Sumangali.org: In The Spirit Of Serendipity

Behind every great woman

They say that behind every great man there has to be a great woman, but behind a great woman? They do not mention. Perhaps we should look down toward the hearth. Shaggy Muses, by Maureen Adams, is a heartful tribute to the dogs who unknowingly, and unconditionally inspired five iconic female writers: Emily Brontë, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edith Wharton, Emily Dickinson and Virginia Woolf.

I suppose there are dog-lovers in all walks of life. So, what makes this connection interesting, or is it just a coincidence? Having read to the end, I see that the dogs—differing vastly in breed, breeding, size and temperament—played differing roles in the lives of each woman, but there are themes in these interspecies bonds too strikingly similar to be coincidental. That makes for a fascinating read, but the dogs themselves make it heart-wrenchingly un-put-downable (for this dog-lover at least).

Sadly all women had one clear thing in common: traumatic lives. That is a well-trod path for writers in general; not so much in terms of life’s challenging events per se, but the heightened sensitivity and emotionality of creative people leaves them ill-equipped for bereavements, illnesses, emotional or physical abuse, the sheer overwhelming nature of creative output itself, and in many cases everyday life in general. In each of these five cases the dog (or dogs) had a soothing and joyful influence, keeping the writer grounded, as well as offering empathy, employing that other-worldly sixth-sensitivity which is the hallmark of their species.

Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf (pictured on the front cover), the most tragic of all, maintained humour in her letters about dogs and their refreshingly earthly simplicity. But she had no qualms about referring to their spiritual qualities either. It seemed both were equally essential to her, making her literally inseparable from them:

“Out after lunch with Gurth to … the Joachim concert at the Bechstein Hall, where Gurth accompanied a … song with a voluntary bass of his own composition & I had to remove him in haste.”

“I took Max along the River, but we were a good deal impeded, by a bone he stole, by my suspenders coming down, by a dogfight in which his ear was torn & bled horribly. I thought how happy I was without any of the excitements, which, once, seemed to me to constitute happiness.”

“And the truth is, one can’t write directly about the soul. Looked at it vanishes; but look at the ceiling , at Grizzle … and the soul slips in.”

“Your puppy has destroyed, by eating holes, my skirt, ate L’s proofs, and done such damage as could be done to the carpet—But she is an angel of light. Leonard says seriously she makes him believe in God…”

In one passage Virginia hits the cornerstone of what it is to be a writer, which may further explain why a writer may be willing to overlook the less desirable canine traits to behold the more refined and inspirational:

“Why does my spaniel jump onto chairs when she is dripping from a swim in the river? The answer is that instead of controlling life … we writers merely contemplate it.”

Edith Wharton

I say the most tragic of all was Virginia Woolf, but I felt sorriest of all for Edith Wharton. Who would be born to a wealthy family in Victorian times? Denied the privilege of reading novels until after she was married, the awkward seventeen-year-old was primped and primed as a debutante, a husband being the only seemly occupation for a young lady of her era.

The young Edith was certainly forbidden from writing novels; imagination could not be a helpful quality for a wife to possess, and as for self-expression, well! In a world where every daily act and duty followed strict rules of propriety, what place could there be for spontaneity or spirit? As a child she begged the servants to save oddments of brown wrapping paper from any parcels delivered to the house. Crouching on the floor, she wrote on them her first secret stories.

She did marry an eligible and affable chap in the end, but he suffered a hereditary form of insanity, which came on soon after. Although she devotedly nursed him and encouraged him, he did not improve, and became too dangerous to be alone with, so Edith was left to her dogs and her servants. As the latter could not be decently leant on emotionally, that job fell to a string of Poodles, Chihuahuas and Pekingese, on whom she was almost excruciatingly dependent. In the autumn of her life, that role only increased in importance. Her own words describe why it was dogs who won her heart:

“If ever I have a biographer, it is in these notes that he will find the gist of me … Let us begin with some stray thoughts—The subconscious … of the psychologists … I am secretly afraid of animals—of all animals except dogs, and even of some dogs. I think it is because of the usness in their eyes, with the underlying not-usness which belies it, and is so tragic a reminder of the lost age when we human beings branched off and left them: left them to eternal inarticulateness and slavery. Why? their eyes seem to ask us.”

