It was about five years ago, Maria and I were friends then, we had both begun to understand that our marriages might not last, Maria was working on weekends caring for the animals at the first Bedlam Farm in exchange for the use of the Studio Barn, where she had begun making her art again after giving up on it some years earlier. It had not crossed my mind once that we might be together, that I might fall in love with her.
She would come the farm early on Saturday and Sunday mornings, she stayed only a few minutes, would rarely come to the farmhouse. I was usually inside the house, beginning my spectacular disintegration and descent into terror, a lonely and harrowing time. I looked out the side of the farmhouse – a big window – and I saw Maria come up into the pasture. My sheep – I had about 20 then – came rushing over to her, they were calm, they gathered in a circle, just as I saw them do this morning, as they do every morning. Maria may or may not have brought some bread or treats, I can’t remember, but I was mesmerized, struck by how much these skittish animals trusted her. Hanging around with border collies, sheep have almost never trusted me, not for long. I am the guy with the crazy dog, it’s okay with me, I don’t love them much either.
But I respect the judgements of animals, their instincts are so superior to ours. Animals love Maria, they trust her and respond to her, I believe it is because her emotions are so pure and open, so close to the surface. I was so touched by the way the sheep gathered around me, I saw something new in them and I saw her, perhaps for the first time.
The humble and fickle sheep gather around her every morning, she speaks to them, they seem to need to be near her, it is part of their ritual, they even leave the hay behind to gather, they seem to be imploring her, the sheep first awakened me to the pure love and honest feeling of this person, I think it was at that window that I began to fall in love with Maria, to see the power of her warmth and feeling, to understand how much I wanted and needed that in my life. There, at that time, my life was a cold, black hole, here was something that could fill it with light and warmth and love. It was what I always wanted could never find.
Animals are a mirror, they brought me to Maria, the sheep, Frieda, the donkeys. They showed me the way, taught me to see what was in front of me. I always listen to them, they can be the greatest teachers in the world.