Posts Tagged ‘Love’
Who Cares?
Life is pretty great when it involves staying home everyday and taking care of our animals, but there is no denying a sense of isolation that shows up on occasion. My world is horses, a dog, and occasionally a cat. Currently it is also snow and snow plowing, wood splitting, and walking our snow-packed trails. It is pretty idyllic.
I scan news headlines and feel far removed from everything I see. Issues like the struggles in Syria and Ukraine, Islamic State terrorists, Boko Haram mass kidnappings, epic snow storms in and around Boston, measles outbreaks, and million dollar lottery jackpots. If any ripples from the daily top news events are making it to the middle of our country onto our precious property, they are so dampened that I cannot detect them.
I live in the luxury of not needing to notice. At the same time, I can’t help being influenced by struggles in other places. Closer to home, there are ongoing difficulties that family and friends face which have some measure of influence on my psyche. That is something that I can more tangibly grasp and contribute my thoughts of love toward.
Most difficult for me is when the person I am closest to is heavily burdened by the ongoing challenges of her professional responsibilities. I think that is my Kryptonite.
One of my defense mechanisms for dealing with all the world’s ills is to not care. It seems like a poor choice of reaction, but it is a superficial method of saving myself. Deep down, I really do care, and am moved by the suffering of fellow human beings. What I mean by superficially not caring is that I move past the tough news without dwelling too long on any one issue.
When I have the strength to do battle for people or causes, I become active in those with which I am connected and which are within my reach to help. As a person living with depressive tendencies, I need to pay attention to maintain a healthy balance in my “reason to live” file. Feeling like you can do nothing to help others in this world is a dangerous mindset to allow. Even if my only contribution ends up being that I send love out into the world, that is significant for me. It reflects that I am healthy enough to make that choice.
A depressed person generally wouldn’t be so inclined.
Who cares? I do. Really, I do. Even if I pretend that I don’t.
I’m sending love.
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Still Winter
Our general region has had it pretty easy as far as weather goes this winter, especially as compared to the heavy snowfall events that have occurred in the northeast of the US. We’ve had less snow and warmer temperatures than usual. But the past doesn’t define the future. It’s still winter, and yesterday we enjoyed a return of both snow and cold.
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With the temps low, the snow crystals were perfect and we received about 2 inches of wonderful powder snow that came floating down in a windless calm. The woods took on a mystical appearance with snow cradled in every “Y” of all the branches.
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As is typical for our horses, they stood out in the middle of the hay-field during the heaviest snowfall. I coaxed them back under the overhang by bringing some loose hay and putting it on top of the slow-feeder grates. It probably would have been wise to put their blankets on prior to the snow, but they aren’t showing any signs of having a problem with the relatively small amount of precipitation.
Poor Cyndie had to endure a prolonged evening commute as a result of the backed up traffic, but that gave me a chance to get the driveway plowed before she got home. Since the snow was dry and light, that chore was a breeze.
I was walking Delilah when I decided the precipitation had slowed enough to justify some shoveling and plowing. She sat calmly while I shoveled the front steps, walkway, and apron in front of the garage doors. Then she began to demonstrate an interest in moving on. I willingly accommodated her since it was already past her usual dinner time, setting the shovel down to head indoors.
I still wanted to get to the plowing, so I left my jacket on and rushed to put food in her bowl, before heading back out. I figured she should be fine on her own while I worked.
When I opened the door 45-minutes later, I found her laying right inside of it. She looked uncharacteristically subdued. Then I noticed food in her bowl. That is an anomaly. I worried that something was wrong with her and bent down to give her some love and attention. As I stood up to remove my outdoor gear, she got up and walked over to eat everything in her bowl.
To my great surprise, she chose to wait by the door for my return rather than eat her food! I had no idea. It does add meaning to a behavior I have noticed during our routine of coming in the door after a walk. I make her wait in the entryway with me while I remove her leash harness and blaze-orange vest. Then I tell her, “Okay,” as a release to run off and do whatever is tempting her more: chase Pequenita the cat or madly chomp on any available squeaky toy.
I’ve noticed that she doesn’t run off until she sees me taking off enough outdoor wear to feel satisfied I will be staying inside along with her.
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Precious Affirmation
On Wednesday, after Cyndie arrived home from a challenging day of work, she stepped in the door and thanked me for sending love to her while she was on the job.
“What love?” I responded.
I was asking because I hadn’t told her I was going to send love, hadn’t sent a text indicating I had done so, nor offered any other form of communication beyond the love, itself. But I very purposely did send her love during the day. Thankfully, she was perceptive enough to sense my transmission.
Either that is an example of how in tune we can be with each other sometimes, or it is a testament to the power of projecting love out into the universe with purposeful intent. Maybe it is both.
It helps that we practice listening to our intuition and paying attention to our gut sense and our heart messages. Of course, those are skills we are honing in on when we are with our horses. It is in the metaphysical realm that horses pick up much of their information. They are quick to pick up on the love we send their way.
While driving through the countryside on Tuesday, I happened to pass a property that had a lot of horses. A LOT of horses. Maybe 30 or more. They were crowded into a couple of paddocks between the busy highway and a barn. The primary thing I noticed about them was their defeated appearance.
