musingsonwomenshealth.com

Reflections on 40 years as a doctor in Women's Health

Art thou not sensible to feeling as to sight?


I had an extraordinary experience the other day: one that I’ve had several times before, but never so… profound. Never so personal. I’m not one to deny epiphanies, but it wasn’t anything like the one that the Christian apostle Paul was said to have experienced on the road to Damascus: no voices accusing me of anything, no blinding lights -no punishing loss of sight because I refused to see what lay in front of me. It was more of an insight, really: a recognition of something I thought I had merely imagined before. A corroboration.

I was walking through a section of the forest on a path I know quite well. I usually recognize certain trees along the way, and in my mind at least, I greet them as I might a person standing patiently to one side of the trail waiting for me to pass. Often, though, it’s a group of trees I recognize -a grove of Douglas firs, for example, or an equally impressive gathering of cedars watching me  from afar. That they are somehow aware of me as well seems obvious, although I never really thought of how they might be able to accomplish that. The question of why, however, was never any more in doubt than asking the same question of anyone I saw on the trail: it was an understanding of my passing. An acknowledgement of my existence.

And for a moment that day, what I saw was not just a group of trees and bushes but a community that, while it accepted my presence, could no more understand me than I could it. But not understanding something does little to take away the magic, the meaning of the encounter. After all, reality is a dance between meaning and matter, isn’t it: the one is what we hope to be true; the other is what is there, whether or not we want it to be.

There is something special at the border between the known and the unknown. I was there; I saw it not with my eyes, but with something I cannot name: something that had in that moment a meaning I chose. Or was it the other way round? Perhaps it was me that was chosen to receive the gift: a gift given in exchange for my belief; a gift that allowed a fleeting glimpse through the veil we humans seem to wear.

Belief is like that, though; it’s how it works. In a way, it’s a collaboration between me and not-me for those times when I need to hear the world in polyphony: multiple voices, instead of just one lonely sound. And whether or not I choose to attach a meaning to it, does not in any way diminish its generosity. However evanescent, I am the richer.

In fact, even as it faded, I was so affected by the feeling, I felt a need to share it with someone – anyone! It was a naïve thought, I suppose: how can one capture the ineffable in words; how can anybody describe joy?

I don’t know how long I was transfixed to the spot, but eventually I saw someone wandering along the trail with a large dog walking by his side. I could see him tighten his grip on the leash long before he reached me; I think he was worried about what the dog might do. As they approached, I saw the dog was wearing a muzzle and I sighed: I think they’re cruel -especially in the woods.

In fact, the muzzle seemed to me to be a punishment -not at all what a walk in Nature should be for a dog: something it probably looked forward to all day. The thoughts of the gift I’d just been awarded by the trees dissolved as the man and his dog came closer. It was as if some offence had been committed, as if something had been defiled.

I didn’t think he would be a worthy recipient of any benediction I could invent to explain my experience; I could feel no residual agape in its wake. And yet he smiled at me as he approached. It was the look of innocence, and when he saw me staring at the muzzle on his dog, he shrugged in obvious embarrassment.
“He won’t bite you,” he said as he closed the gap between us. “I have to put the muzzle on him for each walk: he doesn’t trust strangers.” I could see the man sigh as the two of them came closer. “He’s a rescue dog from the pound… He seemed to like me, but his previous owners had given up on him, I think.”

He stopped a few feet from me and in a gruff voice, ordered the dog to sit. He had to push on its rump for it to obey, and even then, it promptly stood again. “Sorry. It’s a work in progress.”

But the dog seemed more interested in me, than any command the man tried, and strained at its leash to come closer.

“I love dogs,” I told him, smiled at the man and held out my hand for the dog to sniff. “I have yet to meet one that scares me… Let him come closer, if you feel comfortable with that.”

“Well, I…” But the dog, seeing my extended hand pulled on the leash and the man couldn’t hold him back. Despite the muzzle, I could feel its wet nose exploring my fingers. And then it rubbed its head on my leg and in an obvious gesture of acceptance, sat down right in front of me, leaning heavily against my leg. His tail began wagging; he was almost begging for me to pat him.

The owner’s mouth fell open in surprise. “He must like you,” he finally managed to say. “He’s never done that with a stranger before; he usually just growls.”

I smiled as a sudden breeze rustled the leaves on the gnarled branch of an old maple tree overhead. It was a day of gifts.

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gozzter

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