Say to wisdom,
“you are my sister,”
say to wisdom,
“you are my brother.”
Taste wisdom and see,
that God is good,
and love is the purpose.
Thought and wisdom
have joined together,
she and he became lovers,
one.
The soul will cleave to the divine mind,
like pouring a jug of water into a gushing spring.
All will become one.
My black and white camera has begun to do the work I hoped it would do, it is helping me to see things I did not see before. I believe I came to consciousness late in life, I was blind, loveless and terrified for so long. The great thing about cracking up – I don’t recommend it, is that if you survive it – you can put some of the pieces together again.
I did find love, I began to see the world and most of my fear was left behind in the smoldering ashes of my other life. My love opened me to the world, my blog kept my sanity and my writing alive, my photography led me to see the world in a completely different way.
Even a few years ago, the idea of taking a camera into the deep woods and looking for – or even seeing the great beauty there – would have been unthinkable. It would never have occurred to me. Now, when I walk in the woods, I see astonishingly beautiful things every time, trees with character, beautiful sculptures, markings and shapes.
It helps to walk in the woods with my wife, a pagan and good witch, she talks to trees all the time, taps them, hugs them, listens to them. I can thing of some people who would not wish to walk in the woods with me in that context. We open one another up to new experience.
I have been eyeing this beautiful sculpture for awhile, and I have the camera for it, the monochrome and my 35 mm lens seizes on the foreground and shades the background. The sculpture stands out and gets the attention it deserves.
Maria can never guess what it is I am taking a picture of, we see different things. I thought this was a work of art, I could see it clearly in a museum.
Fannie is the second donkey I have lived with, perhaps the donkey I love the most, and the one that has loved me the most. Donkeys are independent, but intensely loyal creatures in their own way. Love is not unconditional or given freely, but when it is give, it is forever.
Fannie and I were together when I first got to Bedlam Farm, she came to keep Carol, my first donkey company. We bonded many times over during those long and awful winters, which were not that long ago, but seem from another time sometimes. I sat with Fannie in the meadow, read to her, gave her oats and cookies, sang to her.
Maria is much loved by the animals here, but Fannie has never been fickle, as animals are.
She loves me and is always waiting for me.
She comes up to me and waits, silently, for attention, and if she does not get it, I will get a butt in the rear that will remind me. This morning, even as the other animals went into the side pasture to graze, Fannie waited for me to come out, she stood silently until I came over and hugged her and scratched and rubbed her ears.
Fannie has a sweet spot on the right rear of her backside, only I know it, and she insists I scratch it every day. Donkeys do not love like dogs or horses, more like cats. Everything must be their idea, when to love and when not to love. When they want to love, they will insist upon it.
Fannie knows me well, and deeply into my soul, and I love her very much, there is a gentleness and intuition about her that is evident to me. We speak all of the time, she is tolerant of me and knowing of my moods.
I appreciate my Post Office Box 205 (P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816), it connects me with many wonderful people including Barbara Heisler, a Mennonite pastor from a small town in Pennsylvania. Here was one of the precious messages I got today in my Post Office Box, now a cherished part of my life and a daily sacrament for me.
When I got the P.O. Box, I really had no idea what would come into it, I stop there every day now, there is always something for me that is joyous, uplifting and special. What a gift.
People from all over the country write me to say hello, share their thoughts, muse about the world and often, to thank me for the blog, which is humbling and affirming and very important to me and to Maria. I get a 1,000 messages a day sometimes online, but most of the special messages I receive come in my P.O. Box, a surprise, given that many people thought the form of the paper letter was dead. It is not, a wonderful surprise to me.
Pastor Heisler is 79 years old, she sent me a check for $75 as a voluntary payment for the blog. “I read it every day,” she wrote, “Iove the photos, am amazed with the wisdom you offer on such themes as aging, death, love, community, animals, politics, and more. Also the photos are great.”
I love the idea I see in the letters, good people sitting down in the morning to read the blog, drinking coffee, musing about the world, just like me.
I work alone and I don’t know most of the people who read my blog, it means so much to me to get a letter like this, I am astonished by the blog, it is a miracle to me.
Barbara Heisler is a poet, I will write her to ask to see some of her poems. “I am a lover of the natural world and God,” she wrote. “Thanks for your work. It helps make a better world.”
Thanks for our message, Pastor Heisler, for your payment and for taking the trouble to write me, it makes my life better, it lifts my heart and soul.
I spent my days mostly at the computer, when I am not out buying groceries or working with Maria around the farm or herding the sheep with the dogs. Red has a special place, he lies behind my chair (I got him a bed or two for him and Fate to use, though she is rarely in my office). He is always there, it is his place.
The office is my space the cluttered space of the writer and blogger – books, papers, candles, computer.
Red is a spirit dog, he came to walk alongside me at this point in my life, he is always right there when I am working, I do not ever roll the chair back, I stand up so that I won’t startle him or run over his legs. Spirit dogs are ever present and faithful, they slip into the rhythms of our lives, they mark the passages of time for us.
Red grounds me, he has a calm and stillness about him that is powerful and healing and spiritual for him. Like all spirit dogs, he comes when he is ready, he will leave when his work is done. I hope that will be a good while, he has only been with me for three years, but I cannot imagine writing without him, although I do accept that one day I will have to.
