Whispering to me

When I lie on the ground, waiting for the sun to join me on my mission, feeling the spirit surge inside of me, I hear life whispering to me. Love is important. Passion is essential. Time is precious, and ought not be wasted on fear and sorrow and small things. There is beauty everywhere if you have the right lens, in and out of your head.

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Frieda is a rock star. The response to her coming out party has been strong. People coming from as far away as Boston and Pennsylvania. I believe there are a few seats left. Frieda is getting her much deserved coming out party Wednesday, August 18, 6:30 p.m. at the Red Fox Bookstore in Glens Falls, N.Y. Frieda will be there, as will I. I will talk about Frieda’s remarkable story, and the challenge of training her to live on the farm. I will talk about the importance of dog training, take questions, discuss the pros and cons of the most popular training books. No children or dogs, please, except for Emily. 518 793-5252.

A perfect life?

I went into intensive therapy several years ago when my life began to unravel, and I was drowning in depression and anxiety. I am no longer in intensive therapy, having graduated to occasional visits. I say this because it is important for people to know that there is help, we can change, and it can get better. Yesterday I told the therapist – a remarkably direct and tough-minded woman who led me back from the abyss – that people were always telling me that I had the perfect life, and I never quite knew how to respond, other than to keep saying nobody’s life is or should be considered perfect.

“Jon,” she said, looking directly at me in that forceful way she has. “You do have a wonderful life. It is, in some ways, a perfect life.” This shocked me to the core. In the world I grew up in, if you said an optimistic thing, people started spitting and throwing salt over their shoulders. To say one has a perfect life seems nearly blasphemous to me, a direct invitation for lightning to come right down out of the sky and hit you on the head.

I have many of the same troubles other people have – worries about life, money, family, work. But my therapist was correct. I do have a wonderful life. I have a partner that I adore and who shares my life with me. I have work that I love. I have a farm that roots my soul, and wonderful dogs and endearing donkeys. I am making the best new friends one can imagine. My photography has erupted as a great passion in my life.

She said it was okay to acknowledge this. That lightning wouldn’t strike me. Of course, she said, you do not have a perfect life. There is no such thing. But you have a wonderful life, and it is perfectly fine to acknowledge that and simply say yes, my life is wonderful and I appreciate it.

Quite a different way to think.

The Love Dog meets the Vermont Sheep

July 27, 2010 – Lenore went out to meet the Vermont-bound sheep in the back pasture for the first time. They were fascinated by her, and she charmed them, of course.

I would highly recommend the posts on Facebook last night regarding a topic I opened on animals and death. I asked if people thought animals like dogs and cats were aware of their impending illness and death. A lot of responses, and almost everyone of them said absolutely yes, dogs and cats knew when they were dying. This is of interest to me as I’m finishing a book on animal grieving. The responses were interesting, thoughtful, very compelling.

I am a bit at odds with most of the responses.   If animals know they are dying, it must be in an instinctive, intuitive way, as they have no language or narrative with which to frame ideas about the end of their lives. Humans are believed to be the only species whose members know they are going to die. To me, the fact that many dogs or animals go off to be by themselves or hide or change their behaviors before they die does not mean they possess self-consciousness or awareness of their death. They are reacting to their complex instincts.

Dogs and cats live by these remarkable instincts, and  they do and sense man things we can’t do or sense. Humans don’t really value instincts as motives – it doesn’t make us feel as good – so we tend to attribute our ideas, thoughts and emotions to dogs and cats and assume they must view death and illness the way we do. I don’t believe that. Animals live in the moment, and accept fates in ways unimaginable to humans. Personally, I don’t see animals as being like us in consciousness. I think the difference is what fascinates me. I have seen no evidence whatsoever that dogs or cats or cows or sheep or chickens understand the nature of sickness and death. They feel it, and follow their instincts about it. I’ve seen so many animals die on the farm, and I’ve never seen one go off anywhere to die, although that happens. Nor have I seen any other animals mourn them or show self-awareness about it. Life goes on.

I think our grieving for animals is much affected by our inclinations to see them as experiencing death and loss the way we do. It is a very compelling subject and I am up to my neck in journals, behaviorists, vets and dog and cat owners. More to come.

A story

Once a day, Maria and I go out to the barns, check the water, clean up any mess, eyeball each of the animals. We leave the barn door open and in a minute or two the donkeys come in. Maria puts some corn or grain in the bucket, or I do, and one or both of us brushes them. I love these photos. They tell their own story.

Animal friendships. Lenore and Lulu

I’d love to do a children’s book – or any book – on animal friendships.  Lenore has the gift of being non-threatening and almost all of the animals on the farm are comfortable around her. She and Frieda are easy together, but she and Rose and Izzy often hang out in the garden. Today we were out doing barn chores and I looked up and saw Lenore and Lulu just hanging out in the cool of the barn.

They lay together for about a half hour while I cleaned up. I have no idea what’s going on with them, but I’d like to explore it some more.