Day: January 6, 2013

Maria went snowshoeing with a friend in the woods behind the farmhouse this afternoon and I decided to inaugurate a new daily tradition for me, a meditation walk. I’ve been studying meditation and reading about the idea that one can meditate anywhere, not just sitting down in a chair or on a mat. I love to walk, it is always the exercise that has worked for me, and there are beautiful paths and roads all around me. Normally I will meditate alone on the walk, but today I brought Red and the camera. We walked for an hour, down a busy road, then onto a quiet country road. Red is a little nervous when trucks rush close by, but on the country lane, he could walk off leash. I listened to the click of my my walking stick and I listened to myself think. And when we got to the top of a nearby hill, Red lay down and watched me as I took a deep breath and stood on the top of the hill and looked out.

Then we turned around and started walking again.

In meditation, I have come to see clearly that fear and distraction are screens, they are not true, they are not real. Beyond that, I saw the person I was meant to be, the person I wanted to be. This is the thing to remember, to pull up, to hold dear, when trouble comes. My accountant called me this afternoon and he had a few questions for me as he works on my taxes. He asked if we had sold the farm yet, and I said no, not yet.  I said the next months would be challenging for me and he said we should talk later in the week and try and figure some things out. I thought on my meditation walk that I am not alone, as I have often felt I was. I have people helping me, people I can listen to, talk to depend on. And I have Maria.

My accountant said – we are friends, in a sense, we have been through stuff together – I should not worry or feel bad. Everyone he deals with is dealing with one kind of issue or another, and this touched me also, this idea of a community, we are all in it together, we are none of us alone.  I can feel it, he was telling the truth. This surprised me, this touching reassurance from an account, a man of numbers, whose life is so different from mine. I felt strong on this walk, stronger than I have felt in awhile. It is the challenges, not the successes, I thought, that define me. It is ironic, people are so in touch with one another – liking each other’s likes on Facebook, obsessed with keeping in touch, making so much noise but so few signals, but yet we are not really in touch with one another at all for all of our devices.

On my walk, I reached down into my strength. Into my work, my creativity, my love and as we returned I felt cleansed, nourished, fit for life. I am ready for life, every day. will be taking these walks every day, somethings with Red, sometimes not, sometimes with my camera, sometimes alone.

The old farmhouses are sacred monuments, all of them, sturdy and square and reeking of character. Like barns, they are witnesses, testaments. Places of worship and memory, sacrifice and family, individuality and freedom. Hard, hard work.

For me, change is no longer a choice, but a practice, a faith, a reality of life. I have been called upon to change my life, and to share the experience, to pass along what I have learned, to acknowledge my successes and defeats, my struggles and opportunities. Change is everywhere. Our world is changing, the very idea of money is changing, information changes daily,  politics and culture are changing,  women are rising, war is failing,  the men who ruled and nearly destroyed the world are falling into disarray, work and connection and the even the nature of Mother Earth is changing and we can see and feel it every day, those of us who are awakening. I have shed fear as the driving force in my life, rejected argument as a means of communication, stopped exploiting animals to fill the emotional holes in my life, ended a long marriage, left my world and family behind, run to the mountain and back again a few times.

Change is not bounded or finite, it is boundless and infinite. There is no boundary around it.

I am not done, I am not nearly done. In every way in which it is possible, I am just beginning. Every day I see and learn more about how I have to change. To turn inward for strength, to understand who I am, what creativity is, to move away from people, things and ideas that kept me asleep and in pain. I understand that change is my faith, my practice. In the constancy of animals, I see my own movement, the hard and enduring work I have to do. Change is everything in our world. Accepting it, understanding it, practicing it is, to me, the very definition of meaning and survival in our time. I have been sowing the seeds of change for some years now, and this year, I hope and expect to see these seeds sprout and grow.

I embrace change, and am learning not to judge it but to manage it. Nostalgia is just a trap for me, another struggle story like the price of things and paying taxes. It was not better then or worse, it was just then and this is now. I pick and choose, experiment and withdraw, charge and retreat. I love the Kindle last week, I love bookstores this week, I am learning to keep both in my life. Facebook is a powerful tool of change for me, but it serves me, and I do not serve it. Once a day is good enough. Each communication I send or receive is important, and if it isn’t, I don’t send or receive it. I don’t need software to help me like or be liked.  Change helps me to grow, to understand who I am. Here is the question when it comes to change? Will I keep my truth? Will I be relevant? Is my life full of meaning and love?

In my photography, I see change everywhere, it seeks out the camera and calls out to me from the roadsides. Change is my life, my purpose. My calling.

The donkeys and I exchanged insults at the barn gate this morning, after I came out to crow at them for outsmarting them and thwarting their efforts to eat the barn wall with chicken wire. They were waiting for me, braying and snorting at me. Having been outsmarted by donkeys many times, this was a triumph for me. Listen, I explained. I know you are bored and restless,and I’m sorry. I’m not buying you a bunch of toys. You can have some pine wood and get your big butts out of the barn and go chew on some shrub and bushes, of which there are plenty. Lulu was sniffing around the edges of the chicken wire, looking for an angle.

Forget it, I said, we stapled it good and tight. Give it up.