Make Yourself Comfortable

Sleeping with the Beasts

“What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts happens to man.”
Chief Seattle

I slept on the floor last night. As part of my Lenten practice, I was supposed to sleep on the floor for the first hour of the night. The purpose was, I suppose, to experience hardship but I am a closeted ‘floor-sleeper’, so I loved it. In my early childhood, my father worked for the Tennessee Valley Authority and traveled around building dams. Sometimes, we lived in one-bedroom apartments. My sister, Jerrie, slept on the couch, and I slept on a pallet on the floor. Later in life, I had a multitude of back problems that caused pain, and sleeping on the floor was more comfortable than sleeping on a bed. Sleeping on the floor is not a hardship for me. It feels like home.

The amusing thing last night was how my dogs responded to my sleeping down on the floor with them. I expected them to be all over me, especially Liza, who is typically not a respecter of protocol. Instead, they watched me make my bed and fetch blankets and books and such. They seemed to be wondering, ‘what’s the human up to now?’ Once I settled in, Julie simply turned her back and went to sleep. Liza sniffed me once, looked at me as though the whole thing was simply embarrassing, then went to her bed and flopped down. I like the way dogs just accept human weirdness as though it’s expected. Probably because it IS expected.

About ten years ago, I traveled with some women to Guatemala, to a Mayan village where a weaving cooperative was sustaining the entire population. We visited the compound of Dona Maria and her family. Inside the walls stood a three sided structure, divided into two spaces. On one side, the kitchen contained a fire pit with a sheet of tin over an open fire for cooking, on the other side a sleeping space contained one bed, a jute rug over the earthen floor, and a dressing table that doubled as an altar to the Blessed Virgin. The long side of the building was open to the rest of the compound. Chickens, rabbits and one lone milk-cow lived there. There was a sweat lodge for ‘bathing’ (no running water and no electricity) attached to a clay-brick oven used for baking bread and smoking meat. Inside this open-air enclosure lived five generations of Dona Maria’s family. Every one of them slept on the ground except for Dona Maria. I heard no complaints. It was home to both humans and beasts and they were proud to entertain us there.

Life is good. I thank God for the comforts that I have, and I thank God that I know what a gift they are. I also feel grateful that I have had the privilege to visit people like Dona Maria and her family, and to know that life does not have to be comfortable to be good.

In the spirit,
Jane