This photo shows what my dog, Bruno, does while I do a workout in the living room (which became a part-time home gym during the COVID times). He never fails to join me for a workout – to offer emotional support, I suppose. But his posture shows such complete relaxation that it makes me chuckle about how much it contrasts with the “no pain, no gain” attitude that is stereotypically associated with physical exercise. It actually reminded me of the first few lines of the poem “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver that I’ve incidentally come across:
“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.“