Lightarted Living: Sing and Dance together and be Joyous! Kahlil Gibr...

Lightarted Living: Sing and Dance together and be Joyous! Kahlil Gibr...: 'Sing and dance together  and be joyous!'  'But let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lut...

Sing and Dance together and be Joyous! Kahlil Gibran

'Sing and dance together 

and be joyous!' 

'But let each one of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone

though they quiver with the same music.'

'Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.'

'And stand together yet not too near together:

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak tree and the cypress grow 

not in each other’s shadow.' 

Kahlil Gibran

'Dance lightly on the edges of time 

like the dew on the tip of a leaf.'

Sign Up for Free E-mail updates

For more than 35 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes letting go and moving forward with life easier than ever before. 

If you're interested in learning more about closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, sign up for free e-mail subscription.

Lightarted Living: Rumi~I Closed My Mouth and Spoke to You

Lightarted Living: Rumi~I Closed My Mouth and Spoke to You: ��Be Plain Spoken--Speak from the Heart �� 'When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you-- a joy.'...

Rumi~I Closed My Mouth and Spoke to You

💓Be Plain Spoken--Speak from the Heart 💓

'When you do things from your soul,

you feel a river moving in you--a joy.'

Rumi

💙Listen Carefully💙

'I closed my mouth and spoke to you.'

Rumi

💓What is right is always in our deepest heart of hearts💓

'Only from the heart can you touch the sky.'

Rumi

'In our deepest moments of struggle, frustration, fear, and confusion, we are being called upon to reach in and touch our hearts. Then, we will know what to do, what to say, how to be.'

Roberta Sage Hamilton

When you feel a peaceful joy, that's when you are near truth. 

Rumi

'What is right is always in our deepest heart of hearts. It is from the deepest part of our hearts that we are capable of reaching out and touching another human being. It is, after all, one heart touching another heart.'

Roberta Sage Hamilton

Dialogue to Re-establish Broken Relationships

Choose to step in and actively engage others instead of

stepping around and actively avoiding others.

Speak from the Heart to Create Peace with Loved Ones

Reach into your heart to know what to do, what to say, how to be. Choose to step in and actively engage others from your heart by talking to them instead of about them. Ask clarifying questions and listen with the intention to hear and understand. Seek agreements and facts to find common ground to build up your relationship.


Sign Up for Free E-mail updates
                          
For more than 35 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes letting go and moving forward with life easier than ever before.

Do you know someone who could benefit from uplifting messages? Please share Lightarted Living with them. If you or someone you love is interested in learning more about closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, join the FREE Lightarted Living mailing list. 

Lightarted Living: A Dog Lover's Response to its 'Just a Dog'

Lightarted Living: A Dog Lover's Response to its 'Just a Dog': 'Just a Dog' Arrow My brother, Royce, an avid dog lover, sent me 'Just a Dog'  by Richard Biby when my dog, Arrow, r...

A Dog Lover's Response to its 'Just a Dog'

'Just a Dog' Arrow

My brother, Royce, an avid dog lover, sent me 'Just a Dog' by Richard Biby when my dog, Arrow, recently passed.  I'm sharing it with you now, and adding it to my list of heart-felt things to share with those grieving after the loss of a dog.

Just a Dog 

by Richard Biby

From time to time people tell me to lighten up and say ‘It's just a dog’ or ‘that's a lot of money for just a dog’. They don't understand the distance traveled, time spent or costs involved for ‘just a dog’.

‘Just a dog’ Ginger

💓Some of my proudest moments have come about with ‘Just a dog’. 

💙Many hours have passed with my only company being ‘just a dog’
and not once have I felt slighted. 

💚Some of my saddest moments were brought about by ‘just a dog’. 

💛In those days of darkness, the gentle touch of ‘just a dog’ provided comfort
and purpose to overcome the day.

If you, too, think its ‘just a dog’, you will probably understand phrases like ‘just a friend’ or ‘just a sunrise’ or ‘just a promise’.

‘Just a dog’ Rosie

💜‘Just a dog’ brings into my life the very essence of friendship, trust, and pure unbridled joy. 

💓‘Just a dog’ brings out the compassion and patience that make me a better person.

💙 Because of ‘just a dog’ I will rise early, take long walks, and look longingly to the future.

‘Just a dog’ Ginger

For me and folks like me, it's not ‘just a dog’--It's an embodiment of all the hopes and dreams of the future, the fond memories of the past, and the pure joy of the moment.

