Day: May 31, 2015

I ought to say I love and respect Pamela Rickenbach, she is an extraordinary human being and strong woman. I do not know how she summoned the strength and energy and love to be such a generous and loving host for so many people from so many different places in the days after her beloved Paul died.

I am exhausted from our few days at Blue Star, drained and spent. But I can’t turn it off tonight without writing about Pamela, a mystic and a prophet, I think, and a cherished friend with a powerful vision that sustains her and so many others. Blue Star is a very big idea, is speaks to the health of the world, of human beings, and of our deep connection to the animals.

I do not know what happened to Paul in that pasture last week, but I do know how much he loved Pamela and cherished and respected her vision.

Blue Star is, for me, the true home of the idea of animal love, animal welfare and animal rights. It is a rescue  home for people as much as it is a rescue home for horses. The horse have the power to comfort and heal, and so does Blue Star. It is, in fact, possible to love animals and to love people, and to treat both with dignity and respect.

Pamela has made that happen, turning Blue Star into a magnet for animals and caring people. There, you will find young and old, construction workers and sheriff’s deputies, emotionally challenged children and vigorous and idealistic students, retired academics, artists, architects, poets, painters and students.

I call Blue Star the Charlotte’s Web of animal love, once you visit you are likely to be bound there for life because to feels wonderful to love rather than hate, to love animals in a knowing, bounded and healthy way, to learn how to love and heal Mother Earth, to embrace the most beautiful elements of other cultures, especially the Native-American culture. No people have ever been closer to animals that the Indians, and they can teach us many things about animals that we urgently need to know, if they are to be saved. It is the most wonderful kind of crazy glue, every time I got there I meet a half-dozen people who dropped by years ago and have never left.

I think Maria and I are becoming one (two) of those people.

Human beings and horses are welcomed at Blue Star in an open and loving way, it seems almost shocking in our fearful, angry and polarized world. Some are hurting, others simply drawn to the horses, they all work side by side in this enduring community and beacon to the world. Blue Star is the way for us, for people, for animals, for Mother Earth.

I do not know how Pamela survived the shock she got this week, and there was much agony and tears, but she never stopped loving, caring for the horses, worrying about the visitor’s and guests, making them feel welcome in  her home, planning the most beautiful rituals and the most dignified and feeling remembrances.

I will never forget this weekend, or the almost haunting image of Pamela’s dignity, faith, love and courage. She told me she can’t mourn Paul’s death for too long, the horses need her, she has to get back to work. I started to warn her that grief takes it’s own path, has it’s own way and urge her to respect it, but I decided not to.

Pamela needs no pity or sympathy for me, she knows her own mind and needs no advice from me. If and when my own time comes to grieve, I will think of her and hope to do as well. Tomorrow, she will be back at work, fighting for the horses, fighting for our shared humanity.

The horses have entered my life and Maria’s in  powerful and  unmistakeable ways. The New York Carriage Horses have affected my work, my writing, my friendships, my blog and photography. The horses have helped sharpen and define a new and wiser understanding of animals for me.

They have connected me to the mystical world of Native-American culture. They have entered Maria’s life too, she loves to groom and care for the horses, we are getting a pony, Chloe, this week, perhaps even as soon as tomorrow. Maria has spent the last few months learning to groom and care for Chloe.

When I met Maria, six or seven years ago, I could not have imagined that she would ever climb up bareback and ride a big draft horse a few miles out into a pasture and with woods with confidence and ease. Pamela asked her to join the horses goodbye to Paul Moshimer, and Maria was eager and excited. She was also confident and experienced. She rode alongside our friend, Suzanne Strempek Shea, also a friend of Blue Star.

Luna broke into a trot a few times, Maria gently and calmly pulled her back. I asked her if she was afraid to ride bareback on this big horse. No, she said, not for a minute.

She looked at home and secure on the back of Luna, she helped put flowers in her braids before they rode. My interest in the horses is both spiritual and cerebral. I feel connected to them and their cause, I believe the speak to me all of the time. Maria feels the same way, but her interest is less intellectual and much more personal. She loves to touch, groom and ride them. This began with Rocky, the blind pony we had for a few short years, and expanded as the carriage horses entered our lives and shaped our sense of truth, justice and consciousness.

