Circling the Universe

"Today is one of those excellent January partly cloudies in which light chooses an unexpected part of the landscape to trick out in gilt, and then the shadow sweeps it away. You know you’re alive. You take huge steps, trying to feel the planet’s roundness arc between your feet."

— Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek 

It's not January anymore, true. And when Leah and I took the dogs out to Pacific Spirit Park yesterday morning, there wasn't much cloud in the sky. But those little details aside, I think the Annie Dillard passage works. We strode through the forest for more than an hour, Ploufi trotting close by, while Freddie and Kali wrestled and romped and sprinted laps around us, skimming cheetah-swift and lean over logs-rocks-puddles-streams — believing, I'm sure, they were circling the Universe.

"All knowledge, the totality of all questions and all answers, is contained in the dog."

— Franz Kafka, "Investigations of a Dog"