Dog gravity

I was in Perth a week ago. It was hot. I stayed with a friend. We walked down the beach with her old dog. Slowly.

 The beach was crowded with dogs and people, all shapes and sizes and colours. Mostly walking. Dogs playing and splashing in the shadows. The calm water was nearly empty of people. 

Surprising. 

We watched big brown dogs collect together, then a group of small pale dogs sniffed as their humans chatted. They agglomerated then dispersed. A special dog gravity.

We walked around a lake in the evening, and watched birds feed in the receding summer shallows. Muddy edges closed in as the hot dry weather continued.

We stayed to watch the evening colours change. 

I loved the last light catching the tips of the pines. 

Awakenings

Yesterday it drizzled on and off under cloudy-ish skies. Out walking the dogs in the afternoon I was surrounded by the rubbery cricks of tiny frogs that live in the karri forest. Only three millimetres of rain but just enough to wake the frogs. Almost autumn.

In the afternoon I and many others witnessed the sand mandala dissolution ceremony performed by the monks that had been working on the mandala since Tuesday.

The Tibetan monks hail from the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery in India and were accompanied by the Tibetan, Tenzin Choegyal, a singer, songwriter and musician. While in town they created the mandala over five days, gave workshops and guided meditations, and performed in a concert on Friday night.  Tenzin Choegyal has the most amazing voice and the monks were surprising.

They had an instrument that looked like a flared didgeridoo and had a deep and resonant sound reminiscent of throat singing. It was a Tibetan horn or dungchen. It was used in accompaniment to their chanting and throat singing. Parts of their ritual would wake any slumbering spirit. It must have been quite amazing to hear in the mountains of Tibet.

The mandala was 'dissolved' then collected up and we all walked to the river. For the finale of the ceremony the sand and petals were poured into the river after a final series of chants.