Frieda is a working dog, she is always guarding the farmhouse and trying to protect us, mostly making sure passing trucks, mail carriers, UPS and Fedex delivery people don’t linger. She chases off a lot of intruders all day, especially those diesel trucks. Maria left her studio this morning to come into the house and I came out and I saw Frieda standing guard in the window. She is a faithful working dog, and she is ever-vigilant.
Anna Freud wrote that most panic attacks – much anxiety in humans – comes when people lie to themselves. Either they don’t know who they are, have not worked to face the truth about themselves, or can’t bear the truth. For the past five or six years I have worked to rid myself of panic, seeing a string of analysts, doctors, therapists, shamans and spiritual counselors. Of these, a therapist and a spiritual counselor helped me the most to understand who I am, to see the truth about myself both good and bad. And I can’t recall the last panic attack I had. I am sure I have not seen the last of them, but they have mostly left my life, my days and my nights and I believe it was because what Anna Freud wrote was correct.
I did not know myself, was not standing in my truth, and when that is so, the conscious and the sub-conscious are at war, at cross purposes and the conscious mind panics because it literally cannot grasp the reality. Most of our fears are not real and most of the things we fear are not really things to worry about. I learned early in the process some truths for me:
– Most people prefer to live in fear, just as most people with diabetes prefer medication to changing their lives.
– Getting help is difficult, because it usually requires facing the truth, and there is a point in life when you either open yourself up to hope or you don’t. For me it came late in life, and so I believe it is never too late. For me the process began when I stopped medicating myself and started doing the gritty work of self-awareness, long, sometimes expensive, painful and difficult. It was worth it, all of it. I never thought I would find love, and I never thought I would not live in panic, and this process led me to both.
– For the first time in this process, I am not seeing any therapist or spiritual counselor. I have decided to be my own spiritual adviser for awhile, perhaps for good. It is an unsettling and exciting time, I am often anxious about it, I have no one to call when I am frightened, no one to advise me. Then I remind myself that this is not so, I have a good counselor to call – me. I’ve listened to tapes, meditated and am no constructing my own spiritual practice. I know this is necessary for me to maintain and expand the progress I’ve made, if I drop the process I fear falling back, and I never intend to go back to that awful state, I lived in fear for most of my life, fear kills love and reason and hope, it was a living death.
I have a lot of tools – books, pamphlets, tapes, experience sitting and breathing, crystals, but mostly I am just using me. It is getting simpler, and more powerful. I can contact me at any time, and for free.
This chapter is perhaps one of the most exciting, this putting together my own practice. I meditate in the morning, before work, in the evening before dinner and then for a few minutes more at bedtime. I walk in the woods. I have changed my reflexive anxiety, live more in the moment, think instinctively of the good things in my life as well as the bad. As promised, meditation has been far more effective for me than any pills ever were. There, in that quiet and deepening trough, I am meeting myself, seeing my mind, understanding how it works, even altering it somewhat. Not a pretty place always, but my place. And sometimes, I even see what a good and increasingly authentic human being I may become.
In this amazing process, I have finally met the human I was meant to be, born to be before life intruded so abruptly. I think we will get to know one another. It is, I think, the point.
This photo was taking Red’s first week at Bedlam Farm, last summer.
Maria and I are going to Brooklyn for a quick visit to see my daughter Emma and her partner Jay Jaffe, both sportswriters in New York City. Not much time, but hope to walk about Brooklyn and take some photos. Maybe see a movie, hang out with Em in her apartment. I think Brooklyn is one of those places I could live happily with Maria, but I find I can’t really live any longer out of the natural world or away from animals I very much love Cambridge, N.Y., our new town. We see plays at Hubbard Hall, visit Connie Brooks in her wonderful bookstore, get great salmon burgers at the Round House Cafe and yet still live in the country. We signed up to see three plays at the Williamstown, Mass. Theater, not far from us.
Before I go tomorrow I will blog, put up a question on Facebook for the Fromm Family Food new pork and peas dog food giveway (a 26lb bag to one of the repliers to a topic going up in the morning). I’ll put it up on the blog also. I got some chicken treats from My Pet Chicken to promote healthy egg-laying – works and pumpkin seeds. Our rotational grazing is going well. We are sealing off parts of the pasture for two-week stretches and letting the grass go. Got a bit of rain, need more. I got a ton of nice mail today about my photography and Farm Dream columns, thanks. I’ll take E.B. White with me for inspiration. Reading a bunch of good novels I will review next week. Got more entries from Florence Walrath’s journal coming.
I do feel something different is happening with my photography, I am getting a lot of response to it, I’m not sure what is different, but I do sense something going on. I am saving up for a new camera, mine is getting wobbly.
