4 September

Red: Infestations, Antibiotics, Acupuncture

by Jon Katz
Red: Infections, Infestations, Acupuncture
Red: Infections, Infestations, Acupuncture

We went to see the new vet at Cambridge Valley Veterinary Service today and I liked her a lot. Red did also, but then, Red likes everybody. I noticed a series of scabs, bumps and lumps on Red’s back, he was beginning to worry and chew at them, and they were tender to the touch. I took a closer look at them this morning, and called the vet. They were ugly. It took us a while to figure out that they were almost sure fly and gnat bites, Red sits absolutely still and focused in clouds of flies and gnats out in the pasture, they drive the donkeys inside the barn but Red pays no attention to them, and a few of them appeared to be swollen and infected.

Dr. Flaherty gave me a few days worth of cortison pills, some antibiotics and a special medicated shampoo, which I lathered all over him when we got  home. The doctor is concerned about Red’s weight, it has dropped to 47 pounds, his ribs show a bit. We are testing him for Ghiardia and parasites, he is around livestock and like Lenore, is not above scarfing down some chicken or sheep droppings. She is impressive, sharp and confident and with a good and dry sense of humor.

Dr. Flaherty does veterinary acupuncture, and I am fascinated by it, I will sign Red up when we get back from California. The doctor and I talked about it, and I think Red could benefit from acupuncture, he does a lot of intense work in the pasture and also in therapy, and he is an intense animal. I remember it was about the only thing that helped calm Orson down a bit from his hyper-arousal, it didn’t ultimately alter Orson’s sad fate, but it did help him more than many of the things I tried.

I’d like to try it and photograph this and write about it, I have this instinct Red could benefit from it, he is moving on seven years old and I remember the beating Rose’s body took with all of the work she did, and Red is not only herding sheep, he is doing very intense therapy work. I’d like to see him have the dog equivalent of a spiritual life, if such a thing is possible.I think it’s an important thing to try and to help people understand, I’d like to understand it better myself.

Tomorrow I’m speaking to the volunteers at Bennington Hospice and Red is coming along, we’ll do a dog therapy training demo. I’ll monitor him closely to see his back heals and then make an appointment for our first acupuncture visit.

4 September

The Bedlam Farm Idea

by Jon Katz
The Bedlam Farm Idea
The Bedlam Farm Idea

At the Open House and since, I’ve seen and read an outpouring of photos, essays, comments about Bedlam Farm, about “The Bedlam Farm Idea,” a phrase that is very new to me. I do not think of myself as part of an idea, as having spouted a movement, as having preached a philosophy of life. It would approach monomania for me to believe that. My path is winding and rocky, I am a sinner and wanderer in so many ways, I have grappled and grapple still with anger, fear, envy, judgement, waste and delusion. Still, when 700 people come to make their own personal pilgrimage to a place – and this place is so much more than me – to see me, Maria, her studio, the dogs and donkeys, the farm, I have to stop and reflect on what this idea is, what it is that draws them here, often more than once.

I feel too small and imperfect for it, perhaps too vulnerable, I did not know what to say to people who say I changed their lives or inspired them. A woman at the Open House pressed my hand, said I had changed her life, and she thanked me. A man he had read “Running To The Mountain,” and changed his life. A mother send me a message in the mail thanking me for encouraging her daughter, she said it had given her daughter a new way to look at the world. For all these messages, there are many that are not so kind, that are angry. People who dislike my books, some of my ideas, people who encountered my anger and intolerance. There are whole websites, chunks of the border collie world, people who call themselves animal lovers who dislike me loudly and continuously.  I am late to affirmation, late to encouragement, late to a grounded spiritual life, late to meditation, mindfulness, color, light and love.

But still, I have to be honest, there is a Bedlam Farm Idea, it has been in my head and heart, it is a part of the glue that binds Maria and me. It is the idea of encouragement. I was never encouraged in my life, I was starved for it, I always imagined Bedlam Farm being a place of encouragement, a creative light. I always imagined the barns full of artists and writers and painters, the first thing Maria and I did together when we met was stage an art show at Gardenworks called Art Harvest. It was the progenisis of the Pig Barn Art Gallery, of the Open Houses. She was the first human being ever to encourage me to take photos, I was the first person in her adult life to encourage her to practice her art.

My dreams have changed, I no longer believe it is brave to be foolhardy or wasteful, I no longer believe it is admirable to be delusional and selfish, I no longer believe life is only a matter of pursing one’s dreams, I do not believe the spiritual notion that we are perfect, that our lives are perfect, that our thoughts can always be positive and pure. I am profoundly and spectacularly imperfect, just as life is imperfect. Flaws are part of our humanity, our being, our souls. So is anger, fear, resentment. The challenge is to deal with them, acknowledge them, be mindful of them, not to deny them or hide from them.

But I have found that encouragement is one of the most powerful feelings and gifts, it can light fires, touch off sparks, offer the pushes and support so many people need. It touches people deeply, they are starved for it.  This, I think, is what draws people to the Bedlam Farm idea, to the Open Group, which we call the Ministry Of Encouragement. I think this might be the Bedlam Farm Idea.

