Day: February 14, 2016

Lao Tzu said that life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them, that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.

An Internet marketer messaged me last week and cautioned me not to write too much about aging or death, younger people would turn away from my website. Not true, I replied, more young people than old respond to my writing about aging and mortality, they want to understand it before it is upon them.

And besides, my writing goes where my life goes, I don’t market to one group or another. I just want people who like to think.

Wise words from Lao Tzu, important to hear, difficult to practice. This weekend, a big step towards acceptance for me, and a hard one. We had a serious blast with frigid weather this weekend, it was a bone-chilling cold.

For a year or so, I’ve getting e-mails from our utility warning me about extreme weather.  And some cautions from doctors about living intelligently. Corporations have become practiced in the marketing art of pretending to care about people while not caring about people at all.

I don’t think they are fooling anyone, they are certainly not fooling me.

My electric company has amassed enough personal information about me to warn me via e-mail Friday that temperatures would fall so sharply that all-time records would be broken. The wind chill could be as low as -45 degrees. If you are above 65, or have a history of heart disease and are taking prescription medicines, do not go outside, they cautioned. This kind of cold can be life-threatening. Get someone to help you.

I usually sent back a snotty and defiant response to these messages, I am numb to alarms and hysteria and don’t choose to live by either. I don’t need the utility to make decisions for me, and it is none of their business whether or not I go outside in cold weather.

But the weather was cold enough to bite.

Maria and I went out for Valentine Day brunch this morning and we decided to walk down Main Street a bit, it was only two or three blocks to the food co-op and then back. The temperature was – 8 and the wind was cutting.

After ten minutes or so, I felt drained, soon I was exhausted. The hands and feet that were frostbitten at the first Bedlam Farm screamed in protest. My skin seemed frozen, I could barely move my mouth.  I couldn’t wait to get into the car.

This morning, Maria pleaded with me to let her go out and do the farm chores while I stayed inside, I couldn’t let  her do it, I got dressed and followed her out.

The ground was so icy my footing was difficult, my formerly frostbitten fingers and toes throbbed. I simply couldn’t accept the idea that I couldn’t do the farm chores  – haul heavy buckets, shovel manure, carry hay. I couldn’t abide the idea of letting Maria do this all by herself.

Today, I went out. I slipped on the ground, I broke the pasture gate and when I got inside I had to lie down, it was hard to breathe in that cold, Maria swathed me in blankets and brought me tea. She went back out into the cold to fix the fence. Some powerful feelings began to stir and shake inside of me.

Here, trying to be strong, I was just another form of invalid. I was selfish and closed up.

In the afternoon, when it was time for the evening chores and to grain the animals for the cold night approach, I started to get dressed, to get into my heavy boots. “No,” she said, “You are not going out again. You are staying in. If you don’t stay in, I won’t go out either.” I got angry. Why was everyone telling me what I can and can’t do? I am not decrepit or crippled. I won’t let other people define me in this way, I’m not prepared to accept that there are limits to what I can and can’t do on the farm and in what kind of weather.

She was insistent, I could see the concern in her eyes. Why wasn’t I hearing it?

Then, I began to see the truth.

Maria was trying to tell me something I didn’t want to hear, was struggling to accept. But was true.  I am in good health now and have plenty of energy. I am also beginning to be old. I have fallen down on the ice, and it is hard for me to breathe well in this kind of cold. Some of it is my body, some of it is the prescription medications I take for my heart. Being outside drains me like bathtub water rushing down an open drain.

Maria has to worry about me as much as the animals. Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes, and I am in the middle of some big ones. There is no point in resisting them, it only creates sorrow and regret. Let reality be reality. Accept aging with grace, not defiance, with truth, not denial. Listen to the people who love me and let things flow naturally in whatever way life presents.

It is not awful to be getting old, it is awful to be in denial about it. I am just another kind of liar if I can’t see where I am, if I can’t see myself mirrored in the eyes of others. That is what it means to be blind, not strong.

Wise words from Lao Tzu, I’ve read them before, it is time to understand and accept them. And yes, there is sorrow. Not once, in all the years that I have lived here did I once imagine a time when I could not go outside and help run the farm in even the coldest and most extreme kind of weather.

I was sad and mournful sitting in the living room, watching Maria and Red and Fate go out of the house and walk outside towards the pasture. I sat and closed my eyes and listened to the animals call out in excitement, heard the barn door slide open heard Maria call to the dogs, talk to her pony and donkeys, even heard the water splashing in the bucket.
I heard her shout commands to the dogs and then, maybe 15 minutes later, she came in with the dogs, who rushed over the me. I just wanted to cry.

