I was standing by Paul Moshimer’s favorite place at Blue Star, the waters behind the farm, the site of a Native-American peace post, and I was surrounded by the people who live and work at Blue Star Equiculture. They were looking at me, listening to me read something I had written for Paul.  I was nearly struck down by the power of their faces, almost all of them young, quick to laugh, quick to cry, able to listen.

Paul had taken his life just a few days before, and few people were as hard hit by those in front of me, huddled together by the river.

Watching them, listening to them was a revelation of sorts, I felt it almost physically. Oh, I thought, this is not an end, this is a new beginning.  Blue Star Rising, this is their future and glory.

In nature, life and death are one, death clears the way for life, and often makes it possible. These open faces were heartbroken at the death of Paul, he was a father to them all, and a mentor and friend.

So this is what is happening, I realized. The next thing, the Third Way, the hope and resurrection for Pamela and Paul’s idea of the Blue Star.  A community learning to live in harmony, restoring the bond between human beings and animals, understanding animals in a wiser and more mystical way, beginning the long and hard process of healing Mother Earth. A better way than the rage and cruelty of the world beyond.

It was right there, looking into my eyes on the riverbank.

If you spend any time at Blue Star, you will also be deeply touched by the hearts and souls of these young people, they are hope and the salvation. They are not saints, they are not perfect, that is too much weight for anyone to bear. But they are special, extraordinary, if you ever doubt the power of animals to affect human beings, you can see it in their lives.

They love one another as they love the horses. There is no cruelty, judgment or competition among them. Trust is their drug. You will not see them with their faces in their cellphones all day, or sending sometimes mindless messages on Facebook.  They are not on the left or the right, they are not Luddites. They know technology, but their eyes are looking at one another, at the horses, at the hard work they do every day. They are not planning for their retirement funds or seeking a way to score on Wall Street. They are fighting for meaningful lives in community and nature, and with animals.

And they are very strong.

“We want to live in a different way,” Pam’s daughter Zoe told me. “The culture outside offers us no way to live, we don’t want our lives to be a scramble for money, or to trample people.” Blue Star, she said, is a different way, a life of meaning and freedom and community. It is the answer for them and for people like them, living outside of the circle, yearning for a life of meaning and compassion.  A life where people once again live with animals in their everyday lives and learn from them, rather than run and hide from them and permit them to be taken away and vanish.

I asked them if I could try and capture this spirit in a photograph, and they all understood, I didn’t have to explain, and agreed. My work is understood there, and so is theirs.  I feel as accepted as they do, and that is as rare for me as it is for them – and I asked Pamela to come and be in the photograph. No, she said at first, this is their moment, they are the answer now that Paul is gone. No, I said you are the answer too, this is the joining together you pray for, the call of your horses, who made it possible, the Third Way. No one is excluded at Blue Star, every kind of person comes there is touched by the wand, is sprinkled with the sparkling magical dust.

And then, there are the mystical horses, I don’t even know how to talk about them, they are the wizards and spirits and guardian angels of Blue Star. One by one, they come up to me and touch their noses to me, and look in my eyes, and I feel something shifting inside of me.

It was a beautiful thing for me to see these young people, they lift my heart, the writer and photographer is almost always intruding and invasive, there is sometimes no other way to tell stories, to document the truth. Pamela took me aside, and she said, “I want you to move freely here, do not be afraid of it, the horses have chosen you to help tell our story.”

After I took the photos, and sat by the fire for Paul, I wanted to  help out, I grabbed the manure rake and started shoveling the manure and Brandon, a  young man who comes to the farm on weekends and is powerfully connected to the horses – everyone there is – came rushing up to take the rake. As I get older, that happens sometimes. I’ll do that, he said, I’ll take care of that. I want to do something useful, I said. Don’t you know, he said, how much you do?

He could not have seen my eyes grow moist, or understood why I was so started to hear a 17-year-old man – very much a man – say that to me. These young eyes and hearts are the new prophets of Blue Star, Pamela saw that right away, and so, I know, did Paul. In our last talk together, in my living room a month ago, Paul said he hoped I would continue telling the story of Blue Star, and of the young people who flock to the farm and see a better future than the one the world has chosen for them. I thought it curious that he would ask that, I understand it better now perhaps.

The Native Americans often sing of the Blue Star, the better way, the new beginning. We must, they say, restore the bond between people and animals, especially the horses. We must learn to live in harmony, or perish together. This is the magic of Blue Star, it’s power and importance. You can see it coming together there, you can see a future that is possible for human beings, and for animals. These young people know how important they are now, they all sensed it, they are rising to it, right before my eyes, I saw it.

Yesterday, I walked among this chosen people, saw the fire in their eyes, the sweat and dirt on their bodies, their love for one another. These are the outsiders, the oddballs, the ones told they had to fit in, the strong and braves ones who found their own path. I know, I was one of them, still am. So is Maria.

They laughed and joked and bantered, but never with sting, there is no cruelty in the barns and pastures at Blue Star, some of these people told me how broken and in pain they were when they came to Blue Star, how the horses and Pamela and Paul had saved them,  how this would be their work.

Sunday, Pamela asked me to sit down with her and watch one of Paul’s favorite videos, it was a poignant and brilliant affirmation in music of one of the most powerful spiritual ideas in the world, I Believe In The Good Things Coming. Paul watched it again and again, almost every day. He believed very strongly in the good things coming, and in helping them to come. At Blue Star this weekend, in this photograph, and in every one of my visits there, I saw this in the faces of these young people, of our future, whose time has come.

Death does make room for life, and affirms it. They believe in the good things coming.

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Helping Blue Star. We are at a crossroads, as the elders believe. We will learn to live in harmony, with one another and the animals, or we will destroy our world together. If you see fit, please help Blue Star. The farm is in Massachusetts, but it belongs to everyone. You can donate, become a member of the herd, or send them good thoughts and good wishes. You can purchase blankets (Maria designed the farm’s symbol) posters, or help with hay. If you live nearby, you can join the volunteers there.