Elizabeth Barrett-Browning

One can say unequivocally in the case of Elizabeth Barrett-Browning that her dog was not merely a companion, but a life-saver. After a volley of painful bereavements, and many years of debilitating illness, it seemed the young poet had given up the will to live. Bedridden in a darkened room, mourning acutely for her closest brother, she barely ate or slept, and was described by her family as “close to death”.

In a daring attempt to lift her from despair, a friend offered a spaniel puppy named Flush. There were many near-refusals by the poet, born of misgivings about the dog’s cloistered future, and mere shyness of accepting such a dear and generous gift. But even before she did finally accept, thoughts of the puppy had begun to turn her from her grief. By the time he arrived, he had already entered her heart and begun to transform her suffering existence into a life of joy and creativity. To her benefactor, Elizabeth wrote:

“How I thank you for Flush!—Dear little Flush—growing dearer every day!… Such a quiet, loving intelligent little dog—& so very very pretty! He shines as if he carried sunlight about on his back!”

Not exactly the words of a person close to death. The dog had a blissfully spoiled existence, sleeping on his mistress’s bed and eating from her hand. They were singularly devoted to one another. One problem with devotion to dogs is that they do have such short lives compared to ours. It would seem perilous for such a fragile girl to invest her whole heart in a mere spaniel. Indeed she plunged back into despair when the dog was stolen more than once by a gang of professional dog-nappers, demanding a ransom for his return. The two were reunited each time (both somewhat the worse for wear), and their bond only deepened.

For all they say about similarities between dogs and their owners, one can’t help noticing that this mistress wore her hair uncannily like a spaniel’s ears. Flush’s greatest gift to Elizabeth was not hairdressing though, but self-confidence. That trait was sorely lacking in the poet as as she lay immobile for much of her early life, unable to contribute to the family household, and seemingly ineligible for marriage. But soon, basking in the dog’s devotion, she grew spirit enough to think and act for herself, to write prolifically, and to live happily ever after with fellow poet Robert Browning.

By the time Flush passed away Elizabeth was an established writer with much finer health than when he came into her life, leaving her far better equipped to accept the loss and to replace her grief with gratitude for his life. Although she survived him by only six years, they were for the most part happy and creative years; a continuation of the strength he had brought her.

Emily Brontë

Brontë dogs were a far cry from pampered Pekingese and spoiled Spaniels. The one who featured most prominently in Emily’s life was the formidable Keeper, brought into the family to deter burglars. Maureen Adams sets the scene:

“On England’s Yorkshire moors in the mid-1840s, the villagers of Haworth often paused in their work at the sight of Emily Brontë, the parson’s daughter, striding across the heath with a massive dog at her side. Years later, they could still remember the tall woman and her dog appearing suddenly out of the fog. No warning of their approach could be heard except for the dog’s odd breathing, a wheezing whistle, the result of an injury from one of his fierce brawls with the local dogs. Emily would nod a greeting and pause to hear the latest tales of quarrels, thievery or ghost sightings. The dog, Keeper, stood completely still—his eyes on his mistress—until the moment she stirred, when he instantly followed her. A strange pair they were, uncanny and frightening, like the old stories of the goddesses and their dogs. Yet there was gentleness between them.”

It was more a battle of wills between the two characters than an abundance of affection as with the other women and their lapdogs, but it was as powerful a connection. In fact it seemed Emily was not entirely aware of a boundary between herself and the dog, in the same way that she had difficulty distinguishing her outer life from her inner life of fiction. Maureen Adams notes:

“Most dog owners depend on their dogs to keep them connected to the natural world. Taking a dog for a daily walk allows one to experience the changing seasons and the vicissitudes of weather. But Emily Brontë, who wasted away if not free to wander the moors, did not need Keeper to connect her to nature. Instead, she needed him to help her stay grounded with daily routines, which she tended to forget when she was absorbed in writing.”

All the Brontës died young, so, unusually, Keeper outlived his mistress. According to one observer:

“Keeper walked first among the mourners to her funeral; he slept moaning for nights at the door of her empty room, and never, so to speak, rejoiced, dog fashion after her death.”

Emily Dickinson

This poet was by far the most reclusive of the five women, and thus perhaps the most dependent on her canine muse to keep aloneness from turning to loneliness.

The puppy Carlo was a gift from her father. As a successful lawyer he spent a lot of time away, and fretted about the safety of the three females he left behind: Emily, her sister Lavinia, and their mother. His fears were not unfounded, as bandits and burglars were rife in New England, but he was somewhat overprotective, which perhaps swayed his choice of a very large breed: the Newfoundland.

