Endorphins are forever 

Last week I sat with a Toledo Zen Buddhist group, Glass City Dharma, doing some self work. My goal was to quiet my mind. It was a 30 minute seated silent meditation. In my head it was a very busy half hour. An exercise in the intentional cur-tail-ment of tangent thought.

Oh look, Shiny. Okay. Am I thinking that?! Stop, regroup. Breathe, repeat. Oh look, Shiny.

As I was trying to make sense of why I’d even showed up for the meditation, one of the other sitters walked up to me, saying “I thought I recognized you. My name is Jason. You worked on my dog several years ago.” It took a few seconds and I soon recognized him in his now beardless manifestation. (I have to talk like that; I’d just meditated.) My memory of PetMassaging his old dog resurfaced and flooded my consciousness. “Yes, I remember. She was…wait a second…a whippet, right?” I grinned. Shiney.

“Yes,” he said, “she passed over 2 years ago. It’s been hard and I’m just about ready for another dog.”

A friend who was near enough to overhear our conversation looked at me as he was pulling on his overcoat. He asked “Do you remember all the dogs you massage?”

“I do, this dog. She was special. We shared a moment.”

“What was her name, again?”

Jason, her proud papa, eyes welling up a bit, intoned her name in reverence. As the sound “Chayla” echoed in my mind, I recalled one of our last PetMassages. She was lying on her side on my PetMassage table. Her back was toward me, her feet and face pointed away, toward Jason, seated on a sofa. I was resting my hands on her paws, both fore paws under one hand, both hind paws under the other. She’d had a rough week. She’d been unable to walk or stand without distress. Jason had devoted himself to her care; carrying her where she needed to go.

I breathed, centered, and waited for an inspiration for a direction for her session.

I collected her paws in my fingers and began moving her legs back and forth, out and in. As my hands separated, I inhaled. As my hands came together, I exhaled. In and out, out and in, faster and faster. We were soon emulating the motion of sight-hound, whippet running.

Her entire body responded. It contracted and stretched. It rolled with each movement. Her muscles opened and closed, flexed and relaxed. Her breathing became deeper. Her eyes half closed into a squint. Her ears pricked with excitement. This old whippet body was running again. Albeit, in a side stroke.

As I observed her, I experienced an open-eyed vision; a visceral experience of what she was thinking/feeling/processing, superimposed over what I was seeing in this dimension. I could tell that she was aware of me and my participation. We were both multitasking on a whole lot of levels!

We were bounding across a field. Gently undulating terrain. Warm, fresh sweet wind in our eyes, nostrils, and ears. Soft, fragrant, moist grass slippery beneath our paws. Dirt splatters and grass uproots with each quick turn. Gray weathered wooden fencing blurs against the still background of a black trunked forest. It is late Spring, early Summer. Possibly chasing a critter; but it doesn’t matter. We’re running. We are pure movement. Jason is nearby. He’s watching and enjoying the afternoon. We’re safe. We’re in perfect health. Perfect coordination. Perfect speed. Perfect activity. It’s a perfect moment in a perfect day. Everything is easy and we are in perfect harmony. Complete joy. Thank you.

I say “we” because, we were having this experience together. What Chayla was experiencing, I was experiencing. What she felt, I felt. The endorphin rush that she got, I got. It’s a perfect moment in a perfect PetMassage. Everything is easy and we are in perfect harmony. Complete joy. Thank you.

I needed to validate what was happening. So, I described the scene and the specifics of the landmarks I saw around the pasture. Jason recalled the place that matched my description. It was simply a pleasant memory she retained from their past. It was an ordinary, nothing special day. And, lucky me, I got to share it!

After her session, I assisted her to the floor and observed how she moved. I recall that at first she stood dazed and a bit wobbly. Her eyes glowed with happiness. Her coat shined from her recent exercise. All three of us felt joyful and exhilarated. Then, she walked unassisted to the door, into the parking lot and to the car.

Chayla passed on several months after that. She was 15.

This moment — the original event — would have occurred a long time ago. The moment was revived at least ten years later, or about two and a half years ago, through our PetMassage_TM reenactment, in which Chayla replicated the movement, the memory, the joy of rekindling the hormonal stimulation. That was what she shared with me.

I can still see her: running with her whole body, and mind, and spirit. Legs, spine, neck and head, belly and back, shoulders and hips, all moving, all breathing, all sprinting together in harmony. In slow motion, she looked up at me. She widened her eyes, flared her tiny nostrils, and pulled her mouth back into a huge smile, tongue tip glistening between her front teeth.

Here’s the part that I want to share with you. Sitting there talking to Jason, I relived the joy and sense of perfection of working with Chayla, as I am again now, writing about it. I’m pleased that I was able to add some grace to her quality of life. The experience certainly added grace to mine. I’ve got to tell you: happiness, joy, and perfect balance, and running about on four legs, really feels good.

We, as PetMassage_TM facilitators get to experience many of the endorphin jolts that our dogs feel. When we relive them with the kind of intensity that I’ve just described, we get to experience them again in all their full glorious digitally enhanced Technicolor beauty.

The memory, linked to a strong emotion, triggers the hormonal response. Endorphins, the feel good hormones, are forever. Extrapolating, dogs’ memories get triggered by PetMassage_TM. And then for the rest of their lives, with their memories of their PetMassage_TM, they can access these good feelings.

Oh yes, I remember this dog. We shared a moment. She was — make that, “is” — special.