I have had my problems with organized religion, but I very much want a spiritual life, I know I am richer when I have one. I believe solitude is essential to any kind of true spiritual life, it is in the quiet that I find myself and learn the truth about myself.

Every day, I find the time to be alone. I treasure every minute.

The Hebrew word for ‘good’ and ‘blessing’ also means rain, explained one Hebraic scholar.  The divine is present for me in the things that are closest to me, things that I touch and feel, that I live with every day: Maria’s body next to mine, the bray of the donkeys, the sheep and the dogs, the therapy work, the songs of the trees.

Or the company of a dog.

God is a hidden presence to most people of faith, but for me, I have only to let nature speak to me and I see spirituality everywhere.

Every day, I retreat into myself in the late afternoon, tired after a long and full day of work. I lie down in my favorite soft sofa, Maria sometimes comes out of her studio to wrap me in blankets and turn down the lights if she is not busy. I just let go it all: my worries, disappointments, their news, my obligations, my work, the next thing, tomorrow’s responsibilities.

I have come to cherish this hour. It takes five or ten minutes, but on most days, after I am settled and listening to piano or violin concertos, or Mary Lattimore or Janelle Monae, I feel a light pressure on my chest or stomach. It is a surprise to me how graceful and light he is when he jumps like that, sometimes I fall asleep and when I wake, he is up there, his face on my ches. The pressure was Bud, who can hop up on a chair from a standing position.

He lies down, usually vertically, head resting on my upper  chest, gets himself comfortable, and begins a series of deep sights, which evolve into snores and strange sounds coming from his snout. Dogs alone for me can enter a space like that, and join in without a word. They just seem to know.

Usually, But’s head ends up a few inches below my chin, and I feel his heart beating, and he feels mine, I imagine. It is, I suppose a womb-like experience in the darkened music with beautiful music playing softly in the background. The speaker is in the dining room. Bud makes his own music a sort of calliope of grunts and groans.

This is pleasing for me on several levels. It is special to have a warm living thing so close to me, it is heartwarming to see how this battered creature has come to trust and me and love me. I always smile at his smushy, ugly face, he is far from beautiful, as Fate is, or Red is. But then, beauty, I am learning, is what’s inside of us, not what is outside.

The only light in the room I’m in comes from the fish tank, and it is  deeply  calming to see our three fish gliding quietly through the plants in the tank and rising slowly to the surface. Our industrious snails are hard at work clearing algae off of the glass and plants.

Sometimes I drift off to sleep, but mostly I just think and drink deeply of the quiet. Red, my constant companion is always at my feet, but he and I rarely touch one another, our closeness transcends that need.

It’s curious, but I can’t bear to wake him up and lift him off of me. He either has to get up by himself or have Maria call him when she comes in from her work. I don’t know why I can’t, I just can’t.

I understand my need to nurture, and I feel a great spiritual pull in this hour, sitting by myself, or with this dog resting on my shoulder, trusting me in this way, even after all of his hardships and cruel experiences. This is a beautiful and peaceful time for me, I need it.

This solitude, this time for me and Bud,  is a spiritual thing in and of itself, this act of trust and forgiveness and healing, on both sides. For this is healing for me. Bud has enriched my peaceful hour, given me love and peace. Red is always asleep at my feet, yet Bud seems right inside of the experience with me, he is not accompanying me, he is a part of it.

Spirituality is by its very nature fragile. Touch it too roughly and it vanishes.

From a small dog to a beautiful flower to a berry on a bush, something of the spiritual life can be found in any created thing.