Ariel’s Midnight Carriage ride was a mystical tour. Just after 1 a.m., as we were weaving our way around the West Side of the Park, past the Dakota Apartments where John Lennon was shot and killed, and near the Strawberry Fields memorial for him in the park, I heard a violin on a path playing a soft and beautiful version of “Imagine,” one of Lennon’s loveliest songs. I saw a young man standing off of the path playing the violent, as if it were for Maria and I, as if he were waiting for us.
Ariel stopped the carriage but said nothing. Nathan came closer and began playing some Beethoven, he seemed one with his violin, an extension of it. Ariel smiled at him, nodding. “Do you know Ariel?,” I asked. “I met him earlier,” he said, introducing himself as Nathan, a music student at the New School.
He was from Philadelphia, he said, he had come to New York to live and make his way as a classical violinist, to write and teach and play. His music was beautiful, and then he climbed into the carriage and serenaded Maria and I for 20 minutes or so as we walked under the beautiful canoply of shade trees that line the park, the stage were the big apartments lining one side of the park, the big and beautiful skyscrapers on the other, framing this wonderful surprise.
Nathan, it seemed, was there for us, was waiting for us. I have no idea how Ariel managed it, someone told me he often works with musicians in the park, Ariel has his secrets, like any mystic, he would only smile and nod. Listening to this gifted young violinist play for us as Ariel’s horse trotted so calmly and easily through the park was like being transported to another time and place.
The air was suffused with magic and memory and lights, reflections and fragrances, shadows and emotions. I asked Nathan to play “Imagine” again, and then he did, and then some more Beethoven, and the sound of the violin, sweet and mournful and romantic was timeless.
After awhile, he hopped off, shook hands and said goodbye, vanishing into the park like an angel who could transform himself into something else.
What, I asked Ariel, possessed him to be so thoughtful and generous to strangers, to love his horses and the park so much that he would be out riding us around at 2 a.m. like that, serenaded in this beautiful and surprising way. Who does that, who in this world goes to so much trouble to please people and touch their hearts.
We thought it was a dream, a vision, being in this beautiful place with such a sweet spirit, such beautiful music.
“The horses,” he said, “if you listen for them, they will do the same for you.”
It is perhaps important to see that every New York carriage horse driver is not like Ariel Fitzi, I doubt I will meet another person like him anywhere. He is a creature of the horses, he has been working and talking with them all of his life, and he is also a creature of the park, he always works as late as he is legally allowed to work, he knows every inch of the park, day or night. It is beautiful to see his connection to his horses, and how he and they and the park melt to gather almost magically, they become one thing, especially at night..
As we were crossing from Eleventh Avenue towards 58th street, we heard sirens coming up behind us. It was a narrow street, the two engines and a chief’s car – all rushing with sirens and lights on full tilt came up behind us and passed about two feet to the left of the carriage. The din was ear-splitting, Rebecca didn’t move a muscle. Minutes later, a woman who works in a garage came rushing out with her black Lab, he was excited and started barking right under the horse’s nose. Rebecca turned and looked at Ariel. “Really?,” she seemed to be asking. The woman hugged Ariel and thanked him for the training opportunity.
We passed a grinding garbage truck to the right. Rebecca is a city animal, she knows what she is doing, she is a New Yorker through and through. The noise and din of New York was home to her. This is why the biologist Jared Diamond says that draft horses are the most domesticable animal on the earth to live in urban areas, they rarely spook and are tolerant of noise and other species. They are gentle with people and trainable. Because they are herd animals, they stay close to their people, to other horses and to their home stables. I’ve seen that again and again.
Ariel gives the lie to the idea that riding a carriage horse is like any other job. It makes no difference, says the mayor, if people like Ariel are driving a horse carriage or a green taxi in the outer boroughs. Nobody will suffer. That is the oblivious arrogance of an elitist, not a political leader who cares about working people. Horses are as central to Ariel as breathing, he even took his horse to training camp when he left home to serve in the military.
The only word I can think of for our journey into the park at night was magical, perhaps mystical. The park is beautiful anytime, but Olmstead’s brilliant and rich vision for it is more accessible at night, where there are not hordes of people, and joggers and bicycles and pedicabs and cars. The pedicabs flood the park in the daytime, many have secretly- and illegally – installed motors in their bicycles and they charge at least $3 a minute, maybe more. They actually cost much more than a horse carriage ride and the tourists are often confused by the aggressive pitching of the young and hungry drivers.
