Donkeys can teach you a lot about meditating. I brought some apple wafers outside and stood out in the cold with the donkeys, and we were just quiet together. And when I meditate, I can see my mind work, see how it rushes from one thing to another, and I am acquiring this remarkable gift to teach my mind to quiet down, and be in the moment, and be present, and be happy for the many wonderful things I have right now. The message of the donkeys to me is acceptance, and calm and their genius for accepting the immediate reality of their lives. Donkeys do not, I think, worry about the future, fear death, harber grudges, brood over slights. Calm is infectious.
And I thought this:
When people label you, challenge them. Label yourself.
When people marginalize you, affirm yourself. Create something.
When people discourage you, encourage yourself.
Fear is infectious. Build boundaries between fear and you.
Fear is a choice. A space.
Tell your story in any way that works for you.
Thoreau said he would rather take a walk in the woods than be invited to a thousand parties.
At Gardenworks yesterday, Meg Southerland gave me a dog that talks and flaps his ears. Lenore was puzzled, though very interested. He almost got eaten.
On a farm, chores never end. They are part of the cycle that are the core of life. There is something soothing about farm chores, sacred almost, reassuring and comforting and satisfying. On a farm, chores evolve but cannot be completed. Every day, every look brings us to more of them. Fences, water leaks, bird nests, mice holes, rabid raccoons, possums, skunks, rotting or moldy hay, manure in need of shoveling, water dripping. You pick your shots, fiddle with your budget, engage the chores in a never ending tug that you will not ever win. They are engaging, distracting, compelling.
I try hard to keep up with them. I have a list of good people to help with the ones I can’t handle. There is an urgency to farm chores, as you will drown in them if you don’t keep up. Every now and then, it seems, I stick my head and sniff the Hysteria Machine that surrounds us in our lives. Nuclear arms. Global warming. Terrorists. Earthquakes. Poverty and unemployment, consumer spending and manufacturing indexes. Illness and alarms. Dangerous foods and evil toys. Storms and floods. Tests and medications. Conflicts, hostility, investigations, accusations. Cholera and epidemic. Economic collapse. Armageddon.
As always, there is bad news in the world. I have a novel I love about life in Europe in World War II, which reminds me what bad news and hysteria really is, and which I think of whenever somebody tells me how hard these times are.
Bad news is a part of the human experience. But it’s a new thing that we can hear and see it every second of every day, on video, in color, beamed to our computers and cell phones and TV’s. I hate the idea of hiding from the world. Even more, I hate the idea of living in hysteria and fear. I won’t do it. Fear is an addiction, like anger. It can eat up you,bit by bit, day by day.
Inside the Fear Machine, I have come to love the chores of the farm. This morning, I got up to do a big laundry. I cleaned the bathrooms with Lysol. I walked the dogs. I made breakfast for Maria, who is off to work today. I took my walk up the hill. I took hay out to the donkeys, gave them grain for the cold. I am tending to my blog. I will go shopping for food, meditate, read, move firewood, rake hay off the ground near the feeder. These chores are grounding. They are life, not the fear of it. I am grateful for them, a powerful and very spiritual antidote to the Fear Machine that seems to need us to be afraid. And profit from it.
The days are getting shorter. And colder. Was thinking of Sean Bellingham today, who plowed the farm in snow and did the lawn and grounds in Spring and Summer. His business has been dissolved. Found a new person, Kevin Baylor, a retired NYC fireman, and a good and responsible human. A person is an integral part of the farm, then vanishes. Another appears, the rythyms of the farm itself and of the life beyond.
November early winter light is different from other light, especially October light, my favorite as a photographer. I take this shot of the Dairy Barn almost every day, and every time I look at it, it is different. It’s darkening by 4:30. But the light is thin and crisp. Like the light, my life is changing.
My food is evolving. Moving closer to an all vegetable and fruit diet. Some fish, maybe. Loving bean soups, sprinkled with Chard and Spinach. Tonight, veggie burgers and potatoes. Discovering flaxseed. Walking every day up the hill, sometimes twice a day, and it feels so good to walk up that hill without hardly a deep breath, and I remember three weeks ago I was huffing and puffing when I got halfway up there. I’m extending the walks, and I so love early morning walks, going farther. I can’t imagine a day without a morning walk. Bring a different dog each time. Dogs so love to walk with people, it brights the trek. Tomorrow I’ll try an Ipod too. I am so glad I didn’t get an exercycle. I have one right outside the door, walking up that beautiful thing and it is free. So glad I don’t have to stand on one of those machines watching TV and reading their news.