I did not. Maria was happy, relieved that she could do this while I stayed inside. She is  younger than I am, she is fit and loves the farm chores, cherishes feeding and being with the animals, directing the dogs. This time has passed me by, this kind of a day. For once, the electric company was right, even though it is still none of their business.

Imagine it or not, the day had come. I was there, at the bridge.

Maria would not lie to me. It is time to accept that there are some things on the farm that I cannot do any longer. Among those things are staying outside for long periods of time hauling water and hay in sub-zero temperatures with dangerous wind chills. I will be doing no one any favors of I fall on the ice and break some bones slip hauling heavy water buckets or gasp for air in wind so cold it is hard for my lungs to breathes. I do not care to be a stubborn macho man, but one who sees and accepts truth, and works to deal with it well, not deny it.

So that is a big step towards wisdom and acceptance. I am beginning to be old. I can do almost all of the things I love to do – write, hike and walk, make love, take photos, read, go to the movies,  help with farm chores on days that are not brutally hot or brutally cold.I can have a piece of dark chocolate every single day. My writing is just beginning to feel good to me.

And there are some things that I cannot do, and I will not fight or deny them.

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. The kind of man I wish to be bows his head to the laws of life, and gives thanks for living, and lives in grace.

Sometimes life brings me joy, sometimes it brings me grief, I hold life like a beautiful flower in my hands, between my palms, I look at it directly, no charming smiles, no fancy rationales, no slick evasions.

Yes, I say, I will take  you in my hands and I will love you, again and again.

We went to see George Forss at his Ginofor Gallery today, I haven’t seen George in a couple of months and have missed him greatly. He is very busy as usual, George is unstoppable, writing political tracts and analysis, publishing a book of his mother’s photographs, working on a new book of his own.

George is one of the world’s most famous and accomplished landscape photographers, it is valuable just to watch him hold a camera.

George is a marvel, a miracle, he looks great is happily engaged in the making of art and beautiful photographs. We brought him some Valentine’s Day cookies. We have both been busy and distracted lately, but I need George in my life, he is a great friend and an inspiration.

For us, a very powerful tradition continues, and you are invited. We are holding two Open Houses at Bedlam Farm this year, the first is in the Spring, June 25-26, the second will be on Columbus Day Weekend in October, as usual.

This year, a very special celebration for us, we are celebrating three things: Art, Creativity and Rural Life.

We plan to have a shearing demonstration, regular sheepherding herding demonstrations with Fate and Red. This is what we are about, our lives are the subtext and we are proud to share them with you.

Ed Gulley will bring a dairy cow to the farm to show us how they are milked.  He will also talk about the life of a dairy farmer, and the struggles of the small family farm. Pamela Rickenbach is planning to come with two of her big and beautiful draft horses. Ken Norman will be trimming horse and donkey hooves.

You can also get to meet Fate and Red, a baby calf named Maria, a Haflinger-Welsh pony (Chloe) and the veteran crowd-loving donkeys, Lulu and Fanny. Flo the barn cat loves Open Houses.

I imagine there will be some other animals and events as well. I will also be on hand to meet you and talk about my blog, my life and my upcoming book projects.

We’ll be offering regular tours of the pasture and Pole Barn, and Scott Carrino will be here to talk about and demonstrate his Tai Chi and movement practices.

Maria will be selling the works of a number of gifted artists from around our region, lots of wonderful and original art, inexpensive and exciting.. There will be talks and poetry readings. I think it will be special this year, Maria and I are both committed to it and excited about it. The Spring Open Houses tend to be a bit quieter than the October ones, but we have plenty of space and lots of things to see and do. The best place to find details (schedule, events good local places to stay) is on Maria’s Events Page on her blog.

You are invited to our home to share our lives and work and creativity. Maria will be talking about her art as well. The Open House is free, we will be asking for a $5 donation (not required) to help us defray the costs of hosting. No dogs, please, there will be portable toilet facilities, good food right down the road in Cambridge. There are lots of lovely places to stay around here, Maria lists them on her blog. Thanks and hope to see some of you here.

Maria gave me my Valentine’s Day card this morning, I loved it. “You Gave My Heart Wings.” Mine too.

The carriage horse supporters in New York  City are understandably  gloating over the humiliation of the humiliation of their mayor, the evil conjurer who is already promising to come back to try and destroy them again. The mayor has embraced his new role as the Snidely Whiplash of the animal world. It is clear to the rest of the world that this is the wrong side to be on, but not yet clear to him. Perhaps next time.

On the blogs and websites of the carriage people, it’s  like Dorothy and her pals celebrating the demise of the Great Wizard. Except the Great Wizard is still behind his curtain – “no one gets to see the wizard” – pulling his levers, and he offers no joy for animals or the people who love and work with them.