'Just a dog’ brings out what's good in me and diverts my thoughts away from myself and the worries of the day.

‘Just a dog’ Ginger

I hope that someday people can understand it's not ‘just a dog’--It's the thing that gives me humanity and keeps me from being ‘just a man’ or ‘just a woman’.

So the next time you hear the phrase "Just a dog", smile because they "just don't understand".

‘Just a Sweet-heart' Arrow

Many thanks to Richard Biby for writing this wonderful piece 'Just a Dog'.

Sign Up for Free E-mail updates
                          
For more than 35 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes letting go and moving forward with life easier than ever before.


Do you know someone who could benefit from uplifting messages? Please share Lightarted Living with them. If you or someone you love is interested in learning more about closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, join the FREE Lightarted Living mailing list. 

Lightarted Living: Untangle Your Feelings to Experience Love and Happ...

Lightarted Living: Untangle Your Feelings to Experience Love and Happ...: Untangle your Feelings People are often unreasonable and self-centered.  Forgive them anyway.  Mother Teresa Un...

Untangle Your Feelings to Experience Love and Happiness

Untangle your Feelings

People are often unreasonable and self-centered. 

Forgive them anyway. 

Mother Teresa

Untangle your Feelings

If you are kind, 

people may accuse you of ulterior motives.

Be Kind anyway. 

Mother Teresa

Untangle your Feelings

If you find happiness, 

people may be jealous.

Be happy anyway. 

Mother Teresa

Untangle your Feelings

Give the world the best you have 

and it may never be enough. 

Give your best anyway. 

Mother Teresa 

May you experience love and happiness today

Sign Up for Free E-mail updates

For more than 35 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes letting go and moving forward with life easier than ever before.

Do you know someone who could benefit from uplifting messages? Please share Lightarted Living with them. If you or someone you love is interested in learning more about closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, join the FREE Lightarted Living mailing list. 

Lightarted Living: Let it Go: Unlocking Your Frozen Emotions with Mus...

Lightarted Living: Let it Go: Unlocking Your Frozen Emotions with Mus...: William R Brooksher, Photographer  'If you had to choose just one song to sustain you with happy memories for an eternity, what ...

Lightarted Living: Every Time I Lose a Dog They Take a Piece of My He...

Lightarted Living: Every Time I Lose a Dog They Take a Piece of My He...: ��FAREWELL 'HE WHO WILL NOT BE IGNORED'�� ANON Morning Memory  Every morning after finishing his breakfa...

Every Time I Lose a Dog They Take a Piece of My Heart

💔FAREWELL 'HE WHO WILL NOT BE IGNORED'💓

ANON

Morning Memory 

Every morning after finishing his breakfast, Arrow would come into the office where I'd be working on the computer. He'd greet me with a tail wag and a soft paw on my leg to tell me to turn around so I could massage him while he looked deeply into my eyes to memorize my soul.

Dogs never believe we're too busy to relate with them. They are 'the beings who will not be ignored'. They work tirelessly to keep 'the pack' together and balanced.

Thanks to one of my favorite dog lovers, Art Lipski, for reminding me of this great dog quote.


Sign Up for Free E-mail updates
                          
For more than 35 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes letting go and moving forward with life easier than ever before.


Do you know someone who could benefit from uplifting messages? Please share Lightarted Living with them. If you or someone you love is interested in learning more about closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, join the FREE Lightarted Living mailing list. 

Lightarted Living: All Good Dogs Go to Heaven--And All Dogs Are Good

Lightarted Living: All Good Dogs Go to Heaven--And All Dogs Are Good: Passing Softly into the Night Arrow the Perro  2004-2017 I Kept Expecting a Miracle I kept expecting a miracle...  Though p...

All Good Dogs Go to Heaven--And All Dogs Are Good

Passing Softly into the Night

Arrow the Perro 

2004-2017

I Kept Expecting a Miracle

I kept expecting a miracle... 

Though perhaps the miracle is to be loved

And then loosened into the greater love

And to go out on a river of tears~fully lived, fully loved, fully ready to be loosened.

Lee Bryant

Place where the Dogs are Loosened

'Dogs’ lives are too short. Their only fault, really.'

Agnes Sligh Turnbull

Me and My Arrow

The Con Man and the Dumpster Dog

Arrow found his way to my son when Sean was a homesick 17 year old exchange student living in Guanajuato, Mexico. Sean, away from home for the first time in another country, was lonely and missing having a sense of home so he found a way to create it. He got a dog.

