that divine old dog

I have been sifting through my mental closet trying to work out if I am a good judge of character. I mean of course there have been the obvious mistakes - like Ahmed the Bedouin, who told me he only wanted to be friends and didn’t plan to marry me later in the desert. I should have known something was amiss when he started loading up the camels and asking me if I’d like to get fitted for a blue thobe.
Or my trusted childhood hairdresser who gave me a cut like Rod Stewart and sent me on my way.

But what about people I have got to know more closely? How many of them have I really got wrong? I like to think none. I like to think my judgement is good; that it can be trusted. That I am intuitive and discerning. Not blind or naive.
But no one is perfect so there must be times when I get it wrong!
I am struggling on this topic in relation to a particular person at present. There is such a dissonance right now between my understanding of them and what I am currently experiencing it is almost impossible to see how they can be reconciled.
So which is right? My past understanding or my current experience? Or both! Honestly I have no clue. I just know that ultimately my heart will reach the right conclusion, the true conclusion, regarding this person whatever that may be and in the meantime I shall just continue sending them love and light as I have always done.

***

Last night I slept with Hafiz in my bed. (He came at last!) I read his words out loud because they are the perfect antidote for pain.

Scratching my back

You

Can think of Hafiz as a divine

Old dog.

Who just keeps scratching his back

On the Moon.

O, I don’t care about your thoughts

Or what you have ever done,

Just open up this book whenever you are

Sad

For I love the way you

Smile!

Bless that divine old dog!