Simply Wondering

  Over the several years we talked with Fred, many topics and themes were discussed. Some were personal, many were general, but I think something can be learned or extracted even through the more personal. To give an idea what sort of ground was covered, or touched on, I’ll try to place topics into categories, and for the fun of it, call them Fred Threads, to be shared as time goes on. Here are some of them:

• Animals
• Body
• Communication
• Dimensions
• Death
• Energy
• Fear
• Grounding
• Humans
• Images
• Love
• Mind
• Nature
• Pain
• Spiritual
• State of the World
• Zero Point

Although Fred specializes in having fun, being light-hearted, good-humored, I don’t think he can be mistaken for being a light-weight. As far as I can make out, he is discussing that which concerns many of the main religions of the world, as well as some of the psychologies. But from a refreshing viewpoint that is not hampered by the conditioning of our oh-so-human mindsets. Our culture, Western culture, is very much in favor of rational, linear, scientific thinking and seems not willing to see the dead-end this lack of balance, this lopsidedness fosters. Even those that question and seek are mired by the assumptions and mindsets of such a collective direction – it is amazingly hard to see around them; at least I know it is taking me forever to start to understand that it behooves me to try. I believe Fred is trying to help us with that. For starters, he chats to us from the unusual position of a dog who teaches humans. That alone seems to skew a few dearly held assumptions, no?

Recently I happened to notice similarities between Fred’s approach and that of the Sufis, and also particularly of Eckhart Tolle, who makes such a strong case for staying in the moment in his book, The Power of Now. I think that is exactly what Fred is getting at as he continually suggests we try to be a dog for a day, even an hour. Even if we were to go out back behind some trees so no-one will see us doing ‘pretending’, it is almost impossible to relax, be goalless for a while. The monkey mind jabbers and screeches: this is so silly, I have things to do, someone might be trying to call me, I’ll be bored, how is this going to make the fear go away, I need to get at least a few things off my to-do list, I could have worked some overtime……………… It makes me tired thinking about it – maybe I’ll just take a little nap.

The first thing Fred said, once actually asked if he had anything he wanted to say:

Remember who you are. God is within you and you are love. It is so simple. We animals are trying to show you this.