Red and I went out early this morning to continue our daily work to get our sheep back into a herd after months of disruption caused by lambing. Red worked the sheep four or five times yesterday, they were sick of us by late afternoon. He’s getting it together thought.
Connection is the fabric, the glue, the thread that holds human beings together, I think it is the unspoken but deeply felt anthem of the Bedlam Farm Open Houses and the Bedlam Farm idea. We have opened up our farm and our search for human experience, some think it is a brave thing to do, I think it is the most natural thing to do, life was much more frightening when I was holed up alone in my fortress on the hill.
Connection is at the core of what it means to be a human being.
Yesterday was the closest thing to a Perfect Day that I can recall in our lives on this farm. The day was perfect, people came to us in the spirit of the Open House, seeking encouragement, connection to the natural world, a journey of the imagination, a journey of encouragement. And perhaps most of all, connection to one another. I felt it’s healing and nourishing power all day long, and well into the night. People finding one another, talking, hugging, sharing. Me to my readers, Maria to her art and the people who are touched by it, our animals and their great power to touch and heal and uplift.
When I watch the faces of the people who come to meet Maria, take her potholders home, touch Simon, who stare in fascination at Red’s remarkable work, who embrace Lenore and her love, who applaud Frieda and her long journey, I see that we are all connected, John Muir was correct, we are all hitched to everything else in the universe, the root of compassion is understanding that.
Another day of connection for me, it began at the Round House Cafe this morning, meeting some people for breakfast who have been following my blog and my books for years, but whom I had never met. Surely, they said, you are too busy, no, I said it is the point. Maria tugging at my sleeve, we have to go, we have to get ready.
We came together naturally, easily, powerfully. More today. Mary Kellogg returns to read more of her poetry, our friends and neighbors descend to help us manage the people, help with the animals. We are creating our own families, new kinds of connection. The sheep are waiting for Red. We are tired, exhausted really, from yesterday, excited about today. I will talk again, Mary Kellogg will ready her poetry, Scott Carrino may come by to play his guitar and sing. Red is ready to work, Lenore to greet.
We are grateful for our lives, for the opportunity to share them, for the blog that carries the messages of hope and encouragement out to the world.
“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe..” – John Muir
There are many powerful ideas hovering around the fate of the New York carriage horses, they challenge us to discover our humanity, our empathy and connection, our connection to the natural world. The horses do not exist apart from the universe, apart from nature, apart from the future of animals in our world, or from our own future. They can not be singled out to meet the needs of arrogant and disconnected human beings. When we remove them from our lives, from our existence, we find that they are attached to us, our children, Mother Earth, the natural world and the universe beyond.
It was the Sioux who first warned that as the animals went, so went their way of life. They talk of a great dream, a great dance in which the horses foresaw their slaughter and extinction from their world. One day, they predicted, they would be needed again, and they would return.
When the horses left, the world of the Sioux fell apart and has never recovered. The horses remind us that they are not apart from us, they are us, they are our partners in the world, their fate is our fate, we can not single them out by themselves, we will find they are hitched to everything else in our world.