Now that's the truth of the matter, but that's not the story Sean told us almost 14 years ago. No, the story he told was more heart-wrenching and dramatic.

When I first saw Arrow the Perro on a webcam I told Sean, 'You'd better find a home for that dog in Mexico. If you bring him back he's going straight to the pound!'

Sean, my little con man who knew his mother well just smiled and said, 'I'll take my chances on you.' He went on to say, 'I found a litter of pups in a dumpster and I tried to turn them in to the local shelter. They were full. But they said if I was willing to take one of the pups, they'd take the other two, so what could I do?'

So Arrow the Perro came home to live with us, becoming my dog while Sean went off to college and then on to adult life. 

It was much later--only after it became clear Arrow was going to be our forever dog despite eating Sean's bed and my jewelry; taking nips out of a few friends behinds; and generally being harder to train than our other soft-mouthed, Ginger-dog--that the truth came out.

'Oh Mom,' Sean confessed with a laugh, 'That was just a story I made up. I was lonely and I went to a vet's office where a friend got a pup.'

And there it is--home is where the dog is--and even young con men living far away from home and family can create a home with the comfort of a dog. 

Thanks to my little con man, I had a full-time companion who didn't leave my side for almost 14 years--unless I left him. He never tired of my company.

'There is nothing truer in this world than the love of a good dog.'

Mira

A dog is grateful for what is--which I am finding to be the soundest kind of wisdom and very good theology.

Carrie Newcomer

Bright-Eyed and Basenji-Tailed

'Dogs are often happier than men simply because the simplest things are the greatest things for them!'

Mehmet Murat Ildan

'The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.'

Samuel Butler

'You can usually tell a man is good if he has a dog who loves him.'

W. Bruce Cameron

'If your dog doesn’t like someone you probably shouldn’t, either.'

Unknown

The last walk together

We're all just walking each other home

'Many of the qualities that come so effortlessly to dogs—loyalty, devotion, selflessness, unflagging optimism, unqualified love—can be elusive to humans.'

John Grogan

'Blessed is the person who has earned the love of an old dog.'

Sidney Jeanne Seward 

'I love a dog. He does nothing for political reasons.'

Will Rogers

'Dogs lead a nice life. You never see a dog with a wristwatch.'

George Carlin

RIP

💓Arrow the Perro

💙My Gringo Dingo

💚My Optimistic Opportunist 

💛My dog with the question mark of a tail

💗My Dog

Sign Up for Free E-mail updates
                          
For more than 35 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes letting go and moving forward with life easier than ever before.


Do you know someone who could benefit from uplifting messages? Please share Lightarted Living with them. If you or someone you love is interested in learning more about closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, join the FREE Lightarted Living mailing list. 

Lightarted Living: Keep it Simple--Create the Life You Want

Lightarted Living: Keep it Simple--Create the Life You Want:   " Money will buy you a pretty good dog, but it won't buy the wag of his tail ." Henry Wheeler Shaw Adults: Kids ...

Lightarted Living: Are You a Quiet Extravert or Outspoken Introvert?

Lightarted Living: Are You a Quiet Extravert or Outspoken Introvert?: What Energizes You? ��  Do you prefer to work alone or with other people? ��  What do you do when you need to re-energize afte...

Lightarted Living: Letting Go: Yielding to 'What's to Be' when a Pet ...

Lightarted Living: Letting Go: Yielding to 'What's to Be' when a Pet ...: The Long Road Home On my long ride home from the Vet, and in possession of a two week treatment plan for my ailing dog, I thought...

Letting Go: Yielding to 'What's to Be' when a Pet is Terminally Ill

The Long Road Home

On my long ride home from the Vet, and in possession of a two week treatment plan for my ailing dog, I thought about how we try to prepare ourselves for the eventual loss of a pet. My almost 14 year old dog is sick with what I'm still hoping is an ulcer and not cancer. He's lost 13 pounds due to not eating enough to sustain his weight as he deals with an upset GI tract.

 But as I sat in my feelings, I realized that no matter how much we try to prepare ourselves, when the time comes nothing will take away the grief and ache in our hearts caused by the loss of a loved one--human or furry.  The best we can do is yield to what is to be--while persisting and enduring.

