for Jon, Maria and Izzy

the tulip is singing

a song for the broken-hearted.

a song of grief

and a song of rejoicing.

a song of remembering

and of forgetting

of holding and letting go.

I ask myself these questions:

can you let yourself be sung?

(the melody is unknown)

can you let yourself be danced?

(there are no steps)

can you open and open again,

trembling in the wake

of this fierce music?

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Today Pam and I drove up to visit Bedlam Farm, home of Jon Katz and Maria Wulf.  Our friendship with these two amazing people has grown over the past few months.  Jon is an inspiration and a mentor for me, a budding blogger and writer.  With some trepidation I had asked him to look at a couple chapters of my book, Horse Dancing:  Artists, the body and the bond between horses and humans.  He is pushing me to show myself more, to open more, to step out of the shadows.  I thought I was.  I can see now that I am not, that there is more to show, more to share.

I also wanted to meet Rocky, the 30-year old pony that lives at the future Bedlam Farm.  Jon has posted some beautiful photos of Rocky with me today on his Facebook page and his blog.  To me, Rocky felt like the sleeping prince waiting to be kissed to awaken.  Jon and Maria had been giving him some soft kisses, but Rocky needed a big smooch to wake up.  He has been alone for a long time.

This is what I loved about today, what broke my heart open.  He was ready.  Not that he had just been hanging around waiting, but when he was touched, really handled, it was as if his body remembered all of that and opened to it like a flower in the sun.  I think that is a testament to how deeply he has been loved.  He became animated, eager and responsive with his herd of four humans.

Nelson, the mustang that I work with is like this now.  He wants to be with.  He is relaxed and happy, interested in whatever the next thing is. His life feels pretty good to him now.

I think this is what we all want, each of us in our own way.  To be with, to be touched, to be cherished, to be one.  I know it is what I want.  I am not always able to express that.  I don’t always give myself over to being loved the way Rocky did today.  That is his gift to me today.

Maria said that usually after his apple and a bit of brushing, Rocky wanders away. She said that was a relief, because it marked an end to their mutual commitment.  Rocky was wandering off because there wasn’t a compelling reason to stay.  Now he will stay.  And so will they.  He has felt us, and he knows there is more.  More love, more connection, more of all of us.

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I read three blogs pretty religiously:  Jon Katz, Maria Wulf, and Seth Godin.

Currently, I am reading Seth’s brilliant new eBook on education, Stop Stealing Dreams.  I am reading it in a non-linear, popcorn way – dropping into whatever jumps out at me from the index.  It is free.  Seth wants us to share it.  I am sharing it.

Since I am doing more teaching, his book is perfectly timed.   It is also perfectly aligned with my ideas about teaching, how we learn and improvisation as a crucial building block in education.  I was very excited to see “improv” in his list of courses he would like to see in schools.

Seth is brilliant.  Reading his posts is like riding, except that I am the horse.  Each post is like what we call in dressage “an aid:”  a touch of the leg here, a shift of the seat there, a half-halt that helps me to connect, direct and refresh my energy.   Each day I receive a subtle, insistent correction of direction, balance and perspective. Seth is what I call and uber-thinker, a true radical.  He lives pretty much outside of any box I can think of.  And he is inspirational.  The other day he wrote:

If your happiness is based on always getting a little more than you’ve got… then you’ve handed control over your happiness to the gatekeepers, built a system that doesn’t scale and prevented yourself from the brave work that leads to a quantum leap.

The industrial system (and the marketing regime) adore the mindset of ‘a little bit more, please’, because it furthers their power. A slightly higher paycheck, a slightly more famous college, an incrementally better car–it’s easy to be seduced by this safe, stepwise progress, and if marketers and bosses can make you feel dissatisfied at every step along the way, even better for them.

Their rules, their increments, and you are always on a treadmill, unhappy today, imagining that the answer lies just over the next hill…

All the data shows us that the people on that hill are just as frustrated as the people on your hill. It demonstrates that the people at that college are just as envious as the people at this college. The never ending cycle (no surprise) never ends.

An alternative is to be happy wherever you are, with whatever you’ve got, but always hungry for the thrill of creating art, of being missed if you’re gone and most of all, doing important work.

For several days I drove by these forsythia that had pushed themselves through the fence.  I liked the feeling of their boldness, their refusal to stay inside the lines, and the wild pattern of color and shadow they created.  That, I hope, is what I have taught my daughters.  And that is what I am learning (and teaching) now.