It was sensitive and lovely that Pamela has encouraged this one shy and fearful human being, she is neither these days. The ride had me in tears, smiling so broadly several people remarked on it. I doubt anyone but me and Maria could have really known what this ride meant, although I bet Pamela knows. Even in her grief, she thinks of others.

So tomorrow a horse comes to live with us again, a new chapter in our lives. I am excited about it, grateful for it. There is nothing in all the world more natural than for animals like horses to be with people. Our goodbye to Paul was sadder than I might have imagined, but as is often the case with death, not only sad. Death often opens the door to life, and Maria’s ride was an affirmation of love and encouragement. People who have both can do almost anything

One of the most poignant moments of the weekend came Sunday, when Pamela decided to march the big and beautiful draft  horses out to the tree where Paul Moshimer took his life, to say goodbye to him. Paul loved the horses and always fought for them, it his hard to imagine a more appropriate goodbye.

Pamela and the staff worked for several hours to brush the horses, braid their tails and put ribbons on their manes, Paul’s family and fellow workers and volunteers at the farm rode the horses a half-mile from their stables out to the tree in the big pasture. They circled the tree four times, and then went to visit Paul’s favorite places along the beautiful river than runs behind the farm. Everyone on those horses knew Paul and Pamela, they are a family unto themselves, a new and inspiring way of looking at the world.

This silent ceremony left me speechless in it’s beauty and simplicity, the horses were quiet and steady, there is no question they sensed the atmosphere and the emotions of the people around them, they were eager to participate and somber.

Paul believed strong that the spirits of the horses were reaching out across time to challenge human beings to keep them among us, to treat one another with love and dignity, to care for the troubled and the poor. He helped make Blue Star a place were people are rescued all the time, not just animals. Where people are treated with love and dignity, not just animals. He believed the horses had called upon me to write about them and speak for them, even as my own cynicism and fear blocked that idea.

I do not know what animals thing or what the horses might have sensed or felt walking beneath the tree where a person they loved and were deeply connected to died just a few days ago. Paul’s spirit and presence were palpable around that tree, if I sensed it, the horses, with their exquisite instincts and senses, surely did. Paul was everywhere in that circle.

In his honor, I will work to be more open to it. Maria rode on Luna, one of the draft horses, and it was an extraordinary thing to see her up there on that big horse, confident and comfortable. The horses are speaking to us in so many different ways.

Pamela Moshimer Richenbackfollowed Native-American tradition this weekend. There were four days of grieving, and a fire, tended by a firekeeper, that burned for four days and nights. For 24 hours a day, people who wished to grieve for Paul or say goodbye to him could come to the fire, out in a windswept pasture near where Paul died. Each was circled with burning sage smoke, and could sit by the fire for as long as they wished.

It was a beautiful and spiritual place to be, there was silent prayer and beautiful Native-American chants. Just a few yards away was the tree where Paul died, where his body was found. There was a firekeeper who stayed with the fire from Thursday to Sunday. Paul and Pamela were intensely connected to Native-American culture and tradition, Blue Star’s very name came from the Blue Star Prophecy, which called for new beginnings to save the earth, restore harmony among people and keep the animals among us.

Here, Maria and I sat for hours. I got to think about the death of my friend, his decision to take his own life, and to do so where he loved to walk and ride and farm every day of his life. This was sacred ground to him, on so many different levels. I was shaken as everywhere I went this weekend, people came up to me, to meet me and tell them how much I meant to Paul, how deeply he felt our friendship, how excited he was about the things we might do together.

I did not know how to feel about that, it was beautiful and painful to hear. I learned a lot this weekend about Paul, his life, and the things that were pressing down on him, from the past and from the present. I am beginning to comprehend it, and yes, also to feel guilty about it. I can’t help but think I should have seen or felt something, if I had been paying attention. But Paul was a smart and wise human being, he didn’t want help, he did not want to burden me or anyone with his suffering and pain.

