A Tribute To Yoda and Jai
Saukenuk Kara Jyotana (12/12/80 – 12/7/93)
Jai (5/27/92 – 9/7/96)
Copyright Gayle P. Nastasi, 1993
A Saluki is not a creature of this world. Every human who has had his life graced by the presence of one of these ethereal beings suspects that truth. The Saluki is something of myth and fantasy; he belongs in the heavens, racing alongside Pegasus and hunting at Orion’s side. He knows the secrets of the magic of the air. He dances the dance of the wind. Somewhere along his road through the starlight, he falls in love with a special human and decides to grace a brief period of that person’s life with his magic.
A Saluki in motion is living proof of this. With each stride, with every reach and thrust of his long legs, he meets that point in space when he is just about to break the bonds of mortality. It would take only an instant of magic to burst forth from the earthly boundaries of gravity and substance and take to the skies. When we watch our Saluki race across the land, we know that we are witnessing the borderlines of mortal existence. We are a brief thought away from watching him leap effortlessly along a trail of moonbeams to the skies and capture the wind.
The time is so brief that our lives are blessed by the special magic of being able to touch a creature of fantasy and take him into our homes and hearts. When it is time for the Saluki to leave us, he is never truly gone. We have lost the substance and form only, but the spirit remains with us forever. We see him in every glimmer of starshine; hear him in the soft whisper of the wind; feel him in the cool touch of the beams of moonlight that fall across our dreams at midnight. We never quite lose a Saluki. He has simply broken the bounds of mortality that have tied him to this earth and returned to the heavens to dance forever with the wind.
