Day: November 8, 2015

We finished up the first, but not the last blogging workshop, one of the better ideas I have had about teaching. Pamela Rickenbach got her compelling new blog up and running and had more than 2,000 hits by lunchtime Sunday. She was up half the night blogging, she is a natural.

Pamela means for her blog, yacu-colorino.org to be a place of advocacy for the horses, who are in great danger in America now, and also as a journal of her own remarkable and very moving and inspiring life. Her thoughts on the horses and their power to change us mesmerized all of us today.

More good news. Ken Norman, our friend and farrier, and his wife Eli Anita-Norman, have decided to collaborate on their own blog, they both came to the workshop today to get some ideas and listen to the discussion. That will be a great blog, Ken has a lot of important things to say, and has learned so much about horses and the lives of animals. He is a resolute supporter of peole who live and work with animals, he is a ferocious advocate for horses.  Can’t wait to work with him on his new blog.

Ed and Carol Gulley, our friends and dairy farmers, are also planning to start their own blog, Ed will write about his art and he and Carol will write about the lives of farmers. They couldn’t make it today, but are drawn to the idea of their own space online, their own reflections.

The people attending the blog had some exciting plans to show their art, their ideas, their creativity with new blogs, I felt the room caught fire. We all helped one another, listened to one another, learned a lot. This weekend has altered some of my ideas on teaching, I want to teach a small group of committed people, and rather than just meet once, I will stay with them until their complete their creative visions and are happy with them. A kind of living, evolving class.

This group will be meeting again after the holidays and as often as they wish until they accomplish what they set out to do. And their plans are ambitious and exciting. I think a good teacher must get to know his students in order to help them. The shy Beth Heffern is getting focused on her rich and evolving photography, Sandy Van Dyk wants a blog on color and healing, Carol Conklin, the brilliant batik artist, wants to share and show and sell more of her art online, she is exhausted from rushing from one craft show to another, Rachel Barlow wants to balance her writing and sketching, Jackie Thorne wants to liberate her very creative impulses and share her poetry, writing and photography.

So it went. A lot of ships setting sail. The blog is a powerful new tool for people seeking to find their voice and free the powerful spirits that live inside all of us. We don’t need corporate approval to share our work and ideas, we can do it ourselves, and for free.

Fate is a young dog, she has been trying to handle a small flock of sheep who have been butting her, challenging her, defying her for months. This is natural, I had a herding trainer come and watch her with me to make sure she wasn’t getting intimidated by the sheep or frightened by them, we both saw that she wasn’t, she has so much instinct and drive, she kept coming and coming, she never came close to quitting.

Today, for the first time, when Zelda put her head down and lunged at her, Fate came forward, and held her ground. She showed Zelda her teeth, the act of a predator who intimidates the sheep into backing up and going where she tells them to go. Border collies are a breed that has had the final steps of prey drive – grab and kill – bred out of them, well bred and trained border collies will correct and challenge a sheep by biting them on the nose, or threatening to.

Fate, like Red, is appropriate with the sheep, she has never tried to bite them or grab wool, but today, for the first time, she threatened to do just that if Zelda didn’t back off an Zelda, our toughest sheep, did back off. It was special moment for us, not because Fate bared her teeth, but because it was a beautiful culmination of her very hard work every single day, her patience and responsiveness with me, and my own patience and determination to work well with her.

Dr. Karen Thompson gave me a great and precious gift when she permitted Fate (and Red) to come live with us, I will not squander it or dishonor it by doing anything less than giving this dog the life she was meant to live.  Like Red, some wonderful breeder in Wales – he came from Northern Ireland – did their work and well, as did Karen.

Working with her has been a joy, and it will only get better. Fate is coming of age, a turning point in the life of the working dog. She is seven months old and the trainer who came to see her was full of praise for her and the work we are doing. His advice to work with Fate in enclosed spaces – like the Pole Barn so she could strengthen her eye – was valuable and has been paying off.  I admire and respect this dog, and love her as well, handful that she is.

