“Every year, everything I have ever learned,
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning the rest of us will never know.
To live in this world, you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your breast knowing
your own life depends on it and,
when the time comes
to let it go,
to let it go.”
— Mary Oliver, “In Blackwater Woods”
I was thinking this morning of some of the good decisions I made in 2011, as I have often thought of the bad ones I make.
1. Every morning, I ask myself, how can I better love the people and animals in my life? My wife, my daughter, my friends, the animals on the farm. Sometimes it’s making breakfast for Maria, sometimes reminding her what a good, creative and valuable human being she is. Sometimes it’s letting my daughter go, to live her own life. Sometimes it’s bring some extra apples, carrots or affection to the donkeys. A walk with the dogs. A marrow bone treat. Each act of love is a selfish thing, a gift to me, seeds for the soul.
2. Leaving conventional health care behind. A good and healthy choice for me now. Taking control of my health, my life, cutting back a slice of fear in my life.
3. Turning away from conventional news. For me, the media have become a daily poison, anger and fear pill, like a medication whose side affects have not yet become known. I glace once in awhile, and now, after a year off, their news reminds me every day that I get to set my own agenda. Theirs – money, war, brutality, confrontation and argument, all for profit – is not my agenda, or, I believe most of the world’s.
4. Accepting Simon. Agreeing to take Simon in was a wonderful decision. It opened me up, challenged me, led me to another book, helped me to explore notions of compassion and mercy. I love Simon, and he loves me and Maria as well. What a gift.
5. Accepting spiritual counsel, working on a spiritual life. Two years ago, I went to Rev. Mary Muncil, who married Maria and I, and who has a wonderful blog of her own. I had just finished conventional therapy, initiated after my near- breakdown and divorce, and I said to Mary, “I want a spiritual life.” We are doing amazing work together, she and I, putting a spiritual life together. One of the most powerful and valuable experiences of my life. A spiritual ethos has helped me with fear, love, writing, anger, money and peace of mind. How much is that worth?
6. Helping Rose leave the world. The decision to euthanize Rose was one of the best decisions I made. I am grateful that Maria and I helped her leave the world in comfort and dignity. And that I was able to say goodbye to her, and not cling to her life and memory. She is gone now. Some things we love by letting go.
7. An e-book original. I have decided – this morning, reading your comments – to do an E-Book Original about my life with Rose. More to come. A new direction to supplement the old one.
8. Maria, Maria, Maria. What can I say?
9. Opening Up. To love. To experience. To friendship. To compassion.
There are others, but this is enough for now. I have another decision, a substantial one, to announce after New Year’s Day. I am grateful the opportunity to leave a creative, meaningful and hopefully loving life in 2012.
Perhaps the greatest risk any man takes is to open his vulnerable heart to the world and let it be seen. Our male heroes do not do that – ever – nor do our leaders, not the ones who keep power or stay alive. It takes a real hero to do that. And that is precisely why so many people loved Rose, and the idea of Rose, I think. I wait for a woman to arrive, a cultural and social Messiah, who can show strength and feeling together and lead us back to a human place. A man who could do that would be great also. For 2012, I want to open up. Open Soul. Open Heart. Sacred Spark.
I want to celebrate my first short-story collection, “Dancing Dogs,” out in October. My second children’s book “Lenore Finds A Friend,” out in September.
I am considering my first E-book Original, “My Life With Rose,” in words, photos, links, video. I think it’s a perfect e-book, and I’d love to do it with my publisher, or a publisher, but if not, then I might think of offering it myself, on the blog. An exciting New Year’s prospect. I am committed to publishing paperbooks, but also experimenting with new media forms, where story-telling is thriving.
When I think about what I most want for myself in 2012, I keep coming back to the idea of compassion, something I would not have made my primary wish a few years ago. In the public sphere, compassion seems out of favor. We seem drawn to a culture of argument and confrontation, from Congress to talk of war, the poor, the plight of Mother Earth, teachers, students, librarians, the foreign-born. These arguments always seem cold and dispassionate to me, and disturbing for many reasons, mostly because they seem to lack compassion and empathy, two long-standing hallmarks of the American experience.
On a personal level, I wish for compassion. For myself, in forgiving the things I have done that I regret. For others, so that I might shed judgement, anger and frustration and understand the connection I have with other people, not only the disconnection. I do see that we are all alike, in so many ways.
Compassion is, for me, about selflessness. I don’t wish to only feel mercy for dogs and other animals. Compassion means feeling for Simon, but also for the farmer who lost his way in caring for him. I wish to feel mercy for human beings in their sorrows and struggles. I don’t want to drown in compassion – I have my own life to live, my own wife to love, my own daughter to cherish – but I want to swim in it, if the difference makes any sense. Compassion is a bottomless pit, as many animal lovers know, and I don’t wish to disappear there. Compassion for myself means that I have the right to my own life, to live in comfort and peace and creativity. Loving me is as important as loving anything, and I think that is where compassion really begins. If I cannot learn to love myself, then how can I find love beyond me?
Animals have helped me take my baby steps for love. They teach us love, patience, compassion, since they cannot speak, we have to listen and work to empathize and understand them. For me, that is where compassion can begin, but not where it ends. Love of animals alone is not enough for me, it is a pathway to loving human beings, not an obstacle. I always wince when someone says they cannot trust people who don’t love animals, or who say they don’t wish to go to heaven unless their pets are there. For me, that would not not work. If we can hate people for mistreating animals, then why not love the great majority that loves animals so dearly?
People have the right to love whatever they wish, but my spiritual life is not dependent on a dog or cat or horse or donkey. If I get to heaven, I can live there by myself. Isn’t that what self-determination is all about? I want to take those lessons and dreams of compassion out into the real world, not just to mouth them as expected platitudes but to feel them and incorporate them into my life, through love, the opening of the heart, spirituality, meditation, experience. I’m dreaming of compassion for 2012.
