A Philosophy Of The Green Dog Is Born

 

         It was still morning. Suzy had gone off to sleep for the early part of the day, having done her nightly shift at the glass doors. Willie was left alone with his busy thoughts. His eyes were open wide, he watched everything happening outside while his mind worked away at the morning’s visions.

          Crows were having their morning conflabs. Tiny Bush Tits flew in dusty grey drifts almost invisible against the gravel on the ground. Various plants grew out there almost as one watched. The day warmed up, and still Willie sat and thought.

          He got up and wandered over to the magical food corner, had some breakfast, and drank some water. He checked on the people.  Yes. Still breathing. He decided not to bother walking all over them.  He went back to his spot by the glass door and crouched down, as cats do, to think some more.

          Well, you know how it is.  His shiny bright green eyes slowly began to close. In such a sleepy house, who could blame him for being sleepy also. No one was stirring, not even a mouse!

          As a wise cat, a philosopher of sorts, he had fallen to musing on the meaning of the Green Dog. He felt that it must be some kind of a portentous visitation. But how to fit it into a worldview? There seemed to be no convenient corner for this odd creature to inhabit in any sensible worldview.

          He felt that he owed some explanation to Suzy, to settle her mind.

          He began to think on the meaning of enigma.

 enigma (n.)

1530s, "statement which conceals a hidden meaning or known thing under obscure words or forms," earlier enigmate (mid-15c.), from Latin aenigma "riddle," from Greek ainigma (plural ainigmata) "a dark saying, riddle," from ainissesthai "speak obscurely, speak in riddles," from ainos "tale, story; saying, proverb;" according to Liddell & Scott, a poetic and Ionic word, of unknown origin. General sense in English of "anything inexplicable to an observer" is from c. 1600.

            Well, yes, he thought, a Green Dog is nothing if not an enigma manifested in flesh. What could this manifestation be concealing? Then there was the matter of how it had arrived, the UFO flying so near the earth in that uncanny manner.

At last, he slept. And as he slept, the Great Mother Cat spoke to him plainly, not in riddles.

Little son,

You must not expect to understand all.

The Green Dog is a type of the unknowable.

His coming and going refers only to himself.

I say let it be.

Live your life for the pleasure and virtue of it.

The silver ship is a metaphor for dreaming, dear one.

Now hush, sleep on in peace.

Above all, fear not!

 

          So, after he woke, Willie went looking for his excitable little sister elsewhere in the house.  He found her sleeping in her warm spot on the back of the sofa. He climbed up there too and settled down near her, waiting for her to awaken.

When her eyes opened he spoke to her. “It is true that we don’t remember our own mother. We were found kittens, brought to live among mankind.”

“This is true,” agreed Suzy.

“But there is a greater mother who comes to us in dreams and brings wisdom, like that which our own mother would have given us if we knew her. 

“Suzy, she said that the Green Dog was just a living riddle to show us that we don’t need to know everything and that it shouldn’t scare us.  She said to just be good cats, and to not be afraid anymore!”

“Oh Willie, is that true?” asked Suzy.

“Yes. You can trust her. She knows our Maker," announced Willie.

“Okay then, I don’t care if the Green Dog plays around in the garden every day,” said Suzy. She yawned and stretched, then she went back to sleep, because Suzy sleeps an awful lot!

“What a sleepy head,” thought Willie as he wandered off, just checking things out, as cats do.

The woman was up and typing at her desk, so Willie hopped up there to purr a good morning and to have a good snuggle.