In a meditation early this morning, a teacher posed this question: what would an alien think of the earth if he or she (or it) came down and watched what our culture calls the news. He thought they would probably think there were just a few thousand people in the world, and they all lived in New York or Washington or Los Angeles and they mostly talked through and at one another.

Listening to this, I thought the poor aliens would instantly be anxious and annoyed, and see our world as framed by stories of tragedy, argument and conflict.

I thought of the countless stories of people, animal and places that are not in the news, that never will make that idea of news. People in small towns, the Plain States, deserts and mountains and the countless animals and spirits whose existence is not considered newsworthy either.

I thought during the meditation of what my newscast might be for today.

These stories came to mind.

I got up before dawn and made breakfast and talked with my former girlfriend, and we laughed and planned the day and saw how fortunate we are to be together. That was a big story for me.

I went out and brought hay to the donkeys, and kissed Lulu on the nose. Frieda jumped up onto my lap and licked me on the nose.

Driving to meditation, I saw many people getting up, going to work. I saw deer in the fields, cows moving to the hay, cars on the road, schoolbusses picking up kids. In our culture, their live are not considered news, unless something awful happens to them. But I was thinking of each one as a story, the big news of my life.

When I got back, these four enthusiastic dogs came bounding over me, and I wondered at the gifts they had given me, the books they had inspired, the life they had led me to live, the creativity they trigger.

But the big story for me, I suppose, was that driving to meditation, I met the sun rising up over the hill coming the other way. I guess that really was the lede story, even though I didn’t put it first. And then I got out of the car and stood with my camera and caught the moment. A beautiful and peaceful moment for me. And I came home and put the photo in the computer and laughed to the dogs – Rose and Lenore. “I got it” I said, and I laughed.

I guess that ends the morning newscast. The blog is my signal to the world, I guess, my network. More later.