Crossing the Avalanche

One Essential Tool for Getting to the Other Side

Siberian Huskies are known as drama queens.

Sometimes, when Buck wants to chew on my hand and I don’t let him, he whines, rolling his head side to side against my knee. “How can you possibly be so unfair?” His eyes flick to mine to see if it’s working. “Aoo!” he says. “That hand should be mine!”

I have learned, though, that Buck is usually communicating something important, when he wraps his jaws around my hand. Like that he wants to wrestle. Or that he’s hungry. Or tired. Or that he needs to pee.

I can be a drama queen, too. Buck whines and I whine. We go outside. We work out our need to feel the connection between us with a puzzle ball on a rope. I fling it as far as I can. He bounds after it, pounces on it, growling. He squeezes it with his teeth and legs. He runs past me, full speed, just close enough for me to grab the rope. We keep the rope tight between us, wrestling over the ball. We growl. I swing the rope, lifting him off the ground.

When he drops the ball, or lets me have it, or it slips from his mouth, I throw it again.

For the past many months, since long before Buck, I’ve felt like I’m crossing an avalanche-in-progress; my feet are constantly searching amidst the tumbling debris for solid ground. How much longer can the earth keep trembling? How can I possibly know how to relate to the world, with it constantly changing? With my identities falling away? When I’m not even sure who I am?

I reach into the soil of my gardens with hands, forks, shovels, tugging on roots or posts or tree limbs. The tension between us tells me the earth is here and so am I.

I work out my connection to this moment carrying buckets of water. Buckets of mulch. Buckets of anything as long as it has weight.

Yesterday Buck yelped in the middle of our play. I let go of the rope. He yelped again, pushing on the ball with his feet. I ran my hands down the soft warm fur of his face to where his lower jaw was stuck inside an opening in the ball, and freed him. This yelp was short, direct, “Help me.” Not drama. With his jaw free, Buck eyed the ball warily. He hadn’t known that it could cause pain.

The game was over for the day.

The woo people, of which I am one, are excited by the change we’re going through. “This is it,” we say, “the moment we’ve been waiting for.” “Humanity is awakening.” “None of this would be possible if we hadn’t worked towards enlightenment so hard for so long.” “You thought this transformation would look like puppies and rainbows? This is a mega earthquake, people. Hang On and Let Go.”

In the nine weeks since I retrieved Buck from Richland, Washington, he has gained twenty-one pounds. He’s gone from fitting comfortably inside a cat carrier, to easily hopping on top of it. He’s gone from just reaching my knee, when standing on his hind feet, to reaching the tops of the counters. He can now jump easily onto the bed. He can sleep through the night. This morning, for the first time, he didn’t wait for me to carry him down the steep stairs so he could go outside to pee.

He is three and a half months old.

We’re learning to communicate, to understand each other. The night I brought Buck home, I felt myself being re-wired. The spirit of a large, male Husky/Malamute stood over me. Lay on top of me. Crawled into my veins.

We are learning to regulate our emotions, too. To stay grounded so we can confront strangeness and chaos with equanimity. Buck is learning to stay calm when greeting humans and other dogs. I am learning to stay calm when he bites my hand. The trainers all say it’s important to assert authority. To keep from training the puppy that biting hands is fun.

I practice staying calm when the avalanche tumbles over my head.

This is not drama. This is hanging onto my true Self and my choice for connection as the avalanche rips everything false away. This is remembering our purpose, place and power when would-be autocrats try to declare themselves kings.

The woo people speak of becoming light rods, similar to lightning rods, becoming channels for pulling light from the heavens into the earth.

I sink my roots deep into the earth. I open the channels and feel the earth surging through me, into the heavens.

Buck rests his large, warm paw against my hand.