Tiger Blood

It's Friday afternoon, the last one of a snowy March. The sun is fading in the pale sky and the Sabbath Bride is approaching, clothed magnificently in white. This is the beginning of the day of rest, that utterly radical concept. A night and day when everything stops, and even animals rest. A day of quiet, pleasure, and contemplation, if that is your bent. Could any concept be more pertinent today, in our age of frantic activity and frenzied information? If you can even call it information.

What a blessing to be rid of Charlie Sheen and the "goddesses" for 24 hours. Charlie Sheen and his tiger blood. Sugar and I feel so sorry for him. What a mind to live in: there's no rest, no succor, no One to hold you for awhile. That's what the Sabbath is for: rest, re-creation, renewal, relaxation, getting rid of tiger blood for a bit and giving yourself a transfusion of Sugar blood. Sugar blood? What's that?

Sugar blood is living calmly in the moment (sort of like meditating). Sugar doesn't need to meditate or do yoga, she doesn't go to ashrams or retreats. She just does what she's supposed to do each minute. Her time is spent eating, sleeping, playing with toys and people, getting tummy rubs, curling up in her fleece bed and pondering we do not know what. And, of course, offering copious kisses. Sometimes she barks at strangers at the door because life isn't perfect, and danger lurks. Her life is uncomplicated by existential questions and issues of the zeitgeist. She's a love dog, but not a sexy beast. She's fastened in the here and now (granted, she's still a puppy and thus retains her innocence).

But humans do not and cannot live in the here and now very often. And the here and now today tends to be filled with degrading and depressing images of people doing destructive distorted things, and making lots of noise and garnering a great deal of publicity doing them. We want, we need, to shut them off sometimes.

Perhaps it was always thus, but on a different scale. And that's why Judaism, why God, in fact, mandated the idea of a Sabbath, a sabbatical from crazy life. This we no longer take seriously. It's so archaic. We don't need a break, we can't afford it. But perhaps we ignore it at our own peril. I don't know the answer. I only know that for the first time in history, some three or four thousand years ago, people were told they musn't work for one day a week. And it was hard to do but really good.

May that intelligent Spirit of blessing continue to shine down on us in our day of doubt and cynicism. And Sugar says arf to that.