In the background, the horses whisper to us humans: do better than this.

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For me, victory is a long ways off, and it is, I think, a much bigger  thing now than the mayor or the carriage trade, or even than New York City itself, one of the great stages of the world.

For me, victory would be a world in which government, citizens, animal lovers and advocates embrace the need to think very differently about animals, or we will continue to drive them from our world. It is too late for so many species, it is not too late for the horses.

The most painful thing about the New York Carriage Horse controversy is that it should never have happened, and it ought never to happen again, even as the mayor gets ready to do just that. We are far from victory, passionate but unknowing animal rights activists all over America – Chicago, Philadelphia, Charlotte – are working to make the same dreadful mistake the mayor was prevented from making at the very last minute.

The truth has trickled out beyond the arguments, blogs, political  maneuvering and labor politics.Truth is like that, if you believe in it, it will always triumph over hatred and ignorance. It just may take a while. The trick is to not become what you hate.

The horses belong in New York, they are safe and healthy and much loved. The biologist Jared Diamond was correct, the big horses were bred to be in cities, they belong there, they are better suited than any other domesticated animal to live and work with us, and be our partners in the joys and travails of the world again.

The great irony is that the people in the carriage trade have figured out how to do it, they have made it work. They are smart and tough. And unlike their tormentors, they changed when they needed to change.

Many drivers and carriage owners will concede privately that back in the 1980’s, some of the horses were not treated as well as horses are today. Some were not treated well at all. Facing an animal rights movement that was beginning to target them, they chose to reform. They proposed new regulations and procedures far more stringent than anyone was even demanding.

They  began to change their story, their experiment has great import and meaning for animals, if we can just see it.

They cut back on the working hours of the horses, agreed to temperature restrictions far more severe than horses anywhere – especially in the wild – live under. They cleaned up the stables, offered five weeks of vacation, hired more stable help,  opened themselves up to regular inspections, accepted scores of new regulations. They became what veterinarians everywhere described as a model for how domesticated animals can be treated and kept in cities safely, humanely and productively.

The people in the carriage trade had better motivation that anyone –  certainly than the mayor or the animal rights groups – their very livelihood and future depended on treating the horses well. And they worked hard to do it. There are very few animals in the world treated as well as animals that earn money for the people who own them.

The plight of animals in the world challenges us to think differently about it today. When the animal rights movement was spawned amid the liberation movements of the 1970’s, it was responding in part to the rise of factory farming, which so many people believe is cruel to vast numbers of animals in a new and horrifying way. Peter Singer, whose book Animal Liberation, helped launch the movement, focused on the growth of the giant animal factory farms that sprung up to make hamburgers and chickens for the fast food industry. 

And he advanced and supported the idea that most animals do not belong in the care and ownership of most people.

At the time, there was no wide understanding of climate change, little realization that the natural habitats and environments of almost all of the domesticated animals in the world were disappearing. The animal rights movement preached the very new idea that work for humans was abuse for animals, and the use of them in any way to entertain humans was exploitive and demeaning. As a liberation movement, the big idea was to liberate animals from people. That they increasingly had nowhere to go and nothing else to do did not seem to matter, as the Asian elephants are now learning.

There was a vast and willing audience for this message. Disconnected Americans have left their farms behind, most have pets,  not animals, and know little or nothing of the real lives of real animals any longer. The animal rights message seemed like a good one, it was, in so many was, the perfect cause. Who, after all, is for the abuse of animals?

No one could begin to count how many animals – horses, ponies, elephants, movie animals – have paid with their lives for this new idea of animal welfare. For animals, the road to hell is definitely paved with the best of intentions.

Development and global warming have eliminated half of the animal species, according to the World Wildlife Fund. At the moment, the carriage trade is almost alone in keeping the big draft horses alive and productive in urban environments. Ringling Bros. has the only sustainable herd of Asian elephants in the Western Hemisphere, and the animal rights movement has succeeded in harassing them into abandoning all work with the elephants.

Ringling Brothers is not a charity or an animal museum, it is a profit-making business, a corporation, and it doesn’t take a psychic to figure out their stockholders will soon tire of keeping giant and unprofitable animals around for years. If this new idea of animal abuse continues to dominate the world of animal policy and politics, we can be sure our children will never see or know these wonderful animals or understand one thing about them. They will live only on YouTube, a remote curiosity, a break between texts and video games.

The Asian elephants, unlike their African counterparts, and  like the carriage horses, are domesticated animals with  a long history – thousands of years – of working well and easily with humans. There is no longer any kind of sustainable work for them to do in our world that is acceptable to the people who say they support the rights of animals. The same is true of the big horses: they can work very hard on Amish farms, go to slaughter, or pull goods and carriages for people and tourists. This is easy and good work, truly, for horses. It enables them to survive and be well cared for.

