It’s warm this week the ice in the pond where Fate skates is melting you can actually see the line between the hard and soft ice beginning right behind her rear legs.
A number of people have messaged me (very nicely, we have come a long way) to ask if I am worried about her falling in, if I might feel safer and wiser by calling her back. I have thought about it. As you know, I do not wish to live in a fearful way in the fearful world, nor do I wish to be stupid and see Fate fall through the ice or have to go plunge in after her.
I trust Fate, she has very good instincts, she walked out onto the soft part of the ice and we all heard a slight crackling. She perked her ears, stopped, then turned around and came back. She knew what she was doing, given the chance, she made the right choice.
We can never really know if all of our decisions are safe and wise, living on a farm has its own risks – falling, getting kicked, ice and mud, getting cut on wires, knocked down by panicked sheep running from dogs, handling logs and hammers and sharp tools. I can’t count how many times I’ve fallen on ice (please don’t tell me about those trax shoes, etc., thanks, they do not work in mud and ice and manure).
I have lived with working dogs for two decades now, and i can say I have come to trust them and their judgement. None has gone into a road without permission, none has been seriously hurt, none has fallen through ice or gotten lost in the woods. Most dogs don’t get the chance to get smarter because their lives are so constricted by leashes, restrictions, laws and fear. They have few decisions to make.
I try and let my dogs make as many decisions as possible, I love seeing them grow smarter over their lives.
We live in the Fearful World, social media is full of warnings and alarms, quite a bit of hysteria. I don’t chose to live in that world, and there is always that fine line between having perspective and being reckless. Fate was walking on it today, she turned and came back. She knows where the line is.
I’ve been in search of a spiritual life as long as I can remember, it led me to leave the ordinary world behind and set out on my journey, which led me here, to Maria, to the animals. There has always been a mystical element to my life, and I have never been entirely clear about how to express it.
The two most consistent sources of my spiritual search in recent years have been the late Trappist, Thomas Merton, one of the great spiritual writers of all time, and the writings of the Kabbalah, the mystical and beautiful texts of unknown Hebrew writers and prophets. I return to both, again and again, when I am hurting, confused, in need of grounding and inspiration. They always work for me in one way or another.
Merton was a devout Christian, which I am not, but I am curiously drawn to the writings of the Christian writers who are tied to the spirit and good will of Jesus Christ, unlike so many people in our time who use his name to promote war, hatred, and disregard for the poor. His message, as I understand it, has always resonated with me and inspired me to be a better human being.
The Kabbalah is a joyous trip, a different and very creative kind. I love the writing of the mystics, full of love, sex, demons, quarrelsome angels, wise donkeys, mystical poems and songs, a troubled God trying to make sense out of his difficult and unpredictable creations, us humans.
This week, I have been reading two things, Merton’s writings about our Bodiy of Broken Bones, and the Kabbalah texts about the Canopy Of Peace, the beautiful and very timely idea for a time of real rest and inspiration, the first Sabbath. I love both ideas, even though I am even less connected to Judaism than I am to much of Christianity.
Sometimes, when I watch the news and feel fear and sorrow at the words and images I see, I turn to Merton and/or the Kabbalah. I can hardly believe how relevant they are. I guess that is how spirituality works, it is always relevant, it is not about today only. The idea of the resetting of broken bones has helped me come to terms with our world, with our news. With my life.
Merton – and other Christian scholars – wrote about the body of Christ, broken by Pontius Pilate and the Pharisees. His broken body is reflected in the bodies of human beings, “by the devils in the agony of that disunion which is bred and vegetates in our souls prone to selfishness and sin.”
Merton struggled, as I do and you do, to understand the dark nature of some human beings, the ugliness in the world.
Our idea of faith, he writes, is massacred in Christ’s broken bones, God is murdered in men. In violence and war and conflict. The sometimes cruel history of the world, he writes, is expressed in the division that tyrannizes our souls. We seek to reset our own broken bones.
We all have our broken bones, and this is where I connect very much with his writing. I am conscious of my life as a series of broken bones, my pain and suffering, my fear and confusion. Love is the “resetting of a body of broken bones.” Even saints cannot live with saints on the earth without anguish, wrote Merton, without some pain over their differences. This is the drama of being human, of accepting our world.
“There are two things which men can do about the pain of disunion with other men,” Merton writes.”They can love or they can hate.”