It is a curious thing to see these big and beautiful horses walking slowly through the park, breathing easily, not sweating or panting while the mostly immigrant teenagers on the pedicabs sweat and gasp as they pedal their cabs and pull three or four tourists. Why, I wonder, is it abuse for a 2,000 pound horse to pull a light carriage on level ground over asphalt, but fine for a skinny teenager to pull a bunch of people on the same route?
All of this noise and drama recedes at night, the park is transformed, it returns to it’s purest and most pristine state. The lakes in the park shimmer and reflect the city lights, there are quiet and secret paths to walk on that are invisible from the roads and walkways. Olmstead built the park in part for the carriage horses, the only straight walkway in the park was built for them to run on. The landscape is alive, twisting and turning, changing and surprising, soothing and dramatica.
At night, the park enveloped us in it’s gorgeous hug, we stopped at the Bethesda and Cherry Hill Fountain, this built for the carriage horses to drink from, and Ariel sat in the carriage while we walked around the plazas, into the woods, around the water and under the beautifully landscaped paths. The park’s gardens were all coming to life, the flowers and the bushes and the Cherry trees. We could hear the distant sirens of the city, the rumble of traffic and trucks, and all around us, like friendly spirits, towered the big and beautiful apartment complexes and skyscrapers.
The big buildings stood around us and towered over us like grand sentries in a momentous parade of lights.
Ariel kept us wrapped in blankets, sipping tea, he talked of his life with the horses, the sick and handicapped people he and Rebecca meet in the park – they call him all day and he arranges to meet with them. The horses, he says, talk of healing, of doing good, the park is their home and sanctuary, their place in the world. Ariel says the horses are safe or he wouldn’t bring them to the park, but the city could make them even safer by putting up some stop signs and turn-arounds for them. But the mayor of the city isn’t interested in making the horses safer, only in banning them.
Ariel’s horses know exactly where to go, they stop if there is traffic, they know the turn offs and the fountains, Ariel is gentle with them, he is one with them. You never have to yell at a horse, he says, or pull sharply on the rains. They get to know their people, and once there is trust, they will do anything for you. He trains them carefully and very slowly. They seem to react to his clarity and gentleness, I’m sure any horse could sense and smell Ariel’s big heart.
Part of the tension of driving a carriage horse in New York is that there seem to be different rules for animals than there are for people. In the great city, people have accidents all the time – 16,000 vehicle accidents last year, 155 deaths. In the past thirty years, three carriage horses have been killed in accidents, but every time a horse is in an accident, it is major news for days, in the papers, on TV and on blogs, politicians hold press conferences, animal rights groups march and demand that the horses be taken from the city. Two children were killed in Brooklyn the same night we took Ariel’s ride, their deaths were barely mentioned on the news, not at all on television.
There is an air of madness and unreality about this controversy. Is it really so cruel for the big horses to share the life of the city with the people who live there? Isn’t that their history and destiny? Can we imagine a life for animals where there is no pain and suffering, not struggles or mishaps?
Ariel reminds me that driving a carriage horse is a way of life for so many of the carriage drivers, not just a job. They are not all perfect people, not all saints, I am sure some horses have been mistreated over the years, just as human beings are every day, all over New York City. There are wonderful carriage drivers, and some jerks, I’ve met both. I’ve never seen a horse mistreated.
But Ariel’s midnight rides speak to us of the beauty and power of these horses, they are an integral part of the park, and it’s bridges and walkways and twists and turns, they look as natural to the park as the fountains and gardens and stone work.
Sitting by the Bethesda Fountain looking back at Ariel and his horse Whiskey (Rebecca was resting for the night), I saw just how many hearts would be broken, how many dreams and memories would die, how much romance would be gone forever if these horses were taken away, against their will, the will of the people in the city, the countless visitors, and the hundreds of people whose way of life centers around them. I can’t imagine an act of greater abuse, to an animal, to human beings.
The Indians say that if the horses leave, they will take the wind and the rain with them. The mystery and magic also.
How sad that the mayor of New York is no enough of a human being – man or woman – to take this midnight with Ariel. He would be happy to take him, he has made the offer. The mayor might finally understand what all of the uncertainty, fear and pain that he has caused if really about, not only in the carriage trade but from the countless people from all over the world who loves the horses as well.
He might just awaken, listen rather than talk, learn rather than declare, and just leave the horses and their people alone, give them some peace and security for themselves and their children, and find something important and useful to do for the people of this city.
