A bit of explanation: the narrator is a golden retriever mix whose owner (Denny) drives race cars and is known for his ability to race in the rain. Race car driving is used in the book as a metaphor for living, particularly for living when it seems to be pouring and the track of life is slick.

In racing, they say that your car goes where your eyes go. The driver who cannot tear his eyes away from the wall as he spins out of control will meet that wall; the driver who looks down the track as he feels his tires break free will regain control of his vehicle. Your car goes where your eyes go. Simply another way of saying that which you manifest is before you.

…I don’t understand why people insist on pitting the concepts of evolution and creation against each other. Why can’t they see that spiritualism and science are one? That bodies evolve and souls evolve and the universe is a fluid place that marries them both in a wonderful package called a human being. What’s wrong with that idea?

I had always wanted to love Eve as Denny loved her, but I never had because I was afraid. She was my rain. She was my unpredictable element. She was my fear. But a racer should not be afraid of rain; a racer should embrace the rain. I, alone, could manifest a change in what was around me. By changing my mood, my energy, I allowed Eve to regard me differently. And while I cannot say that I am a master of my own destiny, I can say that I have experienced a glimpse of mastery, and I know what I have to work toward.

People, if you pay attention to them, change the direction of one another’s conversations constantly. Its like having a passenger in your car who suddenly grabs the steering wheel and turns you down a side street.

Who is Achilles without his tendon? Who is Samson without Delilah? Who is Oedipus without his club foot? Mute by design, I have been able to study the art of rhetoric unfettered by ego and self-interest, and so I know the answers to these questions. The true hero is flawed. The true test of a champion is not whether he can triumph, but whether he can overcome obstacles–preferably of his own making–in order to triumph.

…racing in the rain is also about the mind. It is about owning one’s own body. About believing that the track is an extension of the car, and the rain is an extension of the track, and the sky is an extension of the rain. It is about believing that you are not you; you are everything. And everything is you.

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Here are three improbable events that seem connected and have happened to me recently.

First, I have been hanging out in and around the new Rio Salado Audubon Center in Phoenix, doing research for a book. I say it is improbable because, if you had told me three months ago that I would be doing that, I would have said something like, “Huh?”

Second, I opened the front door of my house last week and there was a Congo African Gray Parrot standing on the doormat. If you missed the whole story, it is HERE. This may not seem improbable to you if you live in a place frequented by parrots, but this parrot was in a quiet neighborhood in Phoenix, Arizona. Parrots do not frequent Phoenix. Presaging the third event, a friend asked, “Was there a pirate under it?”

Third, last Saturday was Talk Like A Pirate Day. The fact that there is a Talk Like A Pirate Day may or may not seem improbable to you (it does to me), but the really improbable thing is that I found out about it the day before while wandering aimlessly through CNN news stories. My sister and I, and a friend and I, have celebrated Talk Like A Pirate Day for the last several years by sending one another silly emails in pirate language. None of us keeps track of the day.

Those three improbable events did not cause one another. They seem connected–the Audubon Society, a parrot, and pirates. And they do appear to mean something. What they mean isn’t immediately obvious to me.

Those who are really into synchronicity use a quote from Alice In Wonderland which was favored by Jung. The quote is below along with an explanatory note from Alice In CommunicationLand. The Queen is speaking to Alice:

“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.”

Memory and imagination are intertwined. Listening and hearing set the foundation for projection. By careful attention to what has been said and through observation, perception can assign accurate meaning and apply logic to generate valid knowledge of the future.

Jungians suggest that my unconscious is proposing a connection between these events, but the meaning in the connection is not obvious to me. I really haven’t a clue. Yet.
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“What is it?,” she asked.

“A parrot.”

“A parrot?”

“Yes. A parrot. I’ll call you back.”

“Take a picture,” she said just before I hung up.

I did take the picture and then went looking for The Gypsy Girl, the seven year old Field Bred Springer Spaniel that we rescued five years ago.