It was no accident that he gave the puppy specifically to Emily, but it may have been a fortunate coincidence that he also chose such a very sensitive breed. He knew very well of his daughter’s preference for solitude, which turned easily into anxiety about what lay beyond the garden hedge. It seems he gave Carlo not only for practical outer protection but for “human” companionship and reassurance when he could not be there himself.

Again this huge beast was no lapdog, and spent most of his time outside, but he was allowed upstairs into his mistress’s living quarters. Not quite fitting into the private conservatory where Emily spent much of her time, he would lie in the doorway with only two paws inside. Emily loved the outdoors, and roamed happily alone with Carlo in the family meadow and neighbouring woods before entering into her best-known state of complete seclusion. Even then the family had a large garden where Emily grew fragrant flowers and sketched poems, always with Carlo looking on.

It must be said that it was not only fear which kept her alone, but a disillusionment with the world and with humanity. She craved silence and sensitivity, but found it only rarely in human society. Carlo’s virtues grew in her esteem; a tribute to the dog and to dogs in general, if at the expense of some cynicism about the human race. In letters she openly credits Carlo with more refinement than society:

“They [men and women] talk of Hallowed things, aloud—and embarrass my Dog—He and I dont object to them, if they’ll exist their side.”

“You ask of my Companions—Hills Sir and the Sundown—and a Dog—large as myself, that my father bought me—They are better than Beings—because they know—but do not tell.”

“I talk of all these things with Carlo, and his eyes grow meaning, and his shaggy feet keep a slower pace.”

Says Maureen Adams:

“Carlo never grew exhausted by Emily’s need for constant, attuned attention because it was part of his inbred nature to provide such a response. All dogs naturally look at their owners with a steady gaze, but it can be argued that the Newfoundland’s deep-set, dark eyes are the most sympathetic of all.”

As with most of these writers when their favourite dogs passed away, Emily did not write much about it to her friends. She would understandably have been too grief-stricken at Carlo’s death to speak of such a delicate subject to mere humans, remaining more inclined to “tell it slant” through her poems. Years before the event finally came though, she told a friend:

“Gracie, do you know that I believe that the first to come and greet me when I go to heaven will be this dear, faithful, old friend Carlo?”

Acknowledgements

With many thanks to Maureen Adams (and her two shaggy muses) for this touching and insightful read. It is truly one of the best books I have ever owned, and I will treasure it.

Found out more at ShaggyMuses.com

Yesterday our dear family pet, Rosie, went back to Dog Heaven.

She was small even for a Miniature Dachshund, and her recent illness made her slighter still, but I cried myself to sleep last night to think I would never see that little bundle of fur again, chuckling intermittently at memories of our 14-year friendship as they bubbled into mind.

It seems strange to call her a pet, as she declared herself a family member at every opportunity. She had the stature of a young piglet, but either she did not realise the fact, or did not think it relevant. To her I’m sure she was not even a dog, but just a being like anyone else, it’s just that beings happen to come in all sorts of (immaterial) shapes and sizes.

When invited to play, by any species, she offered a look of acute disdain. Even in her childhood, games were far too puerile for her. There seemed always a lot to do in that little head, as if she bore a great responsibility, or yearned to solve an equation but only lacked the hands with which to hold chalk to a board. Often she would stare piercingly into one’s eyes and start to yowl, increasing in scale and fervour, almost shaping her lips into words, then growing gruff and exasperated that we did not understand the thing she urgently needed to explain.

Her stoicism championed her good qualities. She bore all pain silently, and recovered from even the severest peril immediately. She came back from so many scrapes and illnesses, we often thought she would outlive us all. Her leaving us at last is thus quite astonishing; one final reminder to us that she will do just as she pleases, and not what we dare to expect of her.

Her most famous recovery was when another dog chased her off a 300-foot Devonshire cliff. Hours later the coast guard went down on a rope. There she was amongst the rocks by the incoming tide, unconscious, assumed dead. Back at the top he opened the little bag with its limp cargo, but she duly thrust out her head, yelling and clamouring as if she had been robbed. We conjectured that she was in fact some sort of barking cat. That would account for her size and her nonchalance, as well as the nine or more lives she seemed to have spent up to that point.

