meditation

This Video of a Speedy Pig Will Bring You Serenity

Run, javelina, run. Photo: The Damion Alexander Team/Facebook

The benefits of meditation are many and well documented. Taking some time each day to clear your thoughts and focus on your breathing has been shown to reduce anxiety, improve your mood, lower your blood pressure, even improve your skin. But can meditation really compare, I wonder, to the joy and serenity I experience when watching this incredibly fast pig zooming along the streets of Tucson, Arizona?

The video of the pig went viral this week after it was posted to Facebook by real estate agent Damion Alexander. “Wee wee wee, all the way home,” Alexander wrote.

Technically, the pig in the video isn’t a pig; she’s a javelina. Also known as “collared peccary” or “musk hogs,” according to Arizona’s KOLD13, javelinas are neither pigs nor boars. They’re hoofed herbivores who typically live in herds of eight or nine and have a scent gland on top of their rump that emits a strong, skunklike odor that they use to communicate with the other members of their herd. Speedy, stinky kings!

Watching this javelina speed along the side of the Los Portales apartment complex, I am overwhelmed with a sense of calm. Look at her grace, her determination. Look at the way she launches herself forward off of her powerful haunches and how she is, for a moment in each stride, suspended in the air, flying, free. Imagine what it would feel like to be that powerful, to have the wind rippling through your hair, your skunklike odor trailing behind you. Blissful.

If, for some reason, this doesn’t immediately center you, try watching this clip of the javelina set to Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill.”

I don’t know about you, but my skin feels clearer already.

This Video of a Speedy Pig Will Bring You Serenity