M is absorbed in a book and she tells me something about it now and then. I like it when she is talking to me – when she reads I doze beside her and sometimes I pay attention to what she is saying. This book apparently is about walking. That is no surprise to me: she likes walking and when she doesn’t walk she likes to read about walking. I have the same, in a way: I like eating and running and when I don’t eat or run I like to dream about it. That and walking exciting paths.

Anyway, this book about walking is not just about the movement itself or interesting paths, it is about the philosophy of walking too. Yesterday M told me something interesting she had read. It is about darshan. That is a word in the Sanskrit language and it means seeing a divine vision. The writer of the book (check the tags down this blog for his name, M does the tags, I do not bother about them) walks in the Himalayas and sees this wonderful mountain. It is so astonishingly beautiful that it feels like a sacred place. That is what darshan means, he writes.

I have been wondering about this. M told me it is not just about seeing something divine, but about feeling it too. I do not sense much difference between that, because for us canines seeing is feeling is hearing is smelling…. well, maybe you know what I mean. For us it all comes together in one experience. I do know the feeling of darshan. It is exactly like this writer says: I feel it when I am near something beautiful. Or, better: in something beautiful. Like a magical green forest:

Or in the mountains. Especially mountains, I guess they have a lot of darshan:

But near our home I have this experience too, now and then. Mostly when we are near or on the beach and the ocean is vast and smooth under a silver sky:

I wonder: could there be darshan in food, too? It feels wonderful to see juicy food and know one will get it. But that is another feeling than I have in the mountains. So maybe that is not darshan, but something else. I wonder if the book says something about that, too. I will pay attention to what M is telling me these days…