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This is Cho, our Spanish Galgo.  The Galgo is a sight hound from the Andalucian region of Spain, used by the gypsies for hunting.   What I just learned from Wikipedia is that the name comes from the Gauls, a tribe of Celts who inhabited the Iberian peninsula  from 400-600 BC.  I am told that they have some Saluki in their background as well.

They look like greyhounds, but really that is just a ruse.  They are  a different kind of dog entirely.  We have had eight greyhounds over the years, and two Galgos.  The Galgo is built for distance running, which we found out when we first brought our  ten-year old Galga, Gordita, to Lucy Vincent Beach on Martha’s Vineyard.  We thought the cliffs would keep her on the beach, and watched in alarm as she scaled the cliffs as if they were flat.

Actually, it was Maria Wulf who inspired this post with her blog about watching her dog Frieda run free, and how she became this wild being.  (Read it, it’s a wonderful piece.)  As I read it I thought, “Ah, yes, I know that.”

Cho is a fence climber.  I took this picture because this is how Cho looks just before he goes over the fence.  He scrambles over it and is off.  Once over, he is truly gone.  Cho is now  17-years old, but to see him run is a miracle.  He is a blond ribbon of speed flying across our meadows, across the street, and up into the farm across the way.  He does not hear us, he does not see us.  He is hunting.  Unfortunately, he is sometimes hunting Mamacita, with whom he is obsessed, and at other times a skunk that lives under the barn. Mamacita has marked up his nose several times, which he does not find discouraging. And the skunk – well never mind.

One night last spring, Cho went over and out.  He tore across the road and into the farm.  We called and called.  We could hear him, feel that he was very close, but it was as if he had become the ghost dog, the mad dog.  Finally, after about an hour, he came in and threw up a clump of grass the size of a large raccoon.

We got Cho when he was 9-years old.  He had been returned to Greyhound Friends by someone who had adopted him and then not been able to manage him.  He is indeed a piece of work.  We think that this is because he spent the first 8 years of his life as a street dog, or a gypsy dog, which is pretty much the same thing.

This morning at 6 am he went over and stood in the middle of the field barking loudly at something very specific and very invisible, even to my binoculars.  Then he came in and jumped on the bed for a snooze. So there you have it:  the wild and the tame in no particular order.

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Last summer Pam and I went to Bedlam Farm to interview Jon Katz for my book, Horse Dancing.  I had been reading his blog posts about Simon, the donkey that he and his wife Maria rescued.  The story he was telling in his blog was about a man who loves and knows dogs stepping, no falling, into the equine world.  I wanted that story to be a part of my book.  His book Rose in a Storm, which I read in a storm, is my favorite animal story of all time.

We have been trying to connect since summer and managed a meeting today in Rhinebeck.  It is interesting to move from a virtual relationship to a physical one.  For me it has been mostly the other way around.  But Jon and Maria have been taking friendly shape for me through their writings – Jon in his Bedlam Farm Journal and Maria in her Wulf Howling blog.  Today Jon, Maria, Pam and I stood outside at the farm where we board our horses.  I had just ridden Capprichio, and he stood with us as if he was hearing and understanding everything.  Interestingly, he was not obsessed with getting his nose in the grass, but kept gazing around the little circle, taking in his human herd.

We talked today about connection and finding and creating community through the internet.  About privacy and what we reveal, and how we control the message.  About what one’s story is and how that is shared.  About sharing an artist’s life in this intimate, anonymous way.

I do not always have a clear sense of my audience, and if it is growing or how much I should care about that.  Mostly, I try to find the thread for the day, the thing that I want to push into and explore.  Today felt like friendship steeping, taking on a richer color and fragrance.  Another beginning.

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I read Jon Katz’s remarkable book Rose in a Storm last winter in the midst of a big Northeaster.  I was hooked.  I suddenly needed to know what Rose was up to.  Fortunately, I discovered Jon’s excellent blog, Bedlam Farm Journal, and have been feasting on a steady diet of Jon’s daily reflections on life at Bedlam Farm since.  Following their adoption of the donkey Simon, I had the opportunity to interview Jon and his wife  Maria for my book, Horse Dancing.  Jon is the real deal.  Maria is too.  I feel as if a part of me is nestled in a corner of their farm, relishing the animals, the light on the morning glories in his wonderful photos, the sound of Simon’s morning brays.  See you there!

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