Hatred refuses the pain of reunion, of healing. Hatred tries to cure disunion by annihilating those who are different from us. Love, by its acceptance of the pain and struggle of reunion, begins to heal all wounds.
And so that becomes the choice, do I want to stay broken, or do I want to move on?
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The Kabbalah gave me a different sense of healing and spiritual grounding.
I found a passage today that described a plague of spirits unleashed on the world, defective spirits, all deriving from the left side, thus invisible to human beings, whom they menacingly confront.
“The world must defend itself against them,” write the mystics, “for then the entire left side is aroused, fire of Hell flashes, and all denizens of the left roam the world, craving to clothe themselves in a body but they cannot..a song of maleficent spirits has been prescribed for whenever their dread prevails in the world.”
I understand. I have always had a song of maleficent spirits, from the time I was five, I sing to myself to keep to fend off the evil spirits, I can’t reveal it or it will lose it’s power I’m told.
So God responds to this stress and travail. He creates a day of rest, he calls it the Canopy Of Peace.
“Come and see,” write the mystics. “When the day is hallowed at the entrance of Sabbath, a canopy of peace hovers, spreading all over the world, when all spirits, whirlwinds, demons and the entire dimension of impurity are hidden away within the eye of the millstone of the chasm of the immense abyss. For as soon as holiness arouses over the world, the spirit of impunity cannot arouse; one flees the other. Then the world enjoys supernal shelter, and we need not pray for protection.”
This canopy, say the writers, is prescribed for weekdays as well.
I love both of these ideas, the resetting of the Body Of Broken Bones, the Canopy Of Peace. Both acknowledge the suffering and pain that sometimes erupts in the world, both offer hope and solutions. I have spent much of my life resetting my broken bones, I am only beginning to see how spiritual an experience that is.
And the Canopy Of Peace is one of my central ideas about spirituality, I didn’t have the right words for it. My life is too complex for a formal Sabbath, an entire day away from my busy and distracting world, I don’t think I can manage it now, but am still eager to try one day.
But I find the Canopy of Peace at many different times. When I sit out with the donkeys, when I take a beautiful photogoraph, when I close my eyes and meditate, when I write something from the heart, when I walk in the woods, when I hold Maria’s hand and am still, when I lie next to her in bed and feel her love and warmth for me.
Sometimes, when I herd the sheep with the dogs.
I think the Canopy of Peace is always available to me – perhaps to you too – to fend off the invisible spirits who menacingly confront us, isn’t that the nature of life.
I thank you for letting me share my spiritual searching with you, I’d like to do it regularly, I am, in my sixth decade, just learning to give voice to it.
Fate is getting stronger in her herding, her style remains unorthodox and fast paced, but she has great fun and gets the sheep where she needs to move them. They are respecting her more, although Liam is challenging her these days. Red just bites him on the nose when he acts up, but Fate has never put her mouth on a sheep, which is okay by me.
She has great eye and great verve, and there is much joy in everything she does. The joy dog.
A friend brought me some beautiful flowers from New York City, and Maria put them on top of the toilet in our newly-repainted bathroom, which is a warm splash of color and brightness. It is a warm winter, but still winter, and today is cold and rainy and colorless, and I always feel that acutely, I am a warrior for color and light.
I was moving this flowers all over the house to try to figure out how to photograph them, and it suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t need to move them, they ought to be photographed right where they live, a burst of warmth and color and light, this photograph reached down to my heart.
It is a symbol for life, I think, at least to me, I moved nearly a score of times in my life, always seeking something, yearning for something. I realized one day I didn’t need to move all the time, I needed to stand my ground and live my life right where it was. And since then, I have never thought of moving and the painful yearning has left me.
I th ink the same is true for this especially beautiful flowers, they have brought color and light to me when I need it, and they don’t need to move around to be beautiful either. The toilet seat will do fine.
Minnie and Flo have both won their long and patient campaign to get into the farmhouse on cold nights. It’s not that hard if Maria is the person opening the door, I suppose, but we did hold the line, until Minnie got her leg amputated and then Flo began her year-long campaign to charm me and win me over. It was successful.
The barn cats are still barn cats, which makes me happy. I love the mysticism and independence of the barn cat. But on nasty days like today – cold, driving rain- we let them in. For the longest time, Minnie and Flo had little to do with one another. Flo hissed at Minnie and swatted at her when she got close.
That has changed. Minnie and Flo are often seen touching noses, sunning on the porch together, and sharing one of the living room chairs. It is pretty sweet to see. Cats know how to get comfortable.
