Day: January 24, 2013

So I wrote yesterday about Flo squawking to come into the house from the cold – admittedly a total projection, she might just have been yowling for food and this prompted a flood of pleas to take her in, stories of people’s cats and some agonizing with Maria about whether we should – for the first time – bring a barn cat into the house as the temperature plunged below zero. Maria and I fussed about it – we do not wish to have more animals in our home – and then decided to bring a littler box and some food and water into our basement, lined with shelves and crawl spaces and warm. We got a litter bag, put out the food brought down some blankets.

At the afternoon feeding, we went out to get the cats. Maria would bring Minnie, I’d get my new buddy Flo. Maria had no trouble collaring Minnie and bringing her into the basement, but Flo was nowhere to be found. Not in the barn, not in her woodshed, her usual feeding places. Flo always comes out when I call her but it was clear inside of a few minutes that she was gone. I told Maria I was certain she had just gone off to find a warm place and would be home by breakfast. We’ll see, I believe she will. I love barn cats, they are always reminding me that I do not know what is best for them, that they have their own agenda, and are not interested in our arrogant human pleas or projections.

All day I had been receiving messages begging me to let the cats into the house, or thanking me when I said we would and I was reminded yet again that animals do not participate in the certainties and discussions we people have about them. We talk all around them as if we really do know what they want. Isn’t that the definition of cat? They do their own thing. In the meantime, poor Minnie is traumatized, meowing pitifully and trapped in the basement, cut off from her chickens and mice and rats, all because we are sure she feels badly about the cold.

Flo went off to find a good spot, and she is dozing comfortably there right now, I am certain. Or perhaps she has found another human to cajole and cuddle and feed her. I’ll find out soon enough. But either way, our ideas about what she wanted and needed and must have were clearly not her ideas. And good for her. Animals that manage to live their own lives admits all of the smothering and fearful human concerns for them are heroic, and deserve whatever they can find.

Red and I went to see Carol Tunney, a friend and shamanic healer yesterday. Her dogs Jack and Jill died last week and she said she hoped Red could come to a session I had requested for myself. I brought him and she asked if I wished him to accompany on my journey. Red goes everywhere with me, I said, I would like it very much. On the coldest day in years – the wind was paralyzing – we drove to Vermont, sat and talked with Carol, prepared for a journey together, a healing trip of discovery and imagination. Six months ago, I would not have gone to see a shaman, it is an important part of my life now.

I want to share something. Two weeks ago, I learned something about Red that I did not know. I can’t disclose any details because I was asked not to, but it seems that Red had been “brutally beaten” during one long period of his life. That is all I know. I didn’t mention it because I don’t see Red as having been abused, and I don’t want to pin that label on him, it seems that is often about human, not animal needs. There is nothing in my life with Red or my relationship with him that suggests a beaten or piteous creature and I want to keep it that way.  He trusts and loves people and seems grounded, yet there is something about him that is vulnerable, sometimes fragile. I was surprised but not shocked. It touched me.

Carol said Red was a spirit dog and that he had come into my life to be healed and to help me heal. Carol is a healer and her work with me has been tremendously helpful in my own self-awareness, search for a spiritual life and understanding of the role of fear in my life. So Red and I went on a journey together. It was an amazing thing.

Carol has been working with me on the idea of self-love, to love myself as much as I love Maria or anything else in my life, to speak of myself in a more loving and generous way, to appreciate myself more than I do and thus be stronger. I lay on her  table, surrounded by stones, listening to whistles, drums, rattles, chanting and prayer. Red sat on a sofa nearby watching. Soon, we went on our journey, back in time, into my life. At Carol’s suggestion, I was inside of a circle, me and my younger self – my four or five year-old self, the earliest one I could remember. Around us were people applauding us, celebrating us. We were basking in this approval, nodding, clapping in return.  We were experience love and appreciation. Suddenly, I took the boy’s hand and we began dancing together, jumping up and down, two parts of the same soul,  and Red began dancing around us, alongside of us, and the applause grew louder, as did laughter and cheering. And then the boy and I collapsed, joyously exhausted and Red’s tail was wagging, he was excited.

The boy took my hand and Carol invited me to ask him what it would take to make him smile again, to feel happy and safe. He asked me to sit with him, read to him talk to him. I told him he had no need to be frightened or ashamed, he had done nothing wrong. I told him he was a wonderful and loving spirit, a radiant soul and that he was precious and would find the love he wanted and needed. And guess what, I told him after a bit. I got the girl. It all worked out. Be proud and strong. Be hopeful. It will take you a long time, but you will get there. Don’t give up on it. You are not alone, you will never be alone.

And we both laughed and hugged one another – he seemed a sweet soul to me, quick to laugh and smile, gentle and open –  and I started to cry and Red’s tail began to wag and he whined a bit with me, I thought. In her journey, Carol saw the hurt in Red, some of the hurt in me. How powerful it was to go back and see me, the person I was born to be, will be again.  I felt calm and strong after the session, drained and at peace.  Red was excited, he stood up on the sofa, tail wagging and seemed to be applauding me. I applauded him, and he wriggled like a Lab with a bone. It will take me awhile to absorb this journey with Red, one of the most amazing I have ever taken with a dog, a journey back into my own past to recover the lost and damaged parts of me. What a beautiful trip.

I love the faded red of old barns, but I am also learning that black and white photography adds an element of emotion – drama, perhaps – that I like in photos of old buildings, barns and gates. I am using the Nik photo program, trying out it’s black and white editing features that work with my Aperture program. I like it.

Every thing in life is a gallery, really, if you open your mind to it. If you live with Maria, every windowsill is an exhibit in a gallery, and this has brightened my life immeasurable. The piece on the left is a necklace I bought Maria in San Francisco, the heartstone from Vermont, I think, an affirmation of love. The exhibits change constantly, and I never see them go up or come down.

The weather forecast calls for gusty winds and frigid temperatures tonight and it is bone-chillingly cold this morning. Maria and I have decided to put Flo and Minnie in the farmhouse basement tonight. We don’t want them in the house. Three dogs are enough, and we don’t need cat hair on the furniture. It’s still a curious decision. Barn cats don’t need to come inside, even in frigid weather. I have no doubts about that, having lived with them for years. They take care of themselves. The donkeys aren’t coming in, neither are the sheep and in many ways, cats are better equipped to deal with the cold than many other animals – they have thick fur, can find warm and enclosed spaces.

Maria and I were laughing last night. Sometimes when it’s cold, she puts a blanket over Frieda on her dog bed. Why do that, we asked, and keep the cats outside? The answer is accessible enough. Frieda is a pet, the barn cats somewhere in between a pet and a farm animal. In our relationship with animals, we often do things for them when we are really doing them for us.  And there is a pretty wide communications gap between people who see animals as pets and those who see them as animals. Barn cats do fine in all kinds of weather, but when it gets this cold, we just feel bad about them being out there. That’s a good enough reason, I suppose, as long as I am honest about it.

I believe the most humane thing for people is to let animals live their lives, not our lives. But I live on the border between pets and animals, and am often doing this dance. Part of being human, part of owning a farm. The animals, of course, are never really in the conversation.