Maria and I will always be grateful for Ariel’s midnight ride. There, even an old man like me felt like a newlywed, like a young lover whose heart was filled to bursting with feeling and love. Fear and cynicism and fatigue melted away. I heard the horses, again and again, their spirits echo through the park: We must never be taken away from people again.
Ariel Fintzi has the name of an angel, and he is an angel, even though a close friend described him as a “shamanic elf,” which is also a fitting description of him. Ariel grew up with horses on a kibbutz in Israel, he came to New York as a young immigrant and was, like so many of the carriage drivers, hired as a stable hand, cleaning out the stables. He has been with horses all of his life, driving them through Central Park for decades, and loves them dearly. He is a horse mystic, a generous spirit.
Ariel believes the horses should be used for healing and for good, and he has devoted much of his to using horses to help people who are sick, injured troubled. I first met him when he came into the park to meet a young quadraplegic woman who comes into the park every morning to meet with Ariel and his horse Rebecca. The meetings, she says, give her a reason to live.
If you spent any time with Ariel, you will see one person after another come up to him, hug him, thank him, love him. He is, in fact, a love machine. When the mayor of New York says none of the drivers will suffer if their job are taken from them and they are forced to drive green cabs in the outer boroughs, his elitism and ignorance of the carriage trade are all too visible.
Ariel will never drive a green car in Brooklyn, shame on the mayor for pretending he knows these people or is a common man. Ariel is in the park day and night, and late Saturday, after my daughter’s wedding, at midnight, we met him at Central Park South and he took us on the ride of our lives, a magical tour of the beautiful and deserted park. Ariel wanted to celebrate Emma’s wedding, also to thank me for my writing about the carriage horses, also to connect Maria to the spirit of the horses.
Ariel is addicted to good deeds, including hiring some of the first people of color to drive the horse carriages. Earlier in the day, we met at the Clinton Park stables, drove through Manhattan (Rebecca paid no attention to the fire engines that shrieked right past us, to the dog who came up and barked, to the traffic and honking horns, toured the stables, went through the park.
Then we gathered again at night, at midnight. We ended up driving around the park until 2:30. I will write about this remarkable journey more. Fitzi is a very rare human being. We both fell in love with him instantly.
A young African-American teenager came up to him outside of the carriage, hugged him and said Ariel had helped him so much to give up drugs, stay in school, think about his future. He said he comes every night to the park to talk to him, tell him how he is doing, seek out his help.
“He is the most wonderful man,” he said, “I wish he was my father.” Me, too.
Our night was magical, it was in so many ways what we needed that night, Ariel is a psychic too, he can see into hearts and souls. We stopped in the heart of the empty and beautiful park, we said a prayer, Ariel gave us fruit and warm tea, he showered us with rose petals, and strawberries with Nutella. By the Dakota, where John Lennon was killed, he arranged for a young musician to come aboard the carriage and serenade us for a half mile through the gorgeous and empty park. We stopped at got out at fountains, paths and vistas I did not even know existed.
“This is too much!,” we protested, overwhelmed. “You have done so much for us,” he said, smiling. I love writing about the carriage horses, and I appreciated the thanks, even though I don’t need it. More than a year ago, I put aside the writing I was being paid to do, and took up the issue of the carriage horses.
They are not a simple, unified group, they are wary of outsiders. The carriage trade is a close and sometimes tribal universe. One person recently suggested I was making money off of the issue, I was blocked from one of their private groups because, they said, I was in the “media.” Another person didn’t like some of the words I used in my writing. I am used to this to be honest, I am not much of a joiner.
People are like that, I have found, they will always find fault, and I am far from perfect. But I have always felt closely connected to the drivers, I hear from them all the time, they very much appreciate whatever support they are given. They know me by sight, they wave to me on the street and shout out their thanks.
I have no idea what role I have played in their long and hard struggle, I doubt that the mayor of New York reads my blog, but i hope it has done them some good, they need relief and support. My heart is in it, and I will hang in there with them for as long as it makes sense. Their fight to survive will go on a good long time I suspect, and it has been nothing but a gift to me.
I will write more about Ariel’s Midnight Ride tonight and tomorrow, it was a stunning and magical experience for Maria and I, we haven’t yet stopped talking about it. Photos and words later. Ariel is an angel, I am so grateful to have him in my life as a friend and shamanic spirit.
If you spend five minutes with him, you will see that he would never harm or mistreat a horse and the carriage trade is woven deeply into the heart and soul of New York City. It would be an absolute crime to banish it for no good reason other than the fact an animal rights fanatic gave the mayor a suitcase full of money.
