Day: June 17, 2013

I would not have though to see the old rural mailboxes as an artifact but looking at them the other day, I realized they will soon be gone, their messages gone with them. I was thinking of letters and what it means to the world that they are vanishing, so of course, are their boxes.

Red is a spirit dog, but few people see how quiet and centered he is, how meditative and peaceful. When I meditate, he enters the spirit, the quiet. He lies down, does not move, is absolutely still until I get up. He was on one side of me this morning, Simon on the other, both still, both quiet. Then the chickens came and lay down. Something beautiful happened.

I am more mindful of meditating with animals, of meditation around them, and meditation in which they are participating, aware of it, playing a role. Simon is acutely conscious of my meditations outside in the chair by the pasture. When I turned on the timer, I saw he was starting at me. Fifteen minutes later, when the third bell went off, he was in the same position, watching me. During the meditation i was aware of him, I sensed his presence in the silence. I imagine he heard my breathing, I sensed a connection being made, it was from him, but I felt it, it entered the quiet, was a part of it, was healing. This is a very powerful experience, one I am just beginning to open myself up to. Today’s animal meditation involved Simon, Red, even the chickens. I’m putting up a photo album.

In Thomas Jefferson’s world, media was not a corporate-for-profit thing, but a way for individuals to find voice and identity. The first journalists were farmers, men and women (yes, women) close to the land, merchants and Quakers and abolitionists also who wrote about their daily lives in printed pamphlets (often by hand) and posted them up on fences and walls. They were clear and vibrant voices with great influence. Individuals have been robbed of their voices in our culture by the greedy corporations that have taken over almost all of our media and turned into in a civil nightmare and public health issue (in a doctor’s office I saw a flyer urging patients to “take time off” from media for the sake of their mental health). Our media is most a shattered and fragmented world filled with argument and commentary useless to us and disturbing. Worse, we have lost our own voices in this corporate morass.

The blog has emerged as a powerful Jeffersonian antidote to this catastrophe, especially for women whose voices have been marginalized in modern media, unless they are arguing or sensationalizing their lives. The blog has become a great equalizer, a creative breeding ground, a salvation for artists seeking to sell their work. Just ask Maria, whose gentle blog has affirmed her life as an artists and connected her to that world. Or ask me, whose blog is becoming the centerpiece of my creativity, a source of inspiration, income and a way for me, like those farmers, to find my voice, share my life and understand my own identity.

I think people who overcome their fears to tell the stories to the world are heroic, and the newest hero is Tess Wynn, a warm, honest and open human being with things to say. You can check out her blog for yourself. Her blog is a simple WordPress blog, it doesn’t cost a thing to set up and takes just a few minutes. It was not easy for her. It soon will be. She has things to say, and she will burst if she doesn’t get to say them. She will not be invited on cable, she can run her own network at home. Welcome to this world Tess, it is brighter still thanks to you.

I met Tess at one of Maria’s art shows and we both connected to her and her family. I’ve known her since mostly through her curious and lively posts on Facebook. She can tell her own story, she is a poster child for the blog, a nurse, mother, wife, and as she puts it, “recovering big mouth.” Not yet, Tess, I’m afraid. Hopefully never.

Blogs are not about technology for me, they are about creativity and the releasing of the inner spirit, a way to find your tribe as well as your voice. This is why I am teaching a course this fall at Hubbard Hall in Cambridge, N.Y., in “the art of the blog.” It is absolutely essential now for the individual and creative soul, the Internet is the media, love it or not. People complain to me all the time that they don’t like computers, and I say, well who cares? Just ask my 88 -year-old friend Susan, who started a blog this year to sell her vegetable seeds and connect with other gardeners. She doesn’t like computers either. So what?

And check out the new  Open Group For Bedlam Farm where you can see these surprising and delightful and powerful blogs emerging in a community of like-minded people. Mr. Jefferson, wherever you are, I suspect you are blogging, too.