Author: Jeff Shapiro

Last night, the night winds told me tales of the meadows…
The stars twinkled as lilies in the sky…
As a pup this happens to me every night…
Before I sink into my pillow and go to sleep.

The morning light wakes me as music to my eyes…
The day all written out in sunbeams…
Feeling a happy life hanging in the kitchen…
Telling me its time to take a big bite of the apple of life.

Do you trust me?
What I tell you now will bring you joy…
You, yourself create your own worry and self-bitterness…
Care for yourself, love yourself, and then you can have compassion for everyone else…
And start creating new worlds.

So, let any anxious thoughts fly away…
They are little more than self-indulgence…
They don’t belong to happiness, like an armadillo doesn’t belong in a tree…
Anxiety will only take you to the steepest part of the path.

So, let’s go arm in arm…
Listen together to the night wind’s tales…
Let the morning light be music to our eyes…
And find our day, written in the sunbeams.

I love you,

Annie

Worry makes me smaller than I already am….
It turns my fur turn a kind of yellowy white…
It splits me right down the middle…
And the fight within, robs me of who I really am.

I become like a sun beaten slope…
Isolated and alone…
Turning me inside out and upside down…
Absent of any joy.

But then I realize, I am joy!
I am sunshine!
I am the sky!
I am the stars!

It pulls me from whatever swamp I was in at the time…
Making me safe from myself…
Then, my smallness becomes largeness…
And I can roar once again like a lion.

I am now in full bloom…
Detached and separated from worry…
When you feel small from worry…
Just remember who you are.

I love you,

Annie

So pastel, so peaceful…
Like living on the seashore and playing in the sunshine…
Casting light instead of shade…
Pulling beauty from craziness.

I’m still trying to name that color…
It must be some color of a new world…
How is it able to refresh each moment with an inhale?
And purge all poison when I breathe out.

I think it comes from the region of the clouds…
The place where landscapes are created in the sky…
Bringing cooling shadows and soft rains…
And the ability of building worlds.

By each hour of my day, it grows stronger in magic…
Saying, “You don’t have to have enemies anymore…”
“There is no longer the need for great walls…”
“Stop thinking and you will find the perfect day you’ve always dreamed of.”

When I dwell here, I don’t have to worry about other people’s (or pups) opinions…
Don’t have to say “yes,” when I really mean “no!”
Don’t need any 50 dollar phrases…
All I have to do is rest in the light.

I love you,

Annie

Happy Thanksgiving! I’m almost always thankful, but when I’m not, I always remember…

All colors change when mixed with black…
Hanging in the air and then tumbling to the ground…
Making me defensive against the things that will do me good…
Freeze me in not so thankful places.

It is like I become a bunch of pieces lying on a table…
Trying to figure out which one is missing…
A sort of an incomplete gallery…
Where all the confusion, points its fingers back at the artist.

When black comes to interfere with my colors…
I simply walk out of the shadows (it is not that hard!)
I return to my family and friends and snuggle close…
Wait until my perspective can envision a big juicy turkey leg.

Everything that comes next involves love…
Isn’t joining together with the ones you love, the best!
I imagine their movements like swinging tassels…
I imagine the ruckus as an orchestra embodying grand tones.

Within the light of family and friends…
Everything unfrightens me…
I realize that my lack of thankfulness is just failed expectations…
And that to avoid it, I shouldn’t have expectations at all.

I love you,

Annie

I often feel that my life has been, “always…”
Have you ever felt the same?
Something deep inside me as pure as a snow crystal…
A surprise always waiting for me inside the blue air.

This feeling is beyond any limit or boundary…
Life without any script…
Feathering me with calm and tranquility…
Squeezing out of me bubbles of happiness.

I feel that when I finally leave this earth, I’ll be more than ashes in a little jar…
My seed will be planted in the ground where it is soft…
I’ll go back to the original garden…
And be given untiring wings.

Look deep inside yourself…
Deeper than those voices screaming in your ears…
Past those red eyes staring back at you…
Here lies the wisdom to untangle that mess that keeps you from here.

Inside, there lies the “always…”
The place where your burden is light…
You may wonder, “Am I allowed to go there?”
I answer, “My friend it’s has always been within you.”

I love you,

Annie

A simple kindness…
I will never understand its full context…
Even if I gaze and gaze…
I’ll never be able to follow its waves as they disappear into the sea…

Like the fiber in a garment…
The thread becomes a river…
Into the waning wonder…
And keeping our bodies warm.