We should celebrate it in every possible way if we really love animals.

As a culture, we need to support this work, expand it, and support the few people and industries willing to do it. Horses can do a lot more than pull carriages in Central Park, and they can do it cheaply, safely without damage to the environment or the air we breathe.

Horse lovers, trainers and behaviorists know this, but this will require a fundamental change in attitude among political leaders, lawmakers and even many animal lovers. The problem with passionate ideologues is that they cannot change, learn, adapt, or grow. That is why they almost always fail in the end, they do not have the Darwinian survival and adaptive skills of dogs and cats, who have uniquely managed to manipulate human beings into loving them and caring for them.

We love to think dogs love us unconditionally, but the truth is that are just genetically a lot smarter than we are. Unlike raccoons, they have adopted to humans, the most murderous and dangerous of all species, they have tricked us into loving them and giving them human names and bringing them into bed. No raccoon can claim that.

In New York City, hundreds of children will require facial reconstructive surgery as the result of thousands of awful dog bites. No carriage horse in New York has ever killed a human being or caused so many destructive injuries to the most vulnerable of citizens. The mayor wouldn’t think of banning dogs, the animal rights movement ducks like a herd of ostriches when the issue of dog bites comes up. Fund-raising is the step child of modern advocacy.

Yet the dogs can teach us a lot about how to keep animals in our world. Yes, there are risks and problems and accidents in having dogs, that will always be true. But as a culture, we have come to see that the benefits of keeping dogs among us great enough to outweigh the risks, even if we put up with waste, bites, abuse and sacrifice the faces of many of our children to our own needs.

A generation ago, very few people in New York City had dogs or were permitted to keep them. Many parks and apartment houses and hotels banned them.

That is no longer true. New Yorkers have figured out how to live with dogs in New York, keep them healthy, use them to ease the stress and loneliness and disconnection that sometimes comes with urban life. Dog lovers in New York go to extraordinary lengths to exercise their dogs, socialize them, take them to special parks and runs, groom them and love them. They have beaten back countless political and social efforts to restrict dogs, or even prohibit them.

Diamond, perhaps the most famed biologist in the world, says that the big horses are better equipped for urban life than any other domesticated animal, including dogs. Horses are gentle, trainable, adaptable, herd animals, they love to work with people. Dogs are actually much more difficult to train and unpredictable. And they hurt many more people.

Humans could not have built or lived in the giant, wealth-generating metropolises that emerged in the nineteenth century without horses, write historians Clay McShane and Joel A, Tarr, in their important book, The Horse In The City.

The relationship was symbiotic and beneficial to humans and horses – horses could not have survived as a species without human intervention, and dense and complex human populations relied on horses for garbage removal, commerce, transport, food and construction.

Cars and trucks replaced horses, and sent most of them away from the cities.

But the pendulum is turning again, carbon monoxide from motor vehicles is choking the earth, fossil fuels are limited and stocks are being depleted, cities are too crowded and polluted to sustain so many engine-driven vehicles.  The hip and truly progressive cities are bringing the horses back. Their time is coming.

Short-sighted leaders and activists are surprised by change, they have only one vision, to see the horses as fragile and outdated and send them away. It is time for some new ones.

There is a new awakening, a new vision.  The horses have started it.

Instead of sending the horses away, find more varied work for the to do. Keep them with us.  They have proven that they can transport large numbers of people safety, transport goods, helped build and repair buildings. They can reduce traffic congestion and pollutants. They do important and widely-recognized therapy work. They connect us to nature. They keep some magic and romance in our distracted lives.  They can help  repair the earth, and bring joy and meaning to people,  just as dogs and cats have, and as they did for thousands of years.

Horses have always been important to people, and  held great meaning for them. We need a new and wiser understanding of animals. For me, the big problem with the mayor of New York City isn’t that he is in bed with real estate developers, I don’t really know about that, the problem is that he is void of any real understanding of animals and can’t see their great benefit to us. If he wins his inglorious campaign, we will all lose, and it will be a mistake that can never be undone.

This is a symbiotic relationship that has served people and animals so well for so long. It ought to continue.

That is a truly inspiring idea for any political leader, the  mayor would be loved and applauded for it. But this mayor seems blinded by arrogance and righteousness, condemned to mumbling platitudes and lame and unknowing clichés, trapped in the grip of old and irrelevant dogma.

Victory would mean the horses surviving this way of thinking long enough for the rest of us to learn to think differently about animals, and the ways in which we can help them – and us – survive the great and challenging changes in the world.