These are the pigs that the police who raided Joshua Rockwood’s farm decided were being neglected and treated cruelly. They are one of the reasons for his arrest. The photo was taken a couple of weeks after the police raid on his farm.
One pig has a tear in his ear, two others said there was gray matter on the tips of their ears that suggested frost-bite. The photograph was taken by me on Joshua’s farm several weeks after his arrest on 13 charges of animal cruelty and neglect.
I took these photographs to two different pig farms in my country. I e-mailed them to a third. None of the pig farmers say they saw a single thing to justify a charge of abuse or neglect. “Half of my pigs have gray matter on the tips of their ears,” one said, “animals in barns can get frostbite just as easily as pigs outside when the temperate hits the -20’s, as it did this winter. “These guys look fat and happy and healthy to me.”
One farmer also said the the hysteria over animal abuse had caused many authorities to lose all perspective. “These animals are going to slaughter,” he said, “you give them freedom of movement, shelter and good food. You make sure they don’t suffer and are killed quickly and humanely. You can’t do more than that. What do these people know about farms? You can’t call a vet every time a pig has gray matter on their ear, you would be broke in a couple of days, you’d have to triple your prices to justify that, and nobody would pay it.”
Two farmers said they would bet that the vet who came with the police was a small animal vet, nor a farm vet. They surprised me, that is true.
I am not a pig farmer, but I have seen sheep get ears like this if it gets that cold, it seems strange to me that many people demand that all animals be returned to the wild, but they arrest people when there is the slightest hint of it. These pigs had shelter – Joshua has been accused of inadequate shelter – that was hardier and more protected than any of the shelters I have seen on the local pig farms here.
I’ve lived with farm animals for more than a decade, I saw nothing about these pigs that would alarm or concern me. Neglected animals do not look like this, they are not as active or alert, they shy away from people and are slow to move or react to their environment. None of the farmers I showed these photographs to saw any signs of abuse or neglect, but I wanted to share them with you, you can make up your own mind. Joshua’s trial begins tomorrow, the 21st at 7 p.m. at the Glenville, N.Y., Town Court.
“Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.”
― Thomas Paine, The Rights Of Man. You can help a man here.
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Tomorrow is Joshua Rockwood day here at Bedlam Farm.
It is an important day in my life, and I believe, in the life of everyone who lives with animals, loves them, or truly cares for their rights or their own. Joshua Rockwood, a young and idealistic farmer drawn to the local foods movement in Glenville, N.Y. goes to court to face 13 counts of animal cruelty, abuse and neglect. His hearing begins at 5:30 p.m. at the Glenville, N.Y. Town Court.
His trial speaks to the lost soul of the animal rights movement, our broken covenant with farmers and animals, our disconnection from Mother Earth.
Rockwood’s farm was raided by local police and animal control officers. He is accused of having frozen water sources, of neglecting the hooves of his ponies, of failure to provide heated barns and shelter for his pigs, and of having inadequate stores of feed. Three horses and one dog were taken from him.
Everyone who knows him, who lives on a farm, who is a farmer, who lives with domesticated animals, who understands the lives and needs of animals, also understands what his real crime is: he was a young farmer in winter, trapped in runaway social forces that threaten every farmer and animal and animal lover in the world.
Rockwood symbolizes much more than his farm and his animals. His arrest was wrong. He brings into the focus what is truly at stake in his trial: his way of life and our way of life, those of us who believe that animals ought to remain in our world and live and work with us. Those of us who would not abandon our farmers to this thoughtless and unknowing kind of justice. The increasingly hateful ways in which we treat one another.
I am not a political person. I do not believe in the left or the right. I believe that government is necessary to protect us and our freedom, to preserve our property, to help the poor, to educate the young, to regulate the world of business, to help save the earth from our own deprivations. I abhor war in any form, I suppose many people would call me a progressive.
Thomas Paine has always been an inspiration of mine. I am especially touched by his passionate belief that my rights are also the rights of every man and women, my duty as a writer and a citizen is to support the right of others as well as support my own.
I also write as an author and a life-long lover animals. I have lived with them and written about them for decades – dogs, sheep, donkeys, goats, cows, barn cats, chickens, goats. In the past year, I have been drawn to the struggle of the New York Carriage Horses to survive in the new and twisted world of animal rights, where we kill animals and drive them from the every day world in order to save them. In this twisted process, the rights of every living thing is trampled, theirs and ours.