4 September

“So Sorry For Your Loss: The New Boundaries Of Grief”

by Jon Katz
The New Boundaries Of Grief
The New Boundaries Of Grief

Grieving, among many others things, has come to the Open Group At Bedlam Farm. The OGBF is a wonderful creative success, I couldn’t be happier with it or prouder of it, but from the first, I was concerned that the site would be dominated by grieving – either for people or animals. This seems to occur on sites related to animals but also anywhere people gather online. Grieving has gone public on the Internet and on social media, something that used to be among the most private, even hidden of feelings and emotions has become very public and commonplace. For better or worse, social media has broken down historic and once natural boundaries of emotion. I use social media, and appreciate it, I also struggle constantly to create and maintain boundaries in this new world, to ask people on Facebook and elsewhere to treat me and others the same way they would if they were in my home. Most do, some don’t.

It is not possible, really, to even be on Facebook and be a private person, it is incompatible with the very idea of social media. It is also not feasible

On the Open Group, which currently has nearly 600 members, it has become quite common for people to mourn their lost pets and more recently, the people in their lives. Many of the OFBF members have become good and valued friends, so it seems – is – natural for them to share the loss of loved ones and loved things, to grieve openly.

When this grieving is posted on the site, there are almost instantly scores of messages, the overwhelming number of which say “sorry for your loss.” In fact “sorry for your loss” is by far the most frequent comment on a very diverse site which covers all kinds of creative subjects – blogs, photos, family, painting, wildlife, glass work, sketching. There is an almost  choreographed quality to these posts and these replies, as if everyone has a button that I don’t have on my computer.  I have mixed feelings about it, it seems both perfectly natural yet somehow rote and ritualistic to me. And, if it grows and grows, threatening.

It’s a cycle, I am thinking of my brother, my mother, my best friend, my dog, sorry for your loss, sorry for your loss. I’m not sure what the phrase means precisely, or how much comfort it provides (it seems to provide at least some, according to the comments that I read.)

Where does grieving belong now? In the home, online, on Facebook, in Church, with friends and family?  On The Open Group? These are not strangers, they know one another quite well, it is not unnatural to try and comfort a friend, even a digital one. That’s the whole idea behind Facebook, make connections. Yet I think a lot about my work as a hospice volunteer, how much training went into the notion that there is almost nothing one can really say when someone is grieving. Volunteers are trained to be active listeners. In hospice you learn not to tell people it will get better, how sorry you are, how much you relate to the experience because none of those things are generally true. In hospice, very few people are seeking sympathy, they are either beyond that or ahead of it.

Sometimes I said “I’m sorry, can I help.” Most of the time I say nothing. I am using this valuable lesson in my therapy work with Red and veterans, especially those recently returned from Iraq or Afghanistan. They don’t want me to thank them, tell them I’m sorry, suggest that I understand. I don’t. I have no idea what they have been through, they do not wish to be thanked or sympathized with or patronized in any way. The are in a world I am not a part of. One of the stages of grief is anger, and most people who have lost something dear are resentful of the way the world tries to talk to them about it.

Human grieving is different. I wince sometimes when I see that “sorry for your loss” is the most frequent message now posted on the OGBF. It makes me uncomfortable, yet I think it is part of a natural, human organic part of the new digital community. I asked the members recently to explore this, and they are talking about it. What, exactly, are people looking for when they tell us about their mothers, fathers, brothers and friends who are gone? Awareness? Sympathy? Support? And what precisely does it mean when most of the people responding say “sorry for your loss” without any amplification or other thought?

I share much of my life online, I have for years, that is the story of this blog, and there are significant parts of my life I don’t share. I don’t generally post messages about friends or family members becoming ill or dying, unless there is a larger message for people, it seems a private thing to me. And I don’t feel at ease when people I don’t know offer me sympathy, I’m not sure what it means or how to weigh it. I also have developed different ideas about grieving. I am puzzled when people post messages – this happens very frequently online – mourning pets that have died months or years ago. I’m surprised when people share their pain but not their happiness, their mourning but not their good memories. I do not mourn the dogs and animals I have lost, I cherish the ones that are here with me now.

Is sympathy, then,  the point of messages about grief? Or have expressions of grief simply become part of the currency of social media, the people and animal sites are awash in grief and need. Emotions once private have become so public that we offer rote responses – “so sorry for your loss” – as if they were stamps or automatic replies. I sometimes wonder if some keyboard shave “so sorry for your loss” buttons, there are so many of those messages. Sometimes I think of the Internet as a giant urn, one so big and evolving that we can put all of our fears, sadness, anger and grief into it, it will happily absorb whatever we offer.

Grieving is a bottomless experience. There is no one reading this who has not lost beloved pets, parents, friends, neighbors, co-workers, even children. In one way or another, we are all dealing with loss and grief or we will soon enough. We will all get sick and die, we will all be somebody’s loss.  I wonder if every online group will fill up with sadness and loss, and who, I wonder, wants to read about other people’s loss and grief every day of their lives?

These are questions, I don’t have many answers, I’m not sure there are any,  just feelings and emotions of my own. And I’m putting them out on my blog, and yes, on Facebook too. Somehow, I think the answers will shape these new kinds of communities and the emotional lives of the people who inhabit them.

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