Chasing the golden ball

This is our dog, Nemo (short for Captain Mnemonic); he's a Polish Lowland Sheepdog (also known as PON, an abbreviation of the actual Polish name). Nemo dislikes snow, cold weather, darkness, and rain, so winter is NOT his favorite season. And this couch is where he sits every morning after breakfast, waiting for me to finish meditating and blogging.

It is Nemo's fondest hope that I will then take him upstairs and encourage him to run laps up and down the hallway by throwing his favorite squeaky yellow tennis ball. He invites me to do that by following me around the house, once I emerge from my office, with said ball in his mouth, chewing it in such a way that a rhythmic squeaking emerges at regular intervals to remind me he is awaiting his morning exercise...

I caught a glimpse of spring this morning: though our temperatures are still unseasonably low, the sun is out and there is color in the air. And it occurs to me that I -- like most humans, I think -- have a lot in common with Nemo: I grow tired of the cold and dark, the forced inactivity -- both of real winter and of those internal winters that so often coincide with the seasons. And in some ways these prayers for illumination, this longing to step over the change process, to avoid mud season and skip back into the light, are not so different from Nemo with his squeaky ball. I am chasing that elusive Divine, squeaking, hoping for attention, something to exercise these stiffening spiritual muscles.

When there is a response I am just as delighted as Nemo. And yet, like Nemo, I am rarely satisfied, and long for an extended engagement in this play. It feels like a Rumi poem, you know?

God threw the ball for me today!
Inside me a hundred puppies
are leaping to their feet in pursuit of the golden prize,
their tiny lopped-off tails
wiggling so hard it throws them off the track.
What is better?
The rush of wind in my fur,
the thrill of pursuit,
the taste of yellow?

No,
it's that moment,
that split second,
when I capture the ball in my mouth and look back at you;
that smile of complicity:

We both know I will never drop it at your feet.