The horses have awakened me, and then the ponies in the farmer’s markets, the elephants in the circuses, the pigs and chickens and cows on a farm, the dogs and cats of the homeless and the poor and the elderly, the sled dogs and the border collies. I have come to see that animals are not all different and separate things, they are one thing. Them together, them with us. The sunshine soldiers of the animal world are selfish and selective in their righteousness. They mostly seem to care about what makes them feel good, not what saves the animals. Take the elephants, not the horses. Take the ponies, not the dogs. Take the animals in Hollywood movies, not my cats.
But you cannot take one withou the other, the story is the same every time. What is true of the carriage horses is true of the elephants, we don’t get to pick and choose which animal makes us feel better about our battered selves.
The sunshine soldiers of the animal world breath the air of the elite and the smug and the self-satisfied, turning their heads from the slaughter and disappearance of animals, the true abuse and brutality of the corporate farms. And from our sacred and natural partners, from the earth. We destroy one world and habitat after another. First the natural worlds, then the few remaining ones that we have created, the last refuge of the animals. They will share our fate.
What the people who profess to speak for the animals and the the ponies and the elephants is this: stables and zoos and circuses and farmer’s markets and lives with humans are the new preserves, are the new natural world, are the new wild, their only remaining safe and protected homes.
There is nothing more natural in all of the earth than for animals and people to remain together. They speak to us of healing, harmony, nature and history, we stand or fall with them, not apart from them.
I have opened my heart and mind to see that this issue is larger than the carriage horses, or the elephants in the circus, or the border collie in the field. Freedom, rationality, science and a way of life is under siege. The very idea of progressiveness has been stained by hostility and elitism and ignorance.
For all of recorded history, men and women have lived with animals – not just pets – and loved them. They have fed us, sustained us, protected us, entertained and uplifted us, worked with us, built our world with us, grounded us, touched the hearts of our children, nourished our imaginations, our art and culture. There is no part of our lives animals have not touched, no element of art or creativity that they have not inspired, no work that they have not willingly done with us and for us.
Animals are not just pets, they do not need to be seen as pets, they are something much larger, more spiritual and mystical.
All of this is in danger of being taken from us, as well as our sacred and hard-won right to be free of fear and intrusion, to live as we please, to follow our bliss and passion, not be forced by others into lives we do not seek or want, or to conform to repugnant and alien ideas about the natural world.
When you awaken, you see that one by one, everything that is good about animals and people is becoming a dark thing, a crime, a target of the new and Orwellian animal police, this new and narrow and angry way of looking at the world. We have been manipulated. Much of what we do with animals – working with them, laughing with them, is being called abuse, is turning our connection to them and with one another poisonous and angry and hateful. Abuse is becoming the only way we can see animals, the only way we consider and understand them, even though it is the smallest and in many ways, least relevant thing about their lives and existence.
A loved and healthy carriage horse is now considered a victim of torture and cruelty by the mayor of New York. An elephant in the circus is a pathetic object to be saved by humans sitting at their computer screens thousands of miles away. Carriage drivers – many of their families have worked with horses for a thousand years – are told they must drive green taxicabs in the outer boroughs when their horses are taken away. The mayor refuses to speak with the carriage drivers or see their stables, he says their work is immoral. See, he says? No one will suffer, no one will care when the horses are replaced by more cars.
I sometimes imagine the weeping soul of Frederick Law Olmstead, who designed his beautiful Central Park so that people could see the carriage horses every day and walk among them, shaking his head in wonder at the idea that they can be replaced by big cars and no one will notice or care. I don’t know which thing is worse, that this is true, or that it isn’t. We have forgotten the animals, they are pleading with us to remember them before it is too late. Our children will never forgive us for these awful mistakes, they can never be undone.
Even the ponies who give rides to children are seen as nothing but victims. It is an outrage for animals to feed the world, for a homeless man to have a canine companion in his tent or van, for a loving and elderly woman to have cats in her trailer, for a couple without a tall fence to adopt a dog, for the elephants to walk and kneel in the circus, as they have for thousands of years. A new generation of secret informers roams the animal world waiting to turn farmers and animal lovers into criminals, beset by a new generation of animal police.
There is abuse in the animal world, as in our world, for sure, but it is only part of the story, and a small part. The amazing things animals and people do together are suddenly dismissed and denigrated as stupid tricks, unworthy of sensitive and intelligent beings. So we smugly condemn them to death instead, pretending that there is a natural world for them to return to, and a safe life there. And we pat ourselves on the back and send out the informers again to seek out another animal to push out of the every day lives of humans, and from the earth.
