In my life, as in the Bible, I have been drawn to the idea of the Peaceable Kingdom. In 1820, the Quaker Minister Edward Hicks began a series of paintings devoted to Isiah’s biblical prophesy of a peaceable kingdom, one in which animals and children lived together in harmony and trust.
in a sense, this was my dream when I purchased the first Bedlam Farm and moved my heart and life to the country. I wanted to create my own Peaceable Kingdom, true to the vision both of Isiah and Hicks, a farm where loved and cared for animals could live in harmony with one another and with people.
To a great extent, I have been successful, especially since I met and married Maria, and she came to pursue this dream with me, although we rarely state it in so open a way. When I went to New York City to see the New York Carriage Horses and to see if they were abused, I could see right a way that they were not.
Animals that are well fed, loved and cared for are very different from animals that are not. You can see abuse in an animal in seconds, they react to people in a very particular way, are skittish and frightened and often aggressive. I learned that once animals understand where and when they will be fed, and know they will be fed enough, and every day, and that their wounds and pain will be eased, and that the people in their lives with never harm them or treat them roughly, they become peaceable.
They do not fight one another for food or space or shelter, they rest in safety and in the open, they interact with one another without conflict or excessive domination. Animals have their ways, their traits, their places, but I am very proud of the fact that only once in my life with animals – this was Simon with the blind pony Rocky – did any of my animals ever turn on the other and harm them.
And even then, Simon was just doing his job as the leader of his equine pack. Disabled and infirm animals are a dread danger in nature, they draw predators to the herd and are forced out or killed. Simon was just being a donkey. Our dogs herd the sheep every day, more than once, the sheep have never been harmed or damaged by our dogs, they graze contentedly just a few feet from them.Flo has finally accepted Fate and permitted her to share her part of the world.
We have a diverse crew here: imperious and territorial barn cats, active and intense border collies, donkeys, a pony, sheep. They live in harmony, with one another, with us. We trust them with ourselves and other people, they trust us and other people. This is the Peaceable Kingdom that Isiah and Minister Hicks imagined, and I still believe, despite all of the ugly news that rains upon us, if it is possible for them, it is possible for us. So this photograph worked for me on many levels, Flo and Fate standing together on the grass, Red sitting quietly in the background.
Our Peaceable Kingdom.