Some years ago, I created a group called the Open Group at Bedlam Farm on Facebook, it is now called the Creative Group at Bedlam Farm. Even on the group, people often ask me why I created it, and what it is really about. I can’t offer any better answer than to point to a piece by Susan Popper, a writer and photographer and member of the group. it is called “How I Saved My Life,” and the title precisely reflects the story, which is about her painful decision to leave her husband, an addict, more than a decade ago, to leave him and her work to rebuild her life.

The piece is important on many levels. It will, I believe, have a profound effect Susan, a medical tech worker who lives in Long Island, and many of the people who get to read it. It will affirm her desire to write and be creative in her life, and her difficult decision to live her own life. To save it.

Creativity has saved and altered my life also, it gave me voice and strength and a way to heal and understand my life, to reclaim it from pain and sorrow and fear. The same is true of Maria. Susan is brave to write such a piece, and the idea of the Creative Group was to create a community where she might feel encouraged to do so and safe to do so. The fact that she was able to write this piece and publish it confirms for me the idea that true community is possible, and can work, even in the polarized and angry and violent world that sometimes seems to swirl around us.

Sadly, the communities of the Internet too often reflect the hostility and cruelty that are inherent in the human condition.

My passion for blogs does not come from a love of technology, but an appreciation for how creativity can heal, give voice and identity. That is why we are having a blogging weekend for Pamela Rickenbach of Blue Star and for others. Susan has opened a big door for herself, she has come out, shed something she hid for many years and did not know how to talk about. You can read it for yourself. And if you share my feeling about it, or even if you don’t, please feel free to let Susan know.

Even on the group, there has been the perhaps inevitable anger and conflict and politics that seems to infect every gathering of human beings anywhere. I have been disappointed in the anger and pettiness that sometimes surfaces there, in them, and sometimes in me.

But that is rare. It is a safe place, hostility is not tolerated.

The group is not for people who are afraid to express themselves – they will need to deal with that themselves, in the appropriate way, with the appropriate healers. I do not mean for the group to offer therapy, that is unethical to me, that is something professionals need to treat, as I have learned. I meant for the group to offer encouragement and safety. That is what Susan has said she found there. No one, surely not me, can make someone else be creative.

That is up to them. We cannot rescue other people, we can only cheer them along their path.In the past few years, this has become a direction for Maria and myself, something we both believe in and care about. I am overwhelmed to see how many artists Maria has inspired and encouraged and uplifted. Sacred work for an angel.

Susan’s piece is a triumph for her, for the idea of a safe and creative community. It is also a skillfully crafted piece of writing. She has shed the drama of it, there is no self-pity or lament, she is not seeking soothing or sympathy.  It is so very real, something it is difficult for many to achieve. It is a simple and straightforward piece of life, a reminder of the pain and challenge that is never unique to us, but inherent in life itself. It can be understood and overcome.

Coming out in this way,  as Susan has done, freeing oneself from the strictures of a fearful and aspiritual culture is not simple or easy It took Susan years to do it. She said it was one of the most difficult things she has ever done. In the Kabbalah, God says he has given every human being the creative spark. Those who chose to live honor it.

The creative spark is coming alive in Susan for some time, she has set out in recent months to re-discover Brooklyn, N.Y., a place she remembers as a child. Her photographs have been poignant and striking, she is learning who she is and telling us through her work.

The group is for the Susan Poppers of the world, determined to free their inner spirits, show up for life, find their voice in any medium – painting, writing, photography, art, Batik, fiber, poetry – and stand up to the world and say “my story is important, and I will tell it in any way that works for me, and face the world head on and with no shame and apology.” I called Susan this morning and talked with her, and we were both much moved.

I told her I believe her  life will be different for her from now on, not perfect, but different. I can’t wait to see her tell us how.

It is not often you get to read about how someone who is so self-aware saved her life. Check it out.