Careful what you bag…

…’cuz it just might spread. If we’re lucky that is.

This is a guarantee you can discover a bit of magic, or synchronicity, or blessing, or awe if only you set out to look for it.

Guaranteed.

“Everywhere you look, you see what you are looking for. When you look for love, everywhere you look, you’ll see love.”

~ Ram Dass

Ram Dass’ teaching, here, is so true. And yet I still forget; I still all too often look for bags of garbage…or worse.

First Walk and what do we see?

Just after the New Year, my wife Kristin and I went out into the moist and cool air of the great Pacific Northwest for our first walk of 2025. Walking has become a part of who we are, and we are the better for it, in a number of ways more than just the physical health aspect of it. As evidenced on our first walk of the new year.

We have a few different paths that we typically walk, one being a four mile round trip that borders the southern tip of a lake we live near. We took this one for our first walk after New Years. As we were walking, I noticed this on a road sign:

I noticed that on that road sign. From a distance, and if you knew some canines walked their humans along this same path, what might you think it initially was?

I think my first thoughts were: “Aw, c’mon. REALLY?” I thought that because we do, too often, see bags of canine post-digestion by-product (aka “dogshit”) tossed off the side of the path. If I see even one bag tossed to the side, it’s way too much. And each time I think “Aw, c’mon. REALLY?” I mean, to not have your human pick up after you at all if you are walking in a neighborhood where you know other dogs and humans walk, that’s one thing. But to have your human bag your post-digestion by-product, but then toss the bag on the ground anyway, truly defies logic. That said, it does seem to be who we humans are now—beings who defy all logic.

Sometimes we also see the bags placed out in the open, like in the picture above, proving the human intended something different than just tossing it down under bushes or behind rocks or something, to hide the thing. The best of me wants to think the human owner of the newly created and bagged canine post-digested by-product intended to pick it back up on their return trip. But, assuming you yourself are human, you know as I do the fickle nature of our short term memories. Sometimes, if I walk a path repeatedly day after day, the same bag might be in the same spot. “So…exactly WHEN was that owner planning on returning?”

But I digress.

One of the traits I’m actively working on is to not get all cynical as a reaction to the things and events and humans in life that push me to question intentions, motivations, and sanity (my own, and theirs!)—not to mention common decency and courtesy (which I actually just mentioned). I’m getting a lot of practice.

When from a distance I spotted that bag, and after saying my typical “Aw, c’mon. REALLY?” cynical thought, I knew what I was going to do—because I do feel responsible for trying to keep my little corner of this Universe as beautiful as I can (little efforts do matter, this I know!); and because THESE are stationed periodically along this south lake path:

And yes, even though there are about four of these canine post-digestion by-product stations, cutely named “dog waste stations (funny that!), along the path, we still will see used bags tossed to the side along the path.

So yes, I was going to take down that bag and toss it in the nearest “dog waste station.” But things weren’t as they initially appeared.

Is anything what it seems at its initial appearance?

Little Acts to Restore Faith

This turned out to be an “interocular duh” (hit me right between the eyes) moment: an experience that reminds me to wake up from my hallucinating dream that everything must be as I want them, or expect them, to be in the world. Moments of Zen are this way too, in addition to idyllic moments that bring immediate calm, moments of Zen can also be alarming and abrupt, even seemingly rude, wake up calls.

Zen Masters will often walk behind their meditating students and slap them sharply across their shoulders (usually invited to do so!) with what is called the kyōsaku, or “awakening stick,” to “wake them up” from their listless meditation—Zen Masters will call that “your moment of zen, right there!”

Moments of Zen, whether they be engrossing cat TikTok videos, or raging California fires, or national elections, or even random bags of canine post-digestion by-products, are koans meant to enlighten. All we need do is see them, see all things, differently.

Here’s what was in the bag:

Now, most humans are not in the habit of writing a note to place within a bag of canine post-digestion by-product, so the note, obvi, caught my attention. It read:

THIS ITEM IS NOT LOST

“Being Neighborly”

Community Connection Kindness

If you are COLD, please take it and use it!

And included in the bag, behind the note, was a new pair of knitted gloves.

Let’s just pause to take this in….

It’s a day into 2025, a little over two months into a new and dark era in our country, that feels as if we are on the precipice of a whole lot of cynical unknowns that are certainly going to force us all to question over and over just exactly who we are. I thought the bag was full of dogshit.

Instead, it was full of compassion.

So Who Are We Again?

I don’t know who left that amazing and anonymous act of kindness and compassion.

But, I want to meet them.

No, that’s not quite right (even though I would, to thank them for being the example we need).

I want to BE them.