Is it possible they were all napping? I doubt it. They all looked like their spirit had been broken. It instantly caused me to feel a renewed appreciation for the facility and environment we are able to offer our 4 horses.
The place I was driving past was obviously a horse business of some kind. Probably offered trail rides and boarding. I wondered how that many horses could get along with each other in such limited space. Actually, it looked like the horses just didn’t care enough to fuss with each other.
In a moment of being all too human, I began to think poorly of the people who put the horses in that situation. The truth is, I don’t know anything about them or their operation. I caught myself and chose a different response.
I sent the horses and the owners love.
I wonder if they felt it. My gut tells me the horses did.
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Think Happy
It is a new year. 2015 sounds like the future. Did I really live into the year 2015? Hmmm. How did that happen? The niece and nephew were telling us that 2015 is the year in the movie, “Back to the Future Part II” that they travel forward to. Well, that future is now.
Let’s make it a great year. Project love to everyone around you, everyone you know, everyone you think of. Let love be the energy you emanate to the world at all times. It makes a difference. Really. Try it.
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Happy New Year 2015!
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Sibling Revelry
Despite a sloppy wintry mix of precipitation doing its best to dampen our spirits (sorry ’bout the pun), the gathering of Hays relatives was a joy and a half. As always happens to me at family gatherings of limited duration, the riches of access to siblings I grew up with is enticing, but the reality of our usual chaos leaves me wishing there was more time. It is hard to finish a story, and sometimes a single sentence, without interruption. My attention is too often wrenched away from the person I was listening to, and time flies by so fast, the hour of departure comes up way too soon.
Regardless, every moment was precious. Reconnecting after long periods of separation, with siblings who share so many tendencies and characteristics, is refreshing and invigorating. I tend to feel a kind of validation of who I am, discovering the brothers and sisters that I grew up with remain so similar in behavior and perspectives. I am among my people again.
I’m lucky that, as a family, we all get along. These are the people who inhabited Intervale Ranch with me from the day I was born until 9 years later, when our family moved out and the property was razed for development into an industrial park.
With technical assistance from my son, Julian, I was able to display a digitized version of a slide show I put together close to 30 years ago, which featured that old farm property. It provided an opportunity to exercise our memories, as we analyzed some of the images and compared recollections.
Meanwhile, there was non-stop food to be consumed, youngsters to get reacquainted with and entertained by, and horses to visit. Unfortunately, that last part with the horses was complicated by the weather conditions. They have been a little jumpy the last two days. I’m thinking there may have been some coyote activity in the area. That jumpiness was then compounded by wet precipitation which brought them to shivers.
As the bulk of our visitors wandered down to greet the herd, the attention suddenly needed to be redirected to preparing the stalls and moving the cold, wet horses inside. At least people were able to witness the process as it happened, and see the horses enjoy the reward of coming in to warm up and dry out.
Delilah was pretty excited to have so many visitors, but eventually adjusted to the clamor of all the conversations and quietly laid in front of the fireplace. She seemed more than happy to accept cuddles from Reese, one of the older grandchildren present.
It’s nice to see the kids doing well with our animals, because we see them as potential ranch hands in the years ahead. When their parents eventually start thinking about sending them off to some camp for the summer, we can put in a pitch for the valuable experience they could gain here, doing chores at Wintervale. Seems like a win-win.
Cyndie and I express our extreme appreciation to all the family members who made the trip through messy weather to bring our place to life with their love and energy. Here’s hoping we don’t let too much time pass before the next Hays family gathering materializes!
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Concocting Thankfulness
Amid the backdrop of societal problems of racial injustice, religious violence, political corruption, patriarchal rape culture, unbridled banking industry crimes, insane sports and entertainment industry salaries, over-commercialization of holidays, and overall people’s misplaced priorities, we pause in the US today to give thanks.
Our Thanksgiving holiday harkens back to a time when one tribe of people gathered together with the indigenous people whom were seen as lesser-than, to feast over their bounty and good fortune. Somehow, the feast became an annual tradition, despite the despicable behavior of the dominant group that whitewashed deeds to allow themselves to feel okay with their means to an end.
Today I enjoy the luxury of living with horses. They give me many reasons to be thankful. I am acutely aware of the privilege that contributed to the opportunity for me to achieve this luxury. It requires some mental exercise to get beyond the guilt and shame over the behavior of the people who came before me to pave my way.
Our horses help me focus on the present moment. They live without pretense, ask for little, and give to no end.
For the American holiday of Thanksgiving, I struggle to identify with the thanks being brandished about, but for the genuine art of being thankful, I am all in.
There is much love and plenty of family and friends to be thankful for, and in that regard I am richly blessed. My solution to dealing with all the ills of the world is to send love equally in all directions. Where I don’t feel love, I can produce it. From that effort comes genuine feelings of love, suddenly manifest. It’s not unlike thankfulness.
Love and thanks are not far apart. I am thankful for very many things, and today I will contemplate that. I send my love to you all, and hope that you find much to be thankful for, too.
