I like to call myself a warrior for light, the cold and snow and grey days have been wearing me down. I am drawn to bright things and color, light has always been the dominant characteristic of my photography, perhaps the point. I try to bring light into my life as well, a challenge in this endlessly bitter and stormy and frigid winter.
So I’m taking up a new creative challenge. I am launching the Bedlam Farm Endless Winter Color Initiative, for me, and perhaps, for you. I have many thousands of bright and uplifting photographs – flowers, landscapes, lambs, animals, dogs and donkeys. From now until the advent of better weather, and the return of color and light, i am going to publish them here, at least several times a day. You are welcome to share them, print or download them, use them as screensavers, or just look at them.
I choose photographs that bring a smile to my face, lift my spirits. I can’t think of a better use of my photographs, or of my blog – it is supposed to snow for four straight days here starting on Saturday. I hope you come her to brighten up, to remember the beauty and color and light of the world. There is beauty in the winter pasture as well, I love to photograph it, but not enough color to brighten many days.
So here is Vol. 1 of the Bedlam Farm Endless Winter Color Initiative, young Pumpkin when he was just a few weeks old. This is the point of Bedlam Farm really, to find the beauty and color and light in the world and share it beyond the borders of our small farm. Please come her and soak up some color and light and spread it any way you can or wish.
In my life, I choose to fill my cup, not dwell on it’s emptiness. Still, my life now is filled with recorded images, a record of the love and feeling and compassion and creativity we seek to grow here. When I see these images, they pull at my heart. Every morning I kissed Simon on the nose, and Maria and he loved to cuddle. He preferred cuddling to food on most days. So I wanted to share this image of Maria and Simon, one of the last.
Red explodes out the door in the morning, he heads right to the pasture gate for me to come out. I had to stop and clear some snow away from the door, he sat in the cold and snow for four or five minutes, I think he would sit there until he froze without moving. He was ready to go, we fed the sheep and donkeys and brought out fresh water in near record time, he is dozing my my desk. I think even Red got a bit tired this morning. This afternoon, therapy work, visiting some friends at cardiac rehab.
Red does not seem to notice the snow, he seems impervious to it, he does his outruns through the drift, cutting like a knife through butter. He runs towards warmth and Spring, I think.
I woke up early and I admit to feeling beleaguered when I looked out of the window and saw five or six inches of new snow that fell overnight. My heart sank. We are tired, getting over being sick, we spend hours each day shoveling and raking and clearing snow, and there is not much place to put any more. In a few minutes, we would be both outside for an hour or two, clearing paths and moving snow. Tonight, the temperature may fall as low as -20.
It has not been above freezing for more than a month, and no real relief in sight. Snow is devouring us. My lungs are clearing from the flu and from the beginnings of pneumonia. I am tired from a lot of shoveling and clearing, I am not sure how much I really should be doing. This weekend, Maria is going away for a few days, to Blue-Star Equiculture pursue her love of friendship and deepening connection to the horses. I spent much of my life alone, and am used to it, but I am not used to being apart from Maria. It is healthy, necessary, but may not be simple. I don’t really know.
I might go down to visit her on Sunday, I might just let her be with her own experience, I’ll let her guide me.
The farm is a challenging place in this kind of winter. Everything is more complex – paths, getting the hay out, feeding the chickens, keeping the water tub clean and warm, keeping the fires going in the stoves. We live by the light, in our work and lives, we both miss it.
I hope I can just immerse myself in my book, “Talking To Animals,” this weekend, and get some new chapters done. Maybe a movie, or dinner with friends. Maybe lots of shoveling and roof-raking. Maybe some quite reading by the fire, sitting with Red and Frieda. It can be sweet to be alone, cleansing and spiritual.
I was starting to feel sorry for myself – I just didn’t want to go outside and start brushing off the car and clearing the paths – when Maria popped up smiling, and said to me in her simple and direct way: “I love my life. I love our lives together.” I was delighted and startled to hear it. This is the pure spirit of Maria, of us too, together. It is a tough winter, it is draining and grim sometimes, yet there is the creative spark in both of us, it is always burning. We never forget to be grateful for our lives together, our times together.
Our love for one another only seems to grow, this is a miracle to me, I did not know such a thing was possible in the world.
We can do our work, live in freedom, follow our passions and bliss, work to understand ourselves and one another, work to be stronger, better, clearer. Together, we are facing some of the difficult challenges of life, together we are figuring them out. This is what it means to have a soul mate, to be open to love, to learn what it means to be selfless. Like Red, Maria pays little real attention to the winter, although she suffers in the cold, she is like a turtle or a pagan, she loves the sun and the warmth.
Today, Maria sent my spirits soared, the snow melted away, it seemed warm and bright to me. We have what is important, we have each other, we support each other, we revel in the satisfaction and meaning each of us find in our lives, alone and together. Spring, after all, lives in the head and mind and soul, it never really dies. We carry it within us. When Maria told me how much she loved our life, I felt joy and purpose, I felt meaning and satisfaction in my life.
What is some weeks of snow and cold compared to loving your life, is there a warmer, brighter and more colorful place to be?
