What does that mean exactly?
I like to read, and I read a lot on a wide variety of subjects.
This is good because no one subject exists in a vacuum and can stand alone without some reliance on other subjects.
One of my favourite authors – Laura Knight-Jadczyk, also a dog lover, has been on a quest for truth for over 30 years and outside of the inspirational amount of time she puts into research and writing on many interrelated subjects, relies on an unusual method to sort the wheat from the chaff.
When one of her burning questions was on the nature of Love she received this answer.
"To love you must know. And to know is to have light. And to have light is to love. And to have knowledge is to love." ~ The Cassiopeans.
Then there is my favourite quote of all time written by Joe Quinn, an investigative journalist and editor of the alternative online news source sott.net
“What is truth anyway? For me, the truth is the essence of something, its natural state, something as it really is. For me, it is really a quest for love, because to truly love something I must know it for what it really is. Perhaps we can sense in an unconscious way that there is a deeper truth to everything and everyone, and we are lead to search for the truth about it, so that we can truly love it for what it really is.”
I can tell you that I’ve been knocked around on my journey with learning about dogs. I’ve had my own beliefs bought into question about basic mainstream training when:-
- my dog had injured her back, but still kept hitting the end of the lead at force and re-injuring herself. When I had to re-home a dog that had a particular temperament quirk that wasn’t suitable to the environment we were living in, and we had resorted to keeping him in a cage. When I’ve suffered the heart wrenching loss of a dog at a young age and later learned that things that I was doing and choices I made may have contributed to her death. I’ve also embarrassed myself in some of the most hilarious ways.
Learning to love is a heroic journey because ultimately in the learning we are left to face ourselves in all our vulnerability and potential for hurt, something that we don’t do so easily.
It means that we have to open mindedly consider controversial topics hoping for the kernel of truth that will help us make better decisions in the future. It means that we may create enemies when we stand on a truth that goes against popular opinion – all for the quest for Love.
George Gurdjieff wrote about what he refers to as ‘buffers’. What he meant by the term ‘buffers’ are psychological processes we rely on to lessen the impact of psychological shocks. They are basically emotional in nature and are made up of our own fears, anxiety and anger used as defence mechanisms to prevent us from feeling old fears and hurts. The issue with these defence mechanisms is that they divide our consciousness and prevent us from perceiving what we may otherwise perceive.
Our own subconscious mind, which many, including Candace Pert – author of ‘The Molecules of Emotion’, believe records everything that we’ve ever been exposed to, and possibly the genetic memories of our ancestors. But it is our own ‘buffers’ or psychological defence mechanisms that prevent us from accessing this wealth of knowledge. This is the basis behind the saying ‘everything you need is contained within’.
It’s basically with all this in mind that I’m writing this blog and I felt the need to explain it because I will cover some controversial topics as this blog evolves. I can’t give a true account, which by definition means be lovin of my history with dogs or what I’ve learned about them without doing so. So in line with the elements of the hero’s journey, I will create new friends, attract new mentors and also create new enemies. I’ll also err, because I don’t know everything. All for the quest for Love.
George Gurdjieff also said:
"Practise love on animals first; they react better and more sensitively."
So my gratitude to my dogs is based on them teaching me how to love, and in practicing this with them, despite all the good and the bad, I learn to more sensitively in general.