Pamela was inspiring all week, a person of great warmth, feeling and love. She kept dragging me over to Paul’s computer to show me the videos that reminded him of me, that made him think of me. I imagine he had some for all of his friends. And he had a lot of friends, they came all weekend from all lover to say goodbye to him, think of him, honor him.

People told me Paul had saved their lives as a fireman, as a friend, as an inspiration. What a big heart and soul he had.

My time at the fire was precious, there was something holy about it, something beautiful and healing. Paul did not belong to any one thing or person, I saw, he belonged to many things. But there is no question that Blue Star was his home, his destination. I imagine that he simply ran out of the will to live in the world, it had never been simple or easy for him, there is no doubt in my mind that Blue Star was the best it ever was. I am grateful he got to experience it.

Maria worked hard all weekend to help care for the horses, and to support Pamela in this hard time. She will write about her experiences there when she is ready.

The New York Carriage Drivers all put blue feathers on their horses to honor Paul and remember him, that was a generous thing to do. Paul was passionately committed to the cause of the carriage drivers, to keeping them in New York. I can’t say I know what was in his mind, but I believe the cruelty and rage directed at Blue Star by people who call themselves animal activists – they oppose work for animals, they consider it cruel and abusive, whether it is a carriage horse or a pony giving rides to children or a border collie herding sheep.

Paul, I learned, admired me for fighting for the carriage horses, as so many other people have. I remember when Paul and Pamela had to put down a horse they both loved dearly, and they were immediately and cruelly set up on by people who called the police, demanded to see veterinary records and demanded – with no evidence of any wrongdoing – that they be investigated because an old horse had died.

There was no evidence of any kind of wrongdoing, but the fact that he and Pamela were called upon to defend themselves as they grieved the loss of an animal they both loved upset him, as did hate messages and other accusations. I think it hurt him quite a bit, I know it made his heavy load even heavier.

Paul was a strong and formidable man, he men was very much afraid of his own size and anger, he did not want to be the kind of man who intimidated people. I prayed for his gentle soul to rest in peace, I hope he will find a way to communicate with me – I think if the horses can do it, people can do it – and let me know how to understand his loss.

Pamela and I talked for hours, we love and respect one another greatly.  She is a remarkable person, strong and full of love and faith, surrounded by countless people who love and admire here. She says she has a lot of work to do, and will set about doing it shortly. Life, in all of it’s crisis and mystery, will not defeat her, and I will never pity her.

We spent the weekend, along with many others, trying to say goodbye to Paul Moshimer, a friend and the co-director of Blue Star Equiculture, a draft horse rescue and retirement farm, an organic farming research center,  and a powerful place of connection for many people.

In some ways, Ruth diBuono, a University of Massachusetts student who loves Blue Star and works there as often as she can, and Doug Anderson, a decorated poet and war veteran, are at opposite ends of life.  They are different in so many ways, yet the Blue Star idea suggest that they are, in so many ways one, connected to people, connected to the horses. Blue Star has become a focal point for both of their lives.

It s very typical of Blue Star that Paul and Pamela Moshimer Richenback’s vision of a community that loves and celebrates human and animal life, and respects the earth,  brought them together. There, people who are very different love and care for one another, share their souls with one another. That is the miracle that Paul and Pamela wrought.

Doug and Ruth met recently, they were both drawn to the farm and share a love for it and the people and horses there. That is a powerful bond. Both mean to get even closer and help Blue Star through it’s challenge and transition. Their connection is inspiring to me.

Ruth and Doug were very close to Paul. Doug was one of Paul’s closest friends, his death is a great loss to him,  and both are struggling to accept and understand it. Paul was a mentor and friend to Ruth, she is already figuring out how to help Pamela and the farm. They also joined hundreds of other people this weekend to say goodbye in many different ways. In Native-American tradition, there were four days of public mourning, a fire that burned from Thursday to Sunday evening, a farmhouse kitchen bursting with food that scores of people prepared and brought.  And then the horses, who were quiet and restless, picking up the emotion and intense energy, as animals will do.

A weekend of laughter, tears, ceremony and ritual, death and rebirth, courage and strength. This image was one of the first I saw when Maria and I came to the farm on Friday to say goodbye to Paul and stand with Pamela.