when the dog bakeries do really well, and life is as it should be.Richard’s recent Sunday Talks is posted below on this very subject. Not the snow so much, but the deep avoidance of yoga. It follows his talk on transforming the rotten heart which is what dogs help humans with much of the time.
Transforming the Rotten Heart Recordings:
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