I think I know now who will change and who will not. Who will awaken and who will not or cannot. There are all kinds of good and valid reasons not to change. Change is difficult, painful, exhausting, frightening. I lived in terror of change for most of my life, and when, late in life, I finally awoke and crossed over, I knew my life would change forever, I knew I would never go back. It is possible, at any point, to change your life, to turn inward, to listen to the voices and spirit and spark inside of you and set them free. Night after night, year after year, I popped those pills so I would sleep and dream put a great mountain between me and my life, between me and change.
Lulu’s Crossing touched me in a particular way because it was such a simple and visible metaphor for crossing over. We stop at the bridge, we stop at the gate, we pause at the door. If we go through it, there is no turning back. At age 50, I ran to the mountain to begin my search for self-discovery, and here I am, 15 years later, still on the road, still learning every day, still surprised every day, my soul awakened to a sense of wonder at every minute of life I have to live. It will not be in fear, it will not be in the service of other people’s ideas of a life, it will depend, as Hannah Arendt wrote, primarily on the intercourse between a man and himself – me. I am still on the road, I know now there are magical helpers everywhere waiting for me, recognizing me, reaching out to touch my heart and brush against my soul. When I saw Lulu stumble at that crossing, bray softly and turn back, I knew we had to get over, for me, not for her.
I remember those first steps so clearly, so much pain and separation and terror, so lonely and confusing, so many people turning away in unease and confusion. I am so lucky to have gotten across. And to find, that there, just a few steps away, after all these years, is just another bridge. And another.
We walked out to the new pasture over Lulu’s Crossing to find the donkeys grazing up on the hill. The new pasture has opened up a Bedlam Farm scale vista for this photographer, and Red and I will have some happy times herding with the sheep up there. Our farm is a tale of two worlds, the busy road in front of the farm, 17 acres of pastoral woods and pasture in the back. We have opened it up with Lulu’s crossing. Lulu isn’t worrying about the crossing any more, she is working on the shrub.
Well, I stirred the hive, I guess with the new subscription plan, and happily it seems. Accepting subscriptions for my blog seems to be something many people are quite willing to do, and that is a powerful message to me. It is about money and being paid for my work, but it is also about much more than that, as these things often are. There are lots of questions I need to address.
I will be adding, at your request, credit card payment options on the subscription page for those people who do not choose to use Paypal. (This is not stuff I ever imagined I would be doing, but it is part of taking responsibility. I am happy to do it.) People have asked me if the blog will remain free, and for now and the foreseeable future, yes, it will. I understand that things are difficult for many people who have been following the blog for years, and it is not in me to kick them off the site. Down the road at some point, I will ask to be paid for the blog. I will ask people who read the blog to contribute something, even if it is a one-time payment of a few dollars. Anybody who has a computer can pay that, the amount will be up to them. I’ll set suggested subscription payments and they will be low, as they are now. But that is down the road. I am sure some people will leave the blog rather than pay for it, and I wish them nothing but good luck.
Thanks for your wonderful response to this, I am a bit overwhelmed with the good hearts and open minds.
Another issue has come up that I want to address. It is my address. A good number of people who don’t use Paypal and don’t exchange money online are asking me if they can send checks to an address I choose. They are nervous writing to me, worried I will think them stalkers or being offended at the idea of giving out my address. I get a lot of e-mail, and I can’t answer all of it all the time, so I need permanent options in place besides my e-mail. This is the idea of the writer as a remote untouchable who can not be disturbed by his fans.
I have tossed that conceit out of the window, along with many others but I can’t deal with so many hundreds of messages a day via e-mail and social media. So I have decided, with Maria’s enthusiastic agreement, to share my mailing address: it is 2502 State Route 22, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. I know some people will find this dangerous and reckless, there is the view, enthusiastically advanced in the Fear Machine and sometimes with great validity, that our world is dangerous and that we have to hide our identities and addresses from the many kinds of predators seeking to harm and rob and strike us, our money, our children and homes.
I understand that the world can be a dangerous place, I was a police reporter for some years in Washington, Philadelphia, Atlantic City and other places, I have seen things nobody should have to see and I will not forget them. But I choose to live a free and open life. I will not accept the epidemic idea in our world, advanced by a greedy and valueless corporate media and by the many hysterics who live on the Internet, that we must live in fear of our neighbors, our community, even our friends. Yesterday at Battenkill Books a young girl came up to talk to Red and I offered my hand to shake and asked her name, and she shrieked in fear, burst into tears and ran away to hide behind her grandmother, where she stood sobbing and shaking. I was horrified. Good girl, said the grandmother, never talk to a strange man. It’s okay to pet the dog.
If people choose to live this way, I respect their choice and respect them, it is not my choice, not when it comes to children, to medicine, to the blizzard of warnings and horrific news that make up our social currency, to the Dystopian view that the world as we know it will soon perish under our feet and we must be eternally vigilant and angry and wary. I would rather not live than live that way. People have to make their choices and I will make mine. I won’t let doctors take over my body and my health, I won’t hide from the world in a fortress of illusions, the media does not report my news. Some disturbed people have found me long before I gave my address out. I will deal with it. (So will Frieda ):). I do not want to live a life where I have to hide where I live.
We live in a Fear Machine, supported by politics, government, medicine, lawyers, and the media and a myriad of corporations, from weather channels to insurance companies to pharmaceutical corporations to cable news outlets that feed of fear and discord. There are countless pages on Facebook and other social media devoted to fear and anger. That is not the community I’m joining or serving. We all make up our own minds whether or not to succumb to it or not. This is the vampire world to me, I don’t choose to accept it’s notions of life and safety. My address is readily available to anybody with a computer or a cell phone, we are holding open houses at the New Bedlam Farm on July 21 and September 1, and you can’t have an open house without telling people where to go. We had several at the other Bedlam Farm and we drew thousands of people without any harm, incident or regret (unless you count too many dog cookies to the dogs.). We will take our chances. My address is me, is my voice, I am proud to give it out.
The subscription program is a turning point for me and my work, a significant step towards finding my voice, standing in my truth, shedding the fear of respecting and valuing my own work, a legacy of my former life. It is making me stronger, more confident and creative is affirming many years of hard work and prescient instinct. This is my future, I am figuring it out, and I thank you for sharing it with me. One way or another, you know where to find me.
Scott Carrino is my idea of a spirit elf, he is my Tai Chi instructor, and a patient and listening kind of teacher (rare in my life) and he is the co-owner of the Round House Bakery and Cafe which opened recently right inside of a former bank lobby on Main Street in Cambridge, N.Y., my town. The Round House serves wonderful food – fresh, healthy, delicious – and has become the soul of the town between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. The cafe is a huge hit, filled a big void, and Scott and his wife Lisa are fending off exhaustion and seeking to have a cafe and a life. They are not there yet, but Scott is ever patient, generous, and open. He is my idea of the strong man – loving, gentle, devoted to peace, committed to a spiritual life, a good friend.
I often write that if women take over, there is hope for the world, I sometimes forget that there are some good and strong men who will be alongside of them helping out. Scott wants to do my Tai Chi lesson on the farm – as if he has nothing else to do – so we can do Tai Chi with the donkeys. We’ll see what the donkeys have to say about it, but I welcome this strong and good man into my life. Spirit elfs are rare.