To be fair she was a little wary of larger dogs (perhaps more so after the Cliff Incident), but would not let them get away without a reminder of exactly with whom they were sharing the road. She would brace her head down and trot past, often ducking behind our lumbering Retriever, then when the larger dog had passed (and most were larger), she would let out a steady stream of expletives in its direction. The target would gape back, completely disarmed, seemingly stunned out of its senses that such bravado could be delivered from so close to the ground.

I first saw her over the garden gate. There she was in the middle of the lawn, the size of a guinea pig, but with the presence and command of a grown Doberman. She was all puffed out chest, stocky shoulders, ears akimbo (and curled out at the ends like a 60s bob), liquid black eyes, marching up to me with not an inch of submissiveness or eagerness to please, but only “Behold. I am Rosie.” For me that first glimpse summed up her whole adorably outrageous existence, and that’s how I’ll remember her.

I am forever, forever thankful for the laughs she brought and the affection she showed. One had to learn her language to know what counted for affection (a sharp nip on the nose with a blast of camel breath, for example), but once her respect was earned, affection always followed, as did her loyalty.

More on my love of dogs at SriChinmoyCentre.org:

• Inspirational Dogs
• Puppy Powers
• Savernake
• The Guide Dog and her Man

I’d put off visiting Scotland for over a year, even though York is inexcusably close, and even though a very kind open invitation stood since I moved north from Wales. That’s the trouble with open invitations, and things that are close: they hover just below the top of the list of things one may do, pipped to the post by others with deadlines and narrower windows of opportunity.

Through the dinge of a train window, hedges sprawled in intricate skeletal black, bothered only by crows. The sky of England sat thick and woolly, like something you’d find in an old ottoman. I entered then not just another country and culture; the hedge, the sky, the crows were identical, but carried the sense of an entirely different soul.

Arthur’s Seat, a questioning hook-nose of a mountain, reared out of flat browns and greys. A manmade mountain reached beneath: dark blocks of stone just discernible as ancient dwellings. “EDINBURGH: Inspiring Capital”, sped past on a building sign. Indeed, thought I, just then basking in its strange and powerful beauty. The train seemed to pull in to a work of fiction.

I gaped a good while in admiration at a church, the shape a child would draw for a space ship—aimed for Heaven rather than the Moon, presumably—black as a crow, in curled stone, seemingly too delicate to stand for long, yet as old as if it had grown up there as a brother to Arthur’s Seat.

I arrived, upon a short walk, at the “Old Town”. There, my Scottish friend told me, they built so many layers on top of each other because the surrounding land was swamp. It looks just so, as if they needed to be strong enough to hold fast to each other over centuries, lest they fall in, each wall a fortress of blank dark grey and turrets, up and up and up. Here and there tall alleys, or “closes” form chinks in the Royal Mile; chinks of strange blackness rather than light, climbing beguiling pathways, each with a curious historical tale. Despite the cold air, darkening sky, blackened churches, grey terraces, and obscure alleys, there is nothing of the bleak or eery about the city. Contrarily, its strength lends an inner warmth; a motherly sense of safety and familiarity.

A reformed coffee addict, I struggle a good deal this time of year when Starbucks roll out their Gingerbread Latte. I don’t care who knows it: call me shallow, call me a marketing sheep, my heart glows at the sight of that round green logo, and I look longingly in, or go in just to drink tea. I know I could do that anywhere—anywhere in the world—but strangely, a high stool by a Starbucks window is one of my favourite places for sightseeing. There in a street of kilt tailors, haggis mongers and cashmere shawls, I could fully absorb the details and subtleties of my new environment.

I had an appointment with two friends and colleagues to talk over some business before an evening meditation at the Sri Chinmoy Centre. “Meet us by Greyfriar’s Bobby.” they said, “If you get lost, anyone can tell you where he is.” I didn’t get lost, so there we stood: me and a bronze statue of a Skye terrier, on the corner of Candlemaker Row. I had to stand a little way off in fact, as he is quite the bigshot and often has his photograph taken. “Let’s go to Starbucks,” said my friends when they arrived, “it’s just around the corner.” I smiled, and once again narrowly triumphed over the guile of ginger coffee.

I was invited to help make a mandala, part of a double birthday celebration at the Meditation Centre that night. I was in my own Heaven with such simple yet detailed occupation, thrilling at the shades of colour the rice turns when dyed and drained, coaxing it into fine shapes on a printed template. I was amazed and touched by the splendour my friends created between them, under the auspices of “birthday cakes,” more a matching pair of edible temples. They told me of past visual extravaganzas for other birthdays, effusions of heartfelt creativity and childlike joy.