Without kindness, I may never have met you…
It, making the air between us fully charged…
Such a friendship may never have been offered to me again…
You may have been someone here for a moment and then gone.

Being kind is such a delicate concept…
When I am kind, kindness becomes me…
Its magic always puts me in good spirits…
Making me feel that I will never grow old and die.

Oh, those shiny tears in your eyes…
As you look into kindness’ many charms…
Realizing that the less fortunate are not some new breed…
They are you and me.

I love you,

Annie

In my world everything has the shape of a donut…
That’s why I cradle it carefully, so it doesn’t crumble…
On off days it all looks like a chicken salad sandwich…
Oh, how I love the soft middle part.

I guess that’s why I have a flabby midriff…
Fold upon fold upon fold…
Too many donuts and chicken salad sandwiches…
My favorite is the cruller.

I treat this very seriously, because…

I have to be so careful in magical places…
There’s no room for cranky and intolerant behavior…
I need to let those fly-away thoughts fly away…
And lay down in the soft, rich, plushness.

So what does this all mean for you?

Life is calling you with a thousand glorious voices…
Donuts waiting, fresh from the oven…
Everything In a fervor of excitement…
Just waiting for you to take a bite.

Look into my sad-looking brown eyes (I’m not sad, I just came out this way…)
Your eyes, like mine, can see the shapes of donuts…
They are there each day wanting you to eat them up…
Try the cruller, it’s my favorite!

Start seeing things my way!

I love you,

Annie

Sometimes I only have a ½ of a second to react…
That’s why my ears are always moving to and fro…
I might have only one sweet chance…
My instincts are never wrong.

There is something out there in the dark…
Maybe a rabbit, a snake or a squirrel…
In a flash I’m off bounding and racing…
My legs like propellers as I let go of the ground.

I race through the pleasant aromas of the meadows
I can only imagine something as soft as a marshmallow but much juicier…
Contemplating each step before me…
Looking forward to adding another pelt to my pile.

Ooof! Then I wake up, just before I catch my prey.
And think, WTF just happened? (us pups use the word frog, instead of you know what…)
I’m guessing that…

Because I’ve already seen most of the things in nature…
I need dreams to bring me something brand new…
To blend my life together…
Scrape away all my peeling paint memories.

Dreams can also help you…

Dreams can help you work through issues and help erase the scar in your heart…
Cover you like a big, gray blanket…
Be a celebration of the not yet done…
I pray you always have pleasant ones.

I love you,

Annie

I don’t like lists…
I prefer putting the sorted pieces of my puzzling day together piece by piece…
In my days there is nothing to check off, so they are never complete…
But that’s okay.

For me lists have no emotion or excitement…
As blue as a jazz singer…
Like clothes so stiff they could stand on their own…
Or a book not living up to the promises of the cover.

Instead, I prefer words from a storybook…
The wobbly pastels and dots of red…
Prettying up dirt…
Vanishing beneath my blankets.

I guess I like a bit of chaos…
Things that are sticky and squishy…
I love finding a half-eaten piece of chicken…
Even if it is still stuck to a garbage bag.

My butler put me straight: He told me…
Annie, lists will keep you safe from snakes in out of the way places…
Safe from your own memory, fading away when you need it the most.

So, armed with pen and pencil I made a list.

1. Buy biscuits
2. Buy more biscuits
3. Go outside to poop
4. Go outside to grub
5. Go outside and roll in something stinky
6. Search intently for a chicken bone

He’s right! I now feel much better!

I love you,

Annie

I stop in the shade of every tree…
Now, they are clenching the last of autumn’s leaves…
This is the place where angels’ dwell…
Where what you see, is what you need to see.

Full of birds and bees and flowers…
Their language easy for me to understand…
The maples all red and and green and pink…
Sweeping their watercolors across the page.

Ah, a mouthful of wizard’s grass…
Now I can do magic!
I can give you a lion’s kiss…
And take you beyond and beyond and beyond.

Hop on my bus, I’ll take you to glorious places…
Like the path criss-crossed with raspberries…
Bending across th path in tall arcs…
The color of frosted lipstick.

Leave all those bad memories at home…
They will grill you to death…
Stop with me in the shade of every tree…
And find rest.

I love you,

Annie