just be it Just Be It is a practice of presence that recognizes the limits of language. When aware of silence there is a state of inner still alertness. You are wholeheartedly present.

I recently made a Facebook post showing my golden retriever toning in harmony to my trumpet. There were a couple comments about possible pain this may cause to him. One response drew the conclusion that it was causing pain. In truth, this is a deep ritual practice that emanates from the heart. It’s a call to wake up to the illusion of being separate, to the poisons of fear and greed, and our need for healing rather than continued fighting.

Mojo and I have done this every day for more than four years, sometimes twice a day. Toning for healing has been a spiritual practice for me since 2003. There are times during trouble and deep wounding when it’s too early to introduce words. This became all the more clear to me when toning the horn at Virginia Tech after the mass shooting in 2007. Mojo was a gift of grace to me at the beginning of the pandemic. The grief in October 2020 was tremendous and Mojo spontaneously joined in the healing tone when only 10 months old. We both meet this ritual with tremendous vital energy each and every day. My experience and research shows no evidence that this is a painful experience for him. I’m sure there are those whose experience and research could draw another conclusion. This seems to be the problem we have today. There’s a lack of awareness to the field of epistemology, how we know what we “think“ we know. We debate, argue, fight under the illusion that somehow “we know and others don’t“. I can’t conclude that Mojo‘s howling is not painful at some point. I can only take my experience and research. Others have their experience and their research and they can only come to a temporary conclusion. In effect, this is the essence of wisdom from R D. Laing. He claims that I have my experience and you have your experience. I have my experience of your experience. You have your experience of my experience. And on and on this can go. We will never have each other‘s experience so all we can do is deeply listen to one another for better understanding. Can you imagine the world today as John Lennon did when writing the song “Imagine“? Can you imagine putting even a small percentage of our military budget toward the very sophisticated skills needed in listening to each other for understanding rather than dominance and ideology?

Over the years of doing this Mojo and I have come to listen to each other in deeper ways. His tone is entraining more and more to the tone of the trumpet just as I’m entraining to his howling tone. These tones go deep into my ancestry and the ancestry he has with the wolves. Our experience has shown a tremendous healing impact with these calls back to wholeness, healing and unity consciousness. It’s our simple way for making a wake up call to the gift of grace and the opportunity to move through another day with deepening resolve to not cause harm.