Day: July 9, 2015

Fate has a houseful of toys and treats and beds and bones, but it was perhaps inevitable that some would come to her from the outside world. She is already a much loved puppy, and she has only with with us for a month or so. She is, in fact, inherently lovable and although I discourage people from sending gifts here – I once had a barn full – this one was from of our friend Nancy Gallimore, a gifted writer, animal lover,  and member of the Creative Group At Bedlam Farm, to send Fate a stuffed sheep.

Fate loved it, dragged it around the yard, tossed it up into the air, began gnawing on it, stalking it and pouncing on it. It will not last long, I fear. “Welcome to the family,” Nancy wrote. “You may not know it but you have a lot of adopted aunts and uncles who adore you. My dogs and I know you are working very hard to become a brave, clever herding dog. We thought this toy would give you extra practice. Much love Nancy and the Okie dogs.”

I always need to be  reminded at times – when a dog comes, when a dog leaves – that my dogs are not mine alone, they belong to a wider world, and no one is responsible for that but me, I write about them, share my life with them, take photos of them. You can’t do that and not expect people to care about the animals who become a part of their lives.

I am happy to share Fate with all of you, she is deserving of it and worth it, just as Rose was and Lenore was and Frieda was and Izzy was and Orson was and Red is. That is our connection, the continuum that shapes our lives and hearts. Fate is a monumental spirit and fierce personality, she is already a great dog and she is just beginning to grow up. She has enriched Maria’s life, she loves being with her in her studio, walking with her in the woods. She is just what Maria hoped for, me too.

The pirate in me loves the pirate in  her. So thanks for the sheep, Nancy, Fate is appreciating it very much.

On Saturday, from noon to 5 p.m., a remembrance for Paul Moshimer, my friend and the friend of many, a great lover of  animals, the husband of Pamela Moshimer RIckenbach, the co-director of the mystical Blue Star Equiculture farm,  will be held at Blue Star in Palmer, Mass., from noon to 5 p.m.

Maria and I will be there. I am so sorry Paul did not get to read Pope Francis’s very powerful encyclical on the future of the earth, the first thing I thought when I read it was that I wished I could have talked to Paul about it, it would have given him hope for his own dreams, for the future of the horses and all of the animals, for his beloved Mother Earth, for whom he worked day and night.

We are all connected to each other, Paul told me again and again. He would have loved the vision of Pope  Francis, he spoke Paul’s heart.

“Everything is related,” wrote  Francis in “Laudato Si,”and we human beings are united as brothers and sisters on a wonderful pilgrimage, woven together by the love God has for each of his creatures and which also unites us in fond affection with brother sun, sister moon, brother river and mother earth.”

Paul was a spiritual man, I believe, not a religious man, he worshiped the idea of the better man, the peaceful man, the loving man, the kind and gentle man. He heard the call of the horses for harmony and to heed the wounded cries of our Mother, the earth. When Paul’s world comes to pass, and we meet him there,  it will be a gentle and healing place, not a greedy and violent and disconnected one.  And the animals and the people will live in  harmony, and the earth will be healed. Paul was a holy man in his own way with his own writ.

I think sometimes the world was simply not ready for him, for people like him.

In the weeks before he chose to leave the world, Paul was concerned about a young farmer named Joshua Rockwood who was arrested by police in his upstate New York town during the worst cold wave in recent American history. Joshua was charged with 13 counts of animal cruelty and neglect, including citations for having frozen water streams and bowls, an unheated barn, and inadequate amounts of feed the police and officials of the humane society decided he ought to have for his pigs.

Paul felt, as I do, that the charges against Joshua, a loving and honest farmer,  were unjust. Paul came to New York to attend one of Joshua’s court hearings, he called me days before he died to offer to drive to New York with his horse trailer and bring home the three horses that officials seized from Joshua’s farm during their raid. Make sure Joshua knows there would be no charge, he said.

This was very much the way Paul lived. He cared deeply about people, he helped many,  and had the rare quality of empathy and intuition. Justice was important to him, he was willing to suffer for it, he was willing  to hold out a hand and heart to others. Thomas Paine might been writing about Paul when he wrote “I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.”

Paul and I had bonded in many ways, one of the most enduring connections was our anguish over the persecution of farmers, the poor, people who lived with working animals, with the horses,  at the hands of the new animal movement that claims to speak for the rights of animals but does not,  which he and I both believed has become a new kind of inquisition in many ways, a cruel and cold social movement he could not abide, and which managed to hurt him and those he loved deeply and continuously.

Paul saw that we needed a better understanding of animals than this, a better love of human beings than this, that we had to be better than this. In the name of animals, in the name of people. That was the Next Step, The Third Way, the idea behind Blue Star that he and Pamela shared so passionately.  We live, he believed, in fond affection for brother sun, sister moon, brother river, mother earth. And for our brothers and sisters.

So this is a man worth considering and remembering, an idea that deserves to live. It is not for me to judge or even comprehend how he chose to say goodbye, but goodbyes always have  two sides to them, and I have the right to mine. Go in peace and compassion Paul, I pray that you find what you want and need in whatever world and space you have chosen to occupy. I know that some day, in a time and place of your own choosing, when we meet once again, it will be in that better world,  the world of your dreams and passions, a world of your visions and love.There, the better man will live and prosper, not in a patriarchy any longer but in the community of people and the brotherhood of humans and animals.

You planted some powerful seeds, they will grow and grow and grow. Just look around here today, they already are.

There, in that world, you will find a way to say goodbye, to me, to your many friends and family members, to Pamela, the powerful army of the young that you nurtured and guided here, to the horses you came to love so much.

The remembering ceremony is open to the public, but you don’t need to be there to celebrate Paul’s life. There is no better way to honor Paul and to remember him than to help Blue Star fulfill it’s promise and his dream.

The doe rushed stricken to the other side,

did not make it there,

oh no, said the man in the truck,

are you okay?

The trooper came up, shouted

at us to get away from the car,

there was smoke,

the doe lay in the road,

a trickle of blood from her mouth,

I did not tell them,

could not, that the deer had become a thought,

and the thought had turned into a beautiful woman,

full of magic and love.

The deer trembled in the road,

brown eyes wide and surprised,

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,

I said, my dear, my dear,

may you leave us in peace,

and become a prayer,

may prayer become your beautiful lover,

you will be an angel soon,

and we dragged her to the other side,

where she was so eager to go,

and she trembled and shook one last time,

and became free of this world,

and of the people who had stopped seeing her,

so long ago,

she had been hiding forever.

In the meadow, a field of day lilies bending in the wind, a sea of shimmering color.