I’ve had a good and important time this past week or so, trying to figure out my new place in the new world, trying to reconcile a man who went insane with a world that seems insane sometimes. For many years I had no idea who I was, and all of a sudden, I seem to be exploding. I like the notion of the Mad Farmer trying to figure out the world.

But that is only one part of it. I am learning who I am, figuring out what I believe and want, trying to share what I have learned and felt about fear, anger, aging, security, and health. I move in spurts, and steps, not in straight lines.

These are complicated things, with lots of different ways to think about them, and I know I have, at times, been angry, and that is good for me, because I have at times been angry about my life, the way I have treated others, the way I have been treated. I am letting go of that. Trying to understand what security means in a world gone mad with greed and laws and corporations and politicians. A world that equates security with pensions, IRA’s and health plans, and that sees Christmas as a seminal marketing opportunity. We are, all of us, seeking a good and meaningful place in this world, and I, for one, intend to do it this way: by listening, thinking, quieting, waiting. By being gentle to me, and to others.

By not acting in anger, or in fear. By being around good people who are loving, positive, encouraging.  By staying away from systems that feed off of anger, fear and greed. I am settling down on Thanksgiving Week, having vented a good bit about the new identify I am trying to figure out, a lonely process in a world filled with fearful people who feel they have few choices.

But time to pull back. To mediate. To walk the dogs. To commune with donkeys. To drive Maria to yoga and take photos. To read, and listen to music. To look for the warmer, better parts in people. To connect with the natural world, the hills, the animals, the light and shadow.

I close my eyes and think of Maria, in her Studio Barn. And Lulu and Fanny, right out my window. And the resurrection of Frieda, and Rose and Lenore and Izzy, at my feet, as I work. And the anger sort of leeches out of me, and I take a deep breath and smell the hills and the crisp air and hear the geese honking their way south, the hawks circling overhead and their lonely cries, and I remember that life is good, and life is sweet, and I want to drink of it in the spirit. I love climbing out there, and I love climbing back. Where is my life? My life is here.