I know you're tired, but come this the way. Rumi

No Way Out--Only Through

On my way home I tried to think my way out of the situation--trying to see my way clear to a positive outcome. But in the end, I realized I needed to let go of my expectations for what was going to happen and by when. There was no way out of Arrow being sick, there was only the possibility of moving through the situation by laying out a treatment plan and then yielding to what is to be.

Old French Dictionary 'Laisser'

Laisser-Aller~Let it Be

At home, while I was still in the throes of coming to terms with 'there is no way out...only through', I opened an email from my sister-in-law, Lee, who shared a page with me she found in an old french dictionary defining 'laisser'. 

She knew I would find this torn page filled with wonderful words and yummy meanings she planned to use in an 'underpainting' interesting. I did.  It delivered just the right message at the right time.

Laisser-Courre~Place where the Dogs are Loosened

My eye was immediately caught by three definitions:

Laisser-aller~ease, freedom, unrestraint, easiness, yieldingness.

Laisser-courre~place where the dogs are loosened.

Laisser-passer~permit, leave, permission.

I  was compelled to write Lee back and share the impact those words had on me. The following correspondence ensued between two sisters coming to grips with grieving for the loss of their old dogs: 

"Lee--what an incredible find! It was perfect for me at this moment. Laisser-courre--place where the dogs are loosened--caught my attention. 

I'm back dealing with Arrow not eating and not being well. I went to the vet today and got a two week plan of action...with the understanding this could also be it. His weight has dropped from 64 lbs to 51 lbs. I am trying to take one day at a time and not look too far ahead while also preparing for the possibility that he's dealing with cancer. If he doesn't start eating consistently and gaining weight he isn't going to make it.

I got a supply of the slurry stuff that I told you about...and I read up on how I should be giving him the antacids with the slurry. I wasn't using it properly so I'm working on the theory that a change in timing for the antacid and slurry could get an improvement. I don't know until I try. I didn't understand that the slurry coats the gut giving it a layer of protection so any ulcers can heal. 

Think good thoughts for my sweet skinny dog. No matter how much we try to prepare for the inevitable death the truth is there is no way to prepare. We just have to sit with it and take it a day at a time. We need to sit quietly so we can determine if it's time to let go or not."

Laisser-Passer~Giving Permission to Leave

Lee to me:

"Well, I’m right there with you sister... Otter’s cancer is back they think...Cells in urine...do I want to test to see if it’s the same as before? No, probably not. They think it is, which is interesting, as they’ve been denying he even had cancer because he’s lived so long and so well...(cannibis) they know I treated him, but as I may have told you, they dismissed it as a misdiagnosis. Now they can’t do that. Good. 

Even so I’m left with the same inevitable passage to contemplate and I hate it too! I’ve pre-grieved plenty for this being and yet it hit me so hard last night and I wailed and wailed and then felt light as a feather! Damn good drugs those tears provide!

So, I could treat him again... tho times are different now... he’s older, more arthritic, dementia growing...very sweet boy. 

So, do I fight it in order to put off the inevitable (for me)? Or surrender him back to the ocean from whence he came, in his own time... laisser-courre. 

We are such a fighting minded people! I see myself swimming alongside his canoe... holding on with one hand...at some point, maybe when the river hits the ocean, I must let go and let him continue on alone. 

But as you say: one day at a time. One hour at a time. He’s mostly good right now. Still has a good appetite. I can tell tho, he’s not having as much of a good time."

Yielding to What's to Be

Death is a natural part of life, and we must come to terms with the reality that our beloved pets lives are shorter than ours.  In the end, it all comes down to our learning to 'swim in our grief' and yield to what's to be. 

For now I'll take solace in doing what I can do to make Arrow as comfortable as he can be, and then easing into a laissez-faire attitude of letting things take their own natural course. 

We love our furry companions and are grieved when we lose them. But we must find a way to yield them to 'the place where they're loosened' and permit them to leave us when it is their time to pass while helping to ease their way as comfortably as we are able.

Laisser-aller~ease, freedom, unrestraint, easiness, yieldingness.

Laisser-courre~place where the dogs are loosened.

Laisser-passer~permit, leave, permission.

Sign Up for Free E-mail updates

                          

For more than 35 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes letting go and moving forward with life easier than ever before.

Do you know someone who could benefit from uplifting messages? Please share Lightarted Living with them. If you or someone you love is interested in learning more about closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, join the FREE Lightarted Living mailing list.