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Simple Project
We had a little excitement yesterday when a dog without a collar wandered onto our property while we were preparing to take down the temporary fence around our grazing pasture. Cyndie had driven the ATV down to the south side of our property and had Delilah roaming freely with her when a mellow old black lab wandered toward them.
Cyndie’s initial reaction was to grab Delilah’s collar in case our girl would behave aggressively toward an unknown guest infiltrating our property, but quickly caught herself. She wanted to avoid radiating her anxiety to either or both of the dogs. She took a breath and sent both dogs thoughts of loving kindness.
Delilah did fabulous. The visitor presented no signs of a threat, so the two dogs calmly performed the typical canine introduction of smelling butts and that was that. No big deal. The old lab came up near the barn and was checking the place out when I spotted a truck pull into our neighbor’s yard and turn around. The driver’s side window was down and the person had his arm out the window. Everything about it looked to me like a person looking for a dog.
Cyndie headed down our driveway toward the road, but the truck didn’t stop near our place and was out of sight when she got there. I last saw the dog headed back toward the direction he had arrived from, and as fast as the excitement started, it was over. We went back to work removing fence to clear the way for heavy machinery that will be creating a more defined drainage swale across that area of our field.
On the surface, it seems like a simple enough project. Take down the temporary fence, move it over to the north side of the driveway, set it back up there. In my mind, it seems as though Cyndie sees it as just that easy. I tend to feel like her antagonist and naysayer, as I am inclined to see all the hazards and difficulties inherent in the project.
- How will we handle the white woven fence tape when we take it off the posts? (We laid it back and forth in the ATV trailer. Needed to add the height extensions because it was overflowing the sides. It ended up working slick, except one moment of lapsed attention when Cyndie was driving over to the north side of the driveway and some of the tape spilled out the back and then got wrapped around a trailer wheel a few times.)
- How will we pull all the T-posts? (We used the 3-point lift on the diesel tractor.)
- How will we attach to the T-posts to pull them up? (I rigged up a chain and hooks.)
- How will we attach the post-pulling plate to the chain so it can be quickly released? (After several tries, came up with a spring-clip carabiner.)
- How will we get the horses in and out of this new grazing pasture? (We will use a gate and wood fence posts that were surplus material left by the previous owners.)
- How will we attach the gate to the posts? (Needed to drill a new hole in a fence post and move an old existing gate support to the dimensions of a short gate we chose to use.)
- How will we bury the posts? (We have a post-hole digger, but that phase is on hold until utility company marks where the electric lines are buried.)
We will need to rig up a system of supplying water to this remotely located pasture, but we have a plan for that. We don’t have a source of power to electrify the woven fence tape, but if that becomes a necessity, we can buy a portable system.
It is a simple enough project, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one detail after another that needs to be considered. It made for a full day, but we believe we now have everything in place to get this new grazing space horse-ready, once the buried utilities are all identified.
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Idea Buffet
There are often times when I will share a thought or a comment with Cyndie and she will respond that I should make a blog post about it. A comment does not a blog post make.
Maybe if I string together a few of them, I’ll have something.
Yesterday, I was cleaning the paddocks while the horses were out grazing. In the morning, I had opened the gate to the area just outside the paddock, but left the arena closed until after I had given them their late-afternoon feed. Suddenly, Legacy came from the arena into the paddock, alone, and approached me. I paused for a moment to acknowledge him, and then returned to scooping up manure. He closed the gap and stood real close. I silently received his intimate presence.
After I again returned to my task, he deposited a pile of fresh manure for me, lingered a moment, then walked back out to graze. I told Cyndie that it felt to me as if he had come specifically to thank me for opening up the arena for them. The fresh pile was a secondary gift.
I am a regular Google news headline reader. I rarely bother with the links to full articles in avoidance of the frustrating ad windows and register-to-read situations that too often result. Some of the headlines can be real groaners, a few too many scream out, “Be AFRAID! All is Lost! Doom and Gloom!” Then there are those that shamelessly tease, leading on, but cutting short with an ellipsis, ending before giving…
Being a contrarian and an occasional optimist, I told Cyndie I created a game where I strike out key words of the gloomy, fear-inducing headlines and replace them with something more inspiring.
“U.S. officials fear radicalized citizens will carry out lone-wolf terror plots” becomes, “U.S. officials fear hope radicalized everyday citizens will carry out lone-wolf individual terror peace plots initiatives.” Film at 11:00.
Recently, I have been listening to Leon and Mary Russell’s “Wedding Album” and in particular, the song, Lavender Blue (Dilly Dilly). Their interpretation of this song includes the lyrics: “The longer we live —dilly dilly— the more love we know.” That really resonates for me, because each time I encounter new love, it feels fresh, invigorating, unique.
From that, the thought occurred to me that ‘hate’ never feels new. It is the same damn hate, over and over —from the time I was the target of hate as a little kid, spewed from a teenager who I was surprised even noticed I existed, to the homophobic/racist/misogynistic/religious zealot extremists making headlines today. Hate may spread, but it is never new. It’s the same stale hatred that it has always been.
Thank you. Now go forth and spread some new love with a bit of contrarian optimism yourselves. See if you can get people to…
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