We call this animal rights when it is just the newest form of animal genocide.
Every animal we save and keep in the world now is sacred, a victory for them, for us, for the earth. If we don’t awaken, they will all be gone, every one. Every animal we lose is a tragedy, this is the ancient message of the horses, calling us to open our eyes and save them.
The ironic truth is that the carriage horses and elephants are – or were – among the safest and luckiest horses and elephants and animals on the planet, anyone who knows a thing about them will say the same thing. There is nowhere for them to go that is better.
And make no mistake about it, when they get rid of the horses and the elephants and the ponies and the sled dogs and the dogs and cats of the poor and elderly, they will come for your dogs and cats, for our pets, because no one who loves animals really fits into the new definition of animal welfare and animal abuse any longer. Animals lovers were never consulted about this new way of looking at animals, nor are they listened to.
The secret animal police do not know one animal from another, have no idea what they need or what their real lives are like. They do not care about the people who live with them and love them. If you own animals and work with them, you are just another subhuman, a criminal waiting to be found out, you are an unperson, you can be informed upon, raided by the police, hauled into court, bankrupted and disgraced and shamed.
Farmers and carriage drivers and pony ride operators and the people in the circuses and the people who love animals now live in an Orwellian world.
Orwellian refers to an attitude and policy of intimidation and draconian control of issues by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of events. It describes the targeting of the “unperson,” someone who is publicly denounced on modern media, whose past existence is expunged from the public record and memory, who is arrested by police with great authority, and who is thus disgraced and discredited. The dehumanizing of people, wrote Orwell, is a common practice of repressive governments.
It describes what has happened to Joshua Rockwood and what is happening to so many others.
So this is what is at stake for Rockwood tomorrow – and for us. Rockwood is a sensitive man, an ethical farmer, an open and transparent man. He loves his family, is straight with his customers, cares for his animals. He is not a saint, he is not perfect, he is learning things every day. His passion is making healthy food to sell to people in his community, an alternative that is desperately needed in the world of dreadful nutrition, barbaric corporate farming and the new industrial and corporate agri-business. I would be proud to have him in my family, to call him a friend or neighbor.
Like almost ever farmer in the Northeast – like me and every farmer I know – he was unprepared for temperatures that ranged into the – 20’s night after night. Two of his pigs may or may not have gotten frostbite on the tips of their ears – I saw them two weeks ago, they are healthy and fat. So are the 100 other pigs I saw on his farm. One of his ponies had overgrown hooves – my farrier says they were not even close to being unhealthy or dangerous.
On the same day he was raided, the sewer pipes in the Glenville Town Building (and police headquarters) froze and the sewage backed up. No one was arrested or charged with cruelty and neglect. None of Joshua’s cows, chickens, pigs, dogs or sheep suffered any serious or death as a result of the winter. He got them all through it.
If animals are to survive at all in our greedy and destructive world, it will be people like Joshua Rockwood who save them and keep them here.
Or the carriage drivers in New York. Or the pony ride operators in the farmer’s markets. Or the people whose therapy dogs make children and the sick and elderly smile and laugh – do those stupid tricks – in hospitals, schools and nursing homes. They are not different things, they are one thing. One woman’s “stupid trick” is the salvation of a sick child or an old man stuck in a dementia unit in a nursing home.
I am called to stand up for my idea of justice and for the humane treatment of people and animals. And for the right of everyone to pursue their passion and way of life. Everyone must come to their own truth. It is not the role of government to take away our freedom or property or way of life, it is the role of government to preserve all of those things. In any great undertaking, especially in our world, it is no longer enough for any man to simply depend on himself.
At Joshua’s hearing last month, nearly 300 people, many of them farmers who knew it could be them next time, showed up to support him in court. He appeared stunned and determined. He also has a calm and sense of purpose about him. I am eager to see him tomorrow and shake his hand and give him a hug or a pat on the back. Later this week I hope to go to his farm and see and photograph the new baby animals that have appeared there this Spring.
Whatever is my right is also the right of Joshua Rockwood. His only crime is to be a young farmer, starting out. I am certain he will prevail and return to his destiny and his way of life. Joshua’s legal defense fund has raised more than $55,000 so far. You can help him here.
Tomorrow is Joshua Rockwood day here at Bedlam Farm, and in my heart. I hope others will hold him in the light and open their hearts to the animals in world. Perhaps consider a Joshua Rockwood day for you and for your dog or cat or horse or pony or pig or goat.
