Today’s morning walk gifted puppy Shadow and me with lots of bright hellos and good mornings. My favorites: a very old woman happily mowing her small, shaded lawn for the first time this spring; and, a few blocks later, a middle-aged man who, seeing Shadow, immediately starting to purr, while walking towards us. Shadow went right up to him (he doesn’t always), and the man proceeded to tell me this: “My wife and I have three dogs. We had two large ones, but now we’re taking care of a third. We had already exchanged our queen sized bed for a king sized. But my wife found a place for the third —” he said, slowing down, purring again, “between our pillows . . .”

Meanwhile, here in Bloomington, Indiana, despite my own joyous spring mood that bends the universe in the direction of my intent, I live within an ever-expanding island of love inside the larger matrix, where . . .

But so what?

Let us recognize current civilization as a mere scrim upon the living earth. Superficial. Our focus lies deeper.