The dogs where I am staying in Cornwall. But soon to drive north to lovely Cumbria.
A whoof of greeting to all dogs everywhere. And to the people who love them, especially my dear hosts here in Cornwall.
Doggy Life
Category Archives: Curiosities
What Dogs Really Think of Us – Brain Scans Speak!
From the way dogs thump their tails, invade our laps and steal our pillows, it certainly seems like they love us back. But since dogs can’t tell us what’s going on inside their furry heads, can we ever be sure?
Taken from Brain Scans Reveal What Dogs Really Think of Us
and this later on in the article
The scientists found that dog owners’ aroma actually sparked activation in the “reward center” of their brains, called the caudate nucleus. Of all the wafting smells to take in, dogs actually prioritized the hint of humans over anything or anyone else.
So the word is out our doggy friends delight in us because…of our smell and what it represents, in their brains. Who would have thought!
Flooding
Let’s have a thought for all those impacted by the heavy rain over the past days in Scotland and Northern UK. The local river broke its banks and rushing water flowed over the playing fields just beside where I am staying. No danger of being inundated although the houses in the picture have been. Having fast flowing, uncontrolled, water close by brings the danger of flooding close to home. Thankfully the rain has stopped falling and the sun has come out!
And a thought for the thousands of homes without electricity in Lancaster where the promise is that normal services will be resumed…on Tuesday.
Spot the Typo
Hello visitors. I’ve been fully engaged since getting back from Throssel with little opportunity to write a post, or even take photographs. So, to make a start again here is a picture I took a few weeks ago. The woman who made the sign only spotted it after she had posted it. With her wonderful sense of fun she decided to leave it and rely on visitors common sense.
A Delicate Transformation
The marvelous envelops
and saturates us
like the atmosphere;
but we fail to see it.
Baudelaire
The following quote is from the Parisian Gentleman a site I stumbled upon when searching on-line for instructions on how to do invisible mending. Their Journal post yesterday titled The Theory of How to Wear a Suit caught my attention. At first it was the writing style dry wit, and fastidious attention to detail, that had me transfixed. And somewhat bemused at entering into a totally alien realm of smart clothing, for men. Rev. Master Jiyu encouraged natural pride (in one’s appearance) and I do believe she would have given thumbs up to what is written here.
When we give the art of dressing well the attention it deserves, we move into the midst of an inner transformation, and this inner shift is a delicate transformation to manage.
It’s great to find a way to present ourselves well with clothing and finally (sartorially speaking) experience the feeling of self-approval. Yet, achieving self-approval poses a risk, as too much self-approval can convert into an ego explosion which annihilates the goal of ‘looking good’ as haughty and proud behavior can turn a person into a human atrocity.
Perhaps it’s better to say that understanding the art of dressing well opens the door to a more profound emotion created by beauty itself, and when we dress and leave our homes and feel surrounded within the vapor of beauty (created from somewhere within ourselves), we get a fleeting glimpse of the eternal.
As Baudelaire said, “all forms of beauty, like all possible phenomena, have something eternal and something transitory — an absolute and a particular element”. But perhaps even more striking is Baudelaire’s epiphany, “The marvelous envelops and saturates us like the atmosphere; but we fail to see it.”
And with all this time to recover from the cold I caught in Latvia I’ve been able to mend my treasured monastic, 100% wool coat, which had been attacked by a moth while my back was turned. Always good to be turned out sans moth holes! Thank you Rev. Master for your teaching.