Dogs, Cats, Bunnies, Squirrels and a Cockroach

We just returned from our Retreat in Dallas—the first one since the start of the pandemic. I really recommend annual retreat, even if it is in an urban area like Dallas. We ate great food (I’m always looking for vegetarian Tex-Mex), went shopping, took naps, cooled off in the pool, read books, and practiced daily yoga and meditation for extended sessions.

I was amazed at the many opportunities to commune with Nature in this urban oasis. Our hotel was right off a busy highway, but our room was at the back the property along tree-lined sidewalks. We met many traveling dogs, large and small. We spotted a black and white cat sitting in a window watching the bunnies and squirrels. After breakfast one morning I had leftover half a bagel that I tore into small pieces and dropped in the grass. Within minutes a sassy squirrel was following its nose to the spot. Sitting up it held the bagel in its claws and enjoyed breakfast too.

The encounter that made the biggest impression on me was the cockroach who joined me at breakfast another day. Sitting near a wall a saw something move out the corner of my eye. It was a big cockroach on the wall! Its antennae were moving all around as if it was trying to communicate with me. We sat there together for quite some time while I munched on my food. I was well aware that if another person saw the roach it would likely be destroyed, so I gently told it to get out of sight. “You have a good thing going here. Don’t mess it up!”

I have been spending more time “sitting” with things that used to scare me. Maybe it’s the uncertainty of life due to the pandemic or perhaps it’s just the evolution of my spiritual practice, but it’s been quite interesting to see things in a more detached way with less anxiety and fear.

Try this practice: The next time you see something you don’t like, rather than destroy it or move away from it, stay close for a little while longer. Do you feel anxious or afraid? What does that feel like in your body? Notice what strength it takes to do something different than you normally do. Now ask yourself, does the thing I think I don’t like have a right to be here too? How can we coexist in this world that belongs to all of us?

These are great journaling questions that will definitely get you looking at yourself, your life and others in a very different way. You might even be pleased to make friends with a cockroach.