Fourth Form of Madness

Today when I was taking my dog for an early morning walk, enjoying the song of the birds and the gentle lazy, hazy feeling of the morning waking up, I was confronted with sudden conflict.   It probably wasn’t so bad but when you are cruising along in a state of peace and someone suddenly comes at you with a wall of conflict of anger – it feels like a tidal wave.  Anyway there I was enjoying the feel of the morning the really mellow vibe 🙂 pausing the walk for my dog to take a little wee on some rocks in someone garden edge that was on the path.  At that moment, the people that lived there came home in their car and were pulling into their driveway.  They paused too, to roll down there window and give me the biggest glare of pure hate.  I was a bit taken back and did the classic movie thing of looking behind me to see if anyone else was there as why would they be doing that to me.  Then it dawned, of course, my dog is weeing on they rocks that are on a public path, how silly of me, I should be hung and quartered too along with my dog for this crime.

The moment passed and I walked past them, the three of them, now out of their car and in the safety of their garage, pausing to continue the glare at me.  I smiled and walked on…. what else can you offer?  But it did remind me of another walk I took perhaps 2 or 3 years ago in the same neighbourhood where I once again found myself in the midst of conflict due a simple dog weeing.  This particular time in my life was an extremely difficult time and I had ironically gone on the walk to chill out and get close to nature.  On my walk I was comforted by the sky, the sea and the cool sand beneath my feet and the sight of dog and cat (yes she walks on the beach as well) enjoying themselves.

It was on the walk home, as I meandered along contemplating life and my place in it, when suddenly a screaming hurricane crossed my path.  My dog had taken a tiny little wee on a brick wall that lined a path.  Apparently this was her outside brick wall and she wasn’t happy.  Now a strange thing happens to me when I am confronted with conflict, I get calmer. Always have, way before yoga, I seem to have this inbuilt ability to go real quiet when someone else starts to arch up.  As you can imagine it is really infuriating to the other person but I don’t do it to anger them, it is just the way I am built.  However, a calm perspective does afford you a different perspective to someone that is full of rage and so you can sometimes see very clearly the humour (yes humour) and the inconsistencies in their logic.  I’ve learnt that one should never point these out to someone in the midst of rage, not if you value living 🙂

Anyway as this screaming vision went into full flight, calling me a F*** B**** and saying I should go live in a suburb that she obviously considered herself superior to, I did ask her why she thought so poorly of the people that lived in the suburb she was bad mouthing.  She replied because they act like animals, like me, and are crass and uncultured.  This coming from someone that was screaming obscenities at me in front of her neighbour’s 6 year old children she was standing with in front of her house with pray flags waving proudly from the immaculately landscaped garden.   The irony of the situation did not escape me, and unfortunately I did point out that if she thought it was okay behaviour to teach young people to treat other people like she was, then perhaps it was time to look up what the prayer flags were all about instead of just liking what they may her garden look like.

Hello 4th of July – she went off like a firer cracker.   It was at this point, that my cat decided to run into view, and into her garden and do a long wee in her flowerbed.  I took this as a cue to turn and leave, as she shouted threats of killing my cat if she ever saw her again.  Man that cat is brave and smart, there was no way kitty would venture that close to the tornado again.  And to be honest I followed her lead.

Then one day , as life often works, the same lady turned up in one the yoga classes I was also participating in. When we bent forward into a forward pose, I could see her behind me pushing and struggling and forcing her body to go into a poses that obviously her body, in it’s wisdom, wasn’t quite ready to go as far as she pushed.  I felt so much empathy and compassion for this lady at this point as I felt her struggle and saw her competitive, hard set mindset.  And I wished her every best on her journey and wished some softness and nurturing her way.  Perhaps that is the best we can offer.