Maria came out of her studio this morning with this beautiful new thing – it will either be a wall hanging or a pillow — titled “Is it a Lion Or A Poodle?” She figured out how to insert a mirror into the fabric and used some of the amazing appliques people have been sending her. I got very excited when I saw this, Maria was in a dark funk this morning after a bad dream, and I knew she would work he way through it in her studio with Frieda grumbling and complaining at her side. This one just explodes with energy and dazzle, I think. You can see it on her website shortly.
In my spiritual wanderings, I think I’ve worked as hard on anger as I have fear. The animals I live with have helped me be less angry. You cannot have a border collie like Red or Rose or Izzy, or a Lab like Lenore, or surely, a dog like Frieda, and work with them and train them if you are angry. It just doesn’t work. They are too sensitive, they pick it up too quickly, it undermines training and communication. This is where I first learned to stifle my anger. Also in meditation. I still lose it when Lenore gobbles up parts of a dead animal or mountains of donkey droppings, but otherwise, my life with dogs is Zen-like, tranquil.
The internet has been a gift in coping with anger, as there is so much of it out there, if you don’t learn to handle it, it will eat you up. I’ve had several vicious and determined stalkers, thousands of angry, self-righteous or judgmental e-mails and with social media, an avalanche of messages, blogs, links, statements and information that I don’t seek and don’t want or that are not useful to me. Or that I just don’t have time to read and respond to. (And many wonderful messages and insights that I do respond to and am happy to receive.)
Then there is the corporatized-for-profit news out of Washington and the world, beamed at me in all kinds of forms at high speed, and in urgent graphic color. Just about all of it is angry or disturbing, a reflection of their values, not my world. A lot of the news – all cable news – makes me angry sometimes. I don’t watch it. So here’s how I have turned it to my good advantage. When I see something that makes me angry, I look at a photo of Maria or Lenore or Red or Simon. And then I smile.Then I wait.
If I get a message that stirs anger, I put it aside. Five minutes later, I am rarely angry or even remember the message. I am happy to delete angry people from my online sites, and happier still to use my neat filtering software to send angry messages to other places or to the trash bin without ever having to see them. This is very cool. This is working for me.
I don’t wish to be angry, but I know it is a part of the human emotional spectrum and the Internet is an anger spawning ground. People do not have to even think about the messages they send. I never respond to angry messages now, and I find that this is a practice, a discipline that becomes reflexive. It has lost interest for me. Anger is part of our human composition, the cornerstone of much of our modern media, the Frankenstein child of the Internet. I don’t know anyone who watches cable news who isn’t angry.
In my world, I have evolved. I rarely receive angry messages any longer and I have come to see each one of them, when they do present themselves, as an opportunity to grow and be strong. When I get angry, I think, no, just don’t. Life is too short, and there are too many good and nice people out there to respond to.
I learned once again the value of a good chore dog on a farm this week. Maria and I tried to grab the sheep to change their coats – Maria needs to keep the coats clean because she sells the wool as yarn in the Spring – and I ended up getting knocked on my butt in the manure pile. So yesterday we did it right. I took Red out, told him to get the sheep, and a minute later they were in the pole barn, penned in a corner. Red froze them in place, making sure nobody moved an inch. They didn’t. We changed the coats in three minutes without trouble. And nobody got knocked on their ass.
In some ways, a farm is series of relationships. They are always evolving. Animals come, go, live, die, get sick, get well. Flo was hiding under our porch a few weeks ago, we don’t really know for how long. This morning she was sitting in Maria’s lap on the porch, perhaps the best place in the world for a cat to be. This cat has figured it out.
