The Free Radical

Two days ago my 75-year-old mother joined us for the full 3-hour circuit. (She’s the one without the beard.)

(Gravity Personified by Opposite Day from their 2005 album Fictional Biology)

The daily walk is very much routine, but there’s always something new each time…

Grey Jay isn’t exactly new, but he caught our attention at the Mesa. He kept repeating a single monotonous tone and wouldn’t budge from his lofty perch. The note he kept singing was an F#… which is the overtone frequency for this whole light creation as well as the tone of the Heart (along with F). I didn’t ‘get it’ until later… what he was saying. (This is now the next day, without my mom and Mike.)

His insistent note faded into the distance as we descended the Tibetan Trail on our way down to the river. I still always pause on the way down at the Hugging Tree, so the dogs usually go on ahead and we meet up again at the river where I fill my water bottle.

This time, only Toby was waiting for me at the bottom. Sitka and Lhasa had gone AWOL. Sitka disappears all the time, but Lhasa… not so much.

We filled the water bottle and Toby got a good long drink, but the other two didn’t meet up with us at the usual spot. We continued on our way, assuming that the others would be along shortly.

After about ten more minutes, Sitka caught up with us from behind. I whistled and called for Lhasa, but to no avail. I had assumed that Sitka and Lhasa were together, so we doubled back to the water-filling spot at the river again. Still no Lhasa.

It must be stressed that this is very unlike Lhasa. Of the three, she is definitely the least likely to go missing. At this point she had been missing for about twenty minutes. No sign; no sound.

My next logical deduction had us moving again along our regular route; I figured that she had gotten ahead of us and we would eventually catch up to her, or we would ultimately meet up with her at the truck. A few years back, her brother Snoopy had gone similarly missing and he found his way back to the truck on his own and was waiting for us at the end of the day. Lhasa was certainly as smart and capable, so I had high hopes of seeing her when we finally approached the truck.

She wasn’t there. Shit!

This little bugger was now officially missing! At this point, there aren’t very many rational explanations of a positive nature for why Lhasa would be missing for over an hour. My mind kept wanting to construct scenarios… and none of them were looking very good. Lhasa just wouldn’t do this; she’s ten years old and has never done so before!

We had to venture back up the river for a third time… to try and locate her in whatever condition she was in. The two puppies stayed close because they could tell that I was uncharacteristically serious now. We walked fast toward the place where we’d lost contact. In all honesty, I couldn’t seem to work up a proper panic in my mind though, despite not being able to come up with a reasonable scenario to explain Lhasa’s absence. My heart just kept singing the same tone Grey Jay had provided earlier. I finally asked Earth Mother’s assistance…

… and about twenty seconds later Lhasa rejoined us at the Purple Cliff. She was fine! There wasn’t a scratch on her; no injuries. She was just a little breathless, but happy to be with us again.

Unless there was someone hiding in the forest with a frisbee– the only thing Lhasa would obsess about– there was no logical explanation forthcoming. In sleuthing, once the likeliest possibilities have been eliminated, whatever remains– no matter how improbable– must be the truth.

Clearly, Lhasa was abducted by aliens and now is missing a one-and-a-half-hour chunk of time. It’s the only explanation! She had nothing to say on the matter.