4 February

Fate Races Across The Gulley Memorial Bridge

by Jon Katz
Fate Across the Bridge

It took me a few tentative tries to walk quickly over the Ed Gulley Memorial Bridge to our back woods, Fate zipped along like a rabbit, as she always does. Fate is fearless in any kind of geography, she was across the bridge in a microsecond.

Yesterday, Mr. Gulley himself came by and brought a Meditation Bench, which we hope to use tomorrow. It was pretty chilly today, we bought a bolt cutter and will start chopping up our unwanted and unauthorized steel hunting stand tomorrow. We have a taker, Brian from the hardware store would like it, he is an accomplished hunter and we are happy to give it to him.

We have to get it apart first. Red was wary of the bridge, but is getting used to it. We brought clippers and opened up the new path a bit, Maria has a plan to get me up into the hills more easily, so I can mediate there when she is in India – the trip is one week away.

With the raging stream, our woods seem like an island, it feels like a very different place when we get out there. The bridge is holding up beautifully.

Ed is doing well, I got an e-mail from George in West Virginia today, he told me he loved Ed Gulley’s blog and my blog, but since he was busy, he decided to go with Ed’s blog and dropped mine.  He just loves cows, said George. Go for it, I suggested. Good for Ed, but I told him if this continues, we will have to talk.

I am proud of Ed, his blog deserves every reader he can get.

4 February

Working Dogs: Afternoon Light

by Jon Katz
Afternoon Light

I pointed my camera right into the sun this afternoon as the sun lowered over the farm, when I looked in the viewfinder I saw this tower of sunlight, and just clicked the shutter.

Red was in his usual position, overseeing things, Fat was off to his right tearing down the hill towards me. The camera captured the feeling of afternoon light on a cold day, strong and clear and mystical.

4 February

Expect Great Things: The Joy Of Being Alive

by Jon Katz
Expect Great Things

The writing class I am teaching resumes today, I am  excited to be seeing these people again. I’m heading over to the Round House to pick up some coffee and cookies.

I was up early this morning, reading over three books I have been looking at and thinking about this week. One Man’s Meat, by E.B. White, the true inspiration for the Bedlam Farm Journal; Expect Great Things, a look at the mystical side of Henry David Thoreau; and Understanding Power, a timely book on the truth about politics  by the famed linguist and essayist  Naom Chomsky.

Three great books about the sovereignty of the individual, and our steady progress towards progressive divination, our own personal understanding of our individual destiny and morality. No one ever wrote letters to these thinkers telling them they could not read them because they might disagree with them, each of them would have been or is horrified by the idea of a “left” or “right,” the great shrinking of the American mind.

How sad we have been led to believe there are only two choices in our world about how to think, or that argument and anger are the same thing as freedom.

These wonderful thinkers were all celebrated because people disagreed with them, not because they didn’t.

Not so long ago, it was considered a noble thing to get people to think, it has only recently come to be seen as a crime or betrayal. Every idea is an argument or thought for someone to belittle or attack, no idea lives very long or stands on its own, or is considered in truth. If you don’t believe in truth, you can’t know reason.

Thoreau wrote that he expected great things of himself, and I expect the same of myself, although I better get on with it,  it’s getting late. Many of the people I know and see and hear are in great anxiety and despair, there is much talk of awful times, dark days, evil intentions.

I am, as I often am, something of a freak. I don’t feel that way, and hope I never do.

I expect great things from myself, I am feeling necessary and alive. For the first time in awhile, everyone is paying attention to our values, ideas are important, words matter, truth is being defended and debated, images are important. We are all human, we are all different. That will never change.

Over the past two weeks, I have been writing about a previously little know  Amazon gift page for newly arrived and much maligned refugees in America, victims of our latest media and social hysteria, our new Salem witches, or Hollywood Communists, or black activists. These are good and simple people, come here to share in our American Dream.

They have lost everything, need everything. They are my brothers and sisters.

Hundreds, if not thousands of people, most complete strangers from all over the country and some of the world, have rushed to send these innocent people clothes, pots and pans, strollers, comforters, blankets and socks. Thousands of dollars worth, enough to fill a warehouse.

People are good, given the chance. I am filled with hope and challenge.

And these inexpensive gifts and donations are still pouring in. A great thing, it makes me grateful to be alive and relevant and doing good. There are so many different ways to look at the inevitable an intense conflicts and difficulties of the world. I can despair and complain, or I can be grateful for the opportunity to expect great things, this is what it means to be alive.

To be alive for me is to show up, feel needed, do good. These are good days.

Crisis and mystery are always around the corner, and we have just turned a big corner. I give thanks for it. I am excited to be alive.

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