One of the great artists of the world lives in my back yard, near the fence that surrounds the dog run. I have never seen her, although I often look for her. I have a crush on her, even though she has four or five times as many legs as I have. She is remarkable creative and enduring, especially since her artworks are routinely destroyed by wind, sun.
Although she is gifted beyond my imagination, she has something of a ruthless streak, a good thing for artists to have. Yesterday I saw a wasp fly right into her great creation and I thought I caught a glimpse of her, but wasn’t sure. Later I saw that the wasp was all wrapped up and still in a cocoon. This morning he was gone and a new piece of art appeared. We humans are arrogant and narcissistic. We think we have a lock on the skills to make art. What can I do next to this? I doubt I will ever meet this artist, but I think of her as an inspiration, a colleague, a rising star who does not need fame or money or the approval of humans. Just some flies and wasps.
She does not complain about galleries, agents, the fickle tastes of customers. She does not weave on and on about how wondrous artists are, how tormented and creative, how underappreciated and misunderstood. She just makes great art, every day.
In my life, much of my fear has been centered around money, and that is true of so many people I meet and talk to and hear from. In the Kabbalah, God warns the prophets that a world driven by money will be bereft of love and purpose. Lives will be fearful and meaningless, humans enslaved by the blind pursuit of greed and terror. This was not, he said, why he created the world.
Money is a means of exchange, the prophets wrote, not the point of existence. In our culture, money is the truth faith for many people, especially in a culture that increasingly equates it with success, security and health. Our society makes financial misfortune a social crime, a thing of shame. No wonder so many people are frightened about money. This is the triumph of the corporate ethos, which puts profit above all other considerations, human, work, environment, social or civic. In our political system, the candidates talk mostly about money, the economy, never the quality of our lives.
Joseph Campbell shared God’s perspective. Money does not make people happy or secure, he wrote. In fact, he wrote, “people without money very often have the courage to risk a life of their own, and they can do it. Money doesn’t count, it’s not that important in our culture, it really isn’t.” That’s a shocking idea in our time when people are obsessed with worry about money and scramble to get money and keep it, to pay and pay for their software updates, IRA’s, health care plans, consumer protection plans, credit card fees, weather alerts, political arguments, even for bad news messaged to them every hour of every day.
Would Campbell say the same thing today? I think so. None of the great religious leaders or thinkers of our history – Jesus, Gandhi, Dr. King, Merton, Thoreau, Mohammed, Buddha – had money or believed in money as a form of safety and security. None of them sought security, they sought a meaningful life. Perhaps this is why there are no poor people in Congress.
People who seek a truly spiritual life often let go of money as the central pursuit of their lives, understanding it is often a barrier to a spiritual life, not a gateway. Campbell wrote that the students and other people he had met in his life with money were often the “least fortunate because there’s nothing to drive them.” This rings especially true in my life. Some of the best and most creative things I have ever done – my e-book, coming to the farm, changing careers, my photography, my blog, moving to the country – all came about in part because I was driven to change my life.
If you are wealthy, wrote Campbell of his students with a lot of money, “as soon as what they are doing gets difficult, as soon as it begins to get to the crunch, he or she moves over into another pursuit, and another, and another. They just splash their lives all over.” Very often, he wrote, people without the margin to do that make the intelligent or courageous decision and follows it through.
I am struck by how many people tell me that once they give up on money, or lose it, or let go of the idea of it, they are happier, at peace, more fulfilled. I used to jeer at this idea, oh-sure, easy-to-say, but I believe this now. I often feel surrounded by messages about money – ads about health, savings, retirement – and to me, so many of them just seem to be lies. You are lying to me, I think. I can’t listen to them any more.
This is not what drives me. This is not what leads me to think of new things, to change my life, to be a better, less fearful and more creatively driven person. Money will not make me more secure.
Every day is, to me, a new opportunity. To live without fear. To find love. To be creative. To be authentic. To grow and change. To create and love my work. Every day is a gift to me, a reminder that I have wasted time and life, and will not waste any more in the time I have. Every day is a reminder to respect myself. To not live by what others say, but what I say. It does not matter what others think, it matters what I think. Every day a miracle, from beginning to end.
Red in the city, in Glens Falls, N.Y. I saw the shadow of one factory loom over the either, and I was drawn to the shape. I pointed to the corner of the triangle in front of the light meters and Red went over there and sat. Red completely grasps photography in a way none of my dogs really have, When I take out the camera now, he is still, and I don’t need to say “photoshoot.” He knows. How am I so fortunate to have such a dog, on top of the two wonderful dogs I already have.
The true working dog serves human beings, or tries, even when the work is strange, or when it is uncomfortable, even when it is dangerous. The working dog, from the Labrador to the German Shepherd to the border collie, has been bred for thousands of years to work with human beings. It is a beautiful thing to see when these dogs get their chance to live their lives.
Red spent the first years of his life on a farm in Ireland, then to Virginia where he lived with Dr. Karen Thompson, one of the most respected border collie breeders and trainers in the eastern United States. Karen gave Red to me, and I will be eternally thankful for that. Red has never, to my knowledge been in a city or suburb. Monday night is yoga night, when I drove Maria to her yoga class in Glens Falls and shop for groceries and pet and animal supplies. Usually I walk around Glens Falls, sometimes I listen to my Ipod in the car or read a book or check my e-mail.
Today I decided to bring Red to the city for the first time. Red surprises me every day. I let him out of the car and he walked alongside of me as if he has done things a thousand times, even when he has never done them. He walked by people, busses, cars, trucks. He completely grasps my photography and when we past an empty warehouse I pointed to the ledge and he jumped up and waited until I took my photo. People walking by were surprised, and asked if he often jumped up onto ledges. Only when asked, I said.
We walked through the middle-class streets and industrial patches of Glens Falls for an hour, then I went shopping and Red waited in the car. He lay on the seat while I read waiting for Maria. We bonded in yet a new and different way. Izzy was like this in some ways. I remember taking him to New York City for the first time and he walked alongside me as if he had been born and raised there. The really great working dogs do not truly care what the work is. They just do it.
Red and I will visit the city again. I see that Red can go anywhere.