Birthdays are always given a lot of significance in the Sri Chinmoy Centre; Sri Chinmoy says that on a birthday, the soul remembers and renews its promise to God; the promise it made in Heaven for this lifetime. It is therefore a day of soulful meditation, of gratitude, and of divine happiness.

“Each birthday is a petal of a flower. The flower, petal by petal, blossoms and then it is ready to be placed at the inner shrine in the aspiring heart.”
—Sri Chinmoy, Reality-Dream

I love to visit different Sri Chinmoy Centres around the world, as there is always something new and inspiring to be enjoyed in each place, even though we all share the same spiritual path.

As we came back out into the cold, the famous terrier caught my eye again. I asked my host why this little dog was honoured so in bronze. She enthused a long while and promised to lend me a book when we got home.

I unwrapped the bundle of flowers I’d brought for her, and her housemate passed me a random vase to put them in. “I know this vase.” I thought, then checked myself, certain I must be confused. “No, I know this vase.” The pink ribbon around its neck was faded almost to white, but I knew the shape of it in my hand.

2003 was the last time I’d been in Edinburgh—Sri Chinmoy happened to be there on my birthday. I’d dragged a dear long-suffering friend around all the flower shops in the city for the whole day to find the “right” vase of flowers to give to my Guru. Finally I found a plump handful of freesias and gerberas in shades of light pink, and a simple bulb vase. It did not look special to anyone else, but to me it was potentially perfect. In a hotel lobby I proceeded to take at least half of the stems away—the imperfect and overly fussy—to leave a very zen clutch of sprigs. I trimmed them further and moved them about for another half hour, defying anyone who came within a metre of my craft, and bearing the brunt of a little friendly teasing. It was not so much the result I sought, but more the route: the intensity of a working meditation, the striving for Heavenly perfection through a limited earthly medium.

In the evening Sri Chinmoy called for me, meditated with me for a few moments, then passed me a gerbera from the vase. It was more profound and significant than I can express. All that came tumbling back as I placed flowers in the same vase at my friend’s apartment, now four years later, this time white tulips and freesias.

It seemed much longer than twenty-four hours later that I stepped back on the train; I suppose I had gained much more than twenty-four hours’ worth of happiness and inspiration. I opened the little paperback with a Skye terrier peering from the cover, fiesty yet wistful.

Bobby belonged to a lowly shepherd named John Gray. Such was the dog’s devotion, he lay on his master’s grave in Greyfriar’s Churchyard from the day the shepherd died in 1858. For fourteen years, until his own death, Bobby guarded his master, leaving only once a day to eat. Gaining the status of “stray” rather than “saint”, or even “orphan,” merely due to his species, Bobby faced extermination by the authorities, or at least expulsion from his post: dogs were not allowed in graveyards, and dogs were not allowed to live at all without a license. His devotion won the hearts of the local children, who saved up their pennies in a big bag to buy a license between them. His exceptional manners earned him access to the grave, further defying human regulations.

The tale itself is no doubt greatly romanticised by its author, Eleanor Atkinson, but any historical inaccuracy is surely only in the finer details; the devotion and loyalty of dogs has the power to melt the hearts of our much more sophisticated species. Are we really so evolved? Perhaps, but perhaps we still have much to learn from our little canine brothers.

“Very, very early a dog learns that life is not as simple a matter to his master as it is to himself. There are times when he reads trouble, that he cannot help or understand, in the man’s eye and voice. Then he can only look his love and loyalty, wistfully, as if he felt his own shortcoming in the matter of speech. And if the trouble is so great that the master forgets to eat his dinner; forgets, also, the needs of his faithful little friend, it is the dog’s dear privilege to bear neglect and hunger without complaint. Therefore, when Auld Jock lay down again and sank, almost at once, into sodden sleep, Bobby snuggled in the hollow of his master’s arm and nuzzled his nose in his master’s neck.”
—Eleanor Atkinson, Greyfriars Bobby

More on a love of dogs at Sri Chinmoy Centre:
Inspirational Dogs, by Sumangali
Puppy Powers, by Sumangali
Return To Puppy Powers, by John Gillespie
Puppy Powers Revisited, by Jogyata Dallas
Savernake, a poem by Sumangali
The Guide Dog and Her Man, a poem by Sumangali