The Gypsy Girl is a dedicated bird dog. I don’t hunt, so she contents herself with insuring that no bird ever alights on our property for very long. She is quite serious about her work, stalking and flushing doves, quail, grackles, mocking birds, and anything else that flies within the borders of her domain. She also clears birds out of any dog park she visits. She plucks small, slow, dumb birds out of the air on rare occasions, which calls for her receiving only half-rations of kibble at dinner time. Hey, she was born for that work, so I don’t pass judgment. She is otherwise an unfailingly sweet dog. I put her in the bathroom and closed the door.

No one ever told me what to do if I found a parrot at my front door, so I improvised. A dog crate occupies a neglected back corner of our covered patio, a relic of The Gypsy Girl’s early days in our household when we had to cure her of a serious case of separation anxiety. The parrot would go in the crate.

I picked up the parrot and started though the house for the patio. I never picked up a parrot before and I suppose I am not as adept at parrot-transport as I could be. The parrot squawked on the way through the house, raising the kind of barking from The Gypsy Girl that communicates, “What the hell is going on out there and why am I shut up here?” The parrot also bit me twice. No harm done.

I got the parrot in the crate but thought it unwise to leave the crate on the ground. I put it atop a wrought iron marble-top ice cream parlor table that looks nice on the patio but gets little use. Then I released The Gypsy Girl who went dashing madly through every room in the house looking for something that squawks.

Ten minutes later The Gypsy Girl found the parrot. She stood motionless a few feet from the table for a moment and then squatted low to the ground, tail down, neck stretched up, twitching nose pointed at the crate, doing a fair imitation of a dachshund with the neck of a small giraffe. For the next half hour she alternated ignoring the parrot, sticking her nose against the grate that serves as the crate’s door, barking angrily, and trying to push the crate off the table. Smart dog. The parrot seemed utterly unfazed.

I lashed the crate to the table with bungee cords and draped a grill cover over its door, putting the parrot out of sight. I was getting better about improvising around parrots. If you own a bird dog and find a parrot at your front door, get out your old dog crate, a few bungee cords, and a grill cover. Works every time.

A bit of Google wizardry revealed what I had on my patio: in a dog crate lashed to an ice cream parlor table under a grill cover, just a bungee cord away from serving as dinner for a Springer Spaniel, was a valuable Congo African Gray Parrot. Breeder’s price for the parrot at one web site–$1300.

For the entire rest of the afternoon, and throughout the evening, The Gypsy Girl heard me say, “Leave it!” more often than she had over maybe the last two years. She did obey, walking away each time and leaving the parrot alone for about thirty seconds. She only cried once.

When The Scout arrived home she set to doing what she most loves to do–scout. The Internet is one of her territories and she soon turned up the email address of Beth Lee who runs Pampered Peeps Aviary. Late yesterday evening, Beth, who does know what to do if you find a parrot at your front door, uncovered a notice on Craigslist of an African Gray Parrot that had escaped from its home that morning just a few blocks from our house.

The parrot spent the night in the dog crate. The Gypsy Girl spent the night in a state of heightened awareness.

This morning, after a flurry of emails and phone calls, Fluffy The Parrot was retrieved from captivity in the dog crate by her rightful owner. She had escaped when her owner let his golden retriever out. She is used to dogs, which explains why she wasn’t fazed by The Gypsy Girl. In a heartbeat after her escape, Fluffy had disappeared over the neighborhood’s tile rooftops. Her owner had spent most of the day and evening looking for her and was grateful for her return.

Reaching for cosmic meaning in these events, The Scout attempted to link Fluffy’s appearance at our house with my recent trips to the new Rio Salado Audubon Center, where I am doing research for a book. I doubt the connection, but who knows.

The Gypsy Girl’s life is back to normal although the empty crate is still an object of mild interest. When I last saw Fluffy, she was on her way to get her wings clipped. While she was with us, she learned to say, “Leave it!”
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