So then I ask myself “What’s keeping me from BEING that?”

[You may ask yourself: “What’s keeping YOU?”]

To hopefully state the obvious again, I didn’t need the gloves so they stayed right where they were. I hope someone did come along who actually really needed them and I hope they took them and I hope they sent silent words of gratitude to the person who made effort to offer them so freely. And I hope they, then, will pass along that blessing of love, kindness, and compassion, in some way, to another person within our community. THAT’s how one incredibly thoughtful act of kindness spreads. And if more people caught this particular virus, and shamelessly spread it around, then maybe, just maybe, we will have discovered how we’ll get through the next four years together.

By remembering THIS is who we truly are: not someone who tosses bags of shit around, but a people who, without needing credit, will extend a helping hand, or warm mittens, to a neighbor.

We are better than bags of dogshit (despite all the ample evidence to the contrary). We ARE better than that! We are bags of compassionate mittens waiting to cover cold hands and icy hearts. I need to believe most of us are, anyway.

We just have to remember this. And want to BE this.

At the time of this post, I haven’t yet been back on that path. But I will walk it again soon. As I said above, I don’t want to see that same bag there—and if I don’t, I’ll imagine the anonymous gift landed onto the right, cold hands (if even a cold heart). But…I hope I do see more such bags. Wouldn’t we all be so lucky?

“Bags of gloves” like these actually can look very different from bags of gloves like those; they can come in a variety of forms: a thoughtful and authentic “hi, how are you?” to a stranger; a smile and wave and “make it a great day” to a passerby; a friendly wave in to the driver who needs to “cut in front of you;” paying for the coffee for the car behind you or for first responders who happened into the cafe; a kind and genuine “thank you, may your day continue to be great” comment to the clerk, or teller, or checkout person at the store; the opening of a door for a stranger. Or even the picking up of trash you find on the ground, or a bag of canine post-digestion by-product, and putting it its proper place. You get the idea.

Fact is, absolutely nothing is keeping me from spreading bags of warm mittens around. Except myself; when I forget. When the cynic in me talks loudest, he has me looking for bags of shit. And I’ll see them. ‘Cuz everywhere I look, I see what I’m looking for. But bags of mittens are always all around me, too. They are. ‘Cuz everywhere I look, I’ll see what I’m looking for when I remember to look for them, instead.

I need to stop forgetting.

I need to keep remembering.

THIS IS how the world gets changed. May more people get infected.

With one humble bag of mittens at a time.

Please keep something important in mind: all this is just my own Alchemy. That bag of gloves discovered on a walk, our first of the New Year, changed me. And I didn’t even need the gloves. Turns out, I needed something different from it. So, I took that instead.

What YOU do with this becomes your own Alchemy. Take it, leave it; take some, leave some; have it all, have none of it. Regardless, it’ll still be YOUR Alchemy. So, the Way of all Alchemy is this: take the bag or leave it; throw it away or toss it further; open it for yourself, or leave it for someone else. It really doesn’t matter. It will become an Alchemy.

---

~ k

Postscript:

Today’s Bag of Mittens: Another way to spread a bag of mittens out into the Universe is to shout out kindred-spirits/writers here on Substack—people I‘ve discovered whose work, writing, and thinking have meant something to me, for whatever reason. So I think, for a spell, I’ll be ending my posts with these metaphorical “bags of mittens.” At first, I thought the recipient of this humble act of goodwill would be just the writer her or himself. But then, no. If all this is Alchemy, then we all are recipients. And yet, as humans with free will, we get to decide just what to do with it—and like I said just above, no matter the choice, it still becomes your Alchemy. So, when you see these writers highlighted, click on the link or don’t; read what they’ve written, or don’t; 💜 their work, or don’t; follow them, or don’t; subscribe to them, or don’t. What Alchemy will you be allowing to cook in your life?

Today’s Bag of Mittens is

Laura Durnell ♿️ ♀️

The other month, Laura wrote a post that literally rocked my world. It was called The Savageness of Stupid. In it, she cites four major philosophers from the 20th Century (including George Carlin!), who each lived through various forms of political upheaval that included Nazism, fascism, dictatorships, racism, bigotry, and evil at its most extreme. The post helped me to understand how we’ve gotten to be where we are right now, in this moment of time. And it reminded me yet again how we humans, being as fickle as we always are, will actually never learn from history—so we will always be doomed to repeat it. It just comes in different disguises—sometimes even wearing red hats and long red ties and orange-tinted tanning spray. Clicking on Laura’s name takes you to her home page; clicking on that incredible post’s title, takes you directly there. You should read it.

But, remember, my “shoulding” you is my Alchemy. You always get to decide yours.