Pivotal Moments

In my dream, there was a term for them: those pivotal moments in your life where your actions or inactions can change the course of your life forever. But the phrase was in a foreign language---Japanese, maybe, or Latin---and when I woke up I couldn't remember what it was.

In my dream, I was having one of those pivotal moments. I was about to do a task that was apparently what my subconscious considered the epitome of what I would consider "difficult." I was about to meet a group of Asian dignitaries for the purpose of negotiating something to do with nuclear weapons. The meeting was to take place in my barnyard!

There were also groups of school children running everywhere, watching a troupe of performers who were putting on several short, philosophical plays in different parts of the farm, allegorical works concerning the nature of these pivotal life moments.

In the midst of all the chaos, one of the children asked me if I was nervous about my upcoming negotiation. Suddenly, I realized that I had lived this part of my life before and had somehow traveled back in time, retaining the knowledge of how I had gotten through the situation successfully the first time around.

"No, I'm not nervous," I told the child. "After all, I've done this before."

I felt so calm that, while I waited for the very formally dressed Asian businessmen to gather for our meeting in my muddy sheep paddock, I passed the time by poking around in the mud. I started pulling out chunks of broken glass (this is something I have to do frequently on my real farm in my waking life---the previous generations who lived here were very careless about where they threw their glass bottles, so every time it rains, old broken glass comes up through the mud. I pick it up whenever I see it. My pockets are always full of shards of glass).

But in the dream, as I was poking around pulling up chunks of sharp glass, I also started finding huge slabs of chocolate, buried under the ground too, so I pulled those up as well. (I'm sure this was inspired to the extremely rich, gourmet chocolate bar that my good friend Nyxana slipped into my birthday card when she sent it to me. It was so good, it took me four days to eat the whole thing. Thanks Nyx!)

Anyway, I took this dream to be a message of hope and returning confidence from my subconscious. I have a difficult task ahead of me, but I know I can do it. In the meantime, I may encounter some unpleasant, painful things, but there is also the promise that I will discover unexpected pleasures as well.

Can't ask for more than that!

Cursed? Or Just Cursing? Quirky Thoughts About Finding Hope During Times of Trial

The way my life has been going lately, it's easy to see how people in ancient times could believe in things like curses and evil spirits tormenting them and causing their bad luck.

What do I mean by that?

Well, let's put it this way: There are many, many things in my daily life that work perfectly, day after day, and never give a moment's problem. The 13-year-old television still works. The toaster oven always toasts. The microwave, despite being 12 years old, always microwaves. So it's not as if EVERYTHING in the world breaks down all the time.

But what is the most important focus of my life right now? My farm. And what are the most important, absolutely crucial tools I need to use on a daily basis to keep this place running and try to earn enough money to not go bankrupt? (1) A digital camera, (2) a pickup truck, (3) a cell phone, (4)a computer, (5) a home phone and internet connection, and (6) email.

EVERY SINGLE ONE of these items that I own is currently broken, malfunctioning, or has done so in the past few months. It's enough to make me tear out my hair!

(1) I already complained about my digital camera yesterday, so I won't go into that again.

(2) My pickup truck has a mysterious ailment that we've tried to have repaired a dozen times, but nothing ever works in the long run. So now it sits, unable to start, leaving us unable to haul hay or building supplies for farm improvements. When we get a little more cash on hand, we'll try again to have it repaired, but I've lost confidence that anything will ever truly fix the problem.

(3) My cell phone has been almost worthless for 6 months now. That one is partly my fault. I accidentally dropped it in the horse water trough, and then forgot it in my jeans pocket and ran it through the washing machine. Of course it died! We spent $130 to buy a new one. A week later, I was out training a horse, it started to rain, and before I could get back to the house, the brand new cell phone in my pocket again got wet and again died. Only the power button and the speed dial buttons still work, so I can't receive calls or check messages, and the only calls I can make are to people who were already programmed into my speed dial (Ken and my sister). We haven't been able to afford another $130 for a new phone, much less one of the more expensive waterproof ones that I clearly need! So we're waiting another couple of months until our phone plan qualifies me to get a new phone for the cheaper "sign up" rates.

(4) My computer died a few months ago. My husband fixed it, but it broke again shortly thereafter. After weeks of it being out of service, Ken finally got it fixed again. By that time, I'd gotten all my work transferred to Ken's computer, which I'm still using, while Ken uses his laptop in the living room. Someday I'm going to have to do the complicated task of organizing all my files and transferring them all BACK to my computer, but my office is FREEZING in the winter, so for now I'm using Ken's office for as long as he lets me, even though it's inconvenient.

(5) Our home phone and internet connection has been okay lately, but several months ago, it got broken three times in a row. Why? Because out of the whole 26 acre farm that the sheep could be roaming around on, one of them decided that the very best place to stand every day was in the 3 feet of space right up next to the house near where the phone and DSL wires attach. Although these wires are stapled to the side of the building with very little slack, three times, the sheep managed to insert his horns under the wires and rip them down. Try explaining that to the phone company repair person! We've since put up a barrier to keep the sheep away from the spot, and Ken has figured out how to fix the wires himself if it becomes necessary again.

(6) Lately, I've been having sporadic, but serious, email problems. Everything looks fine on my end, but as time goes on, I find out from more and more people that some of my messages are never getting through to them. Many are getting shunted to the people's spam folders (even though I am on that person's "accepted" list), and many are just never showing up at all in ANY folder.

So I send long, detailed answers to people inquiring about horses for sale, only to find out a week later that they never received them. I have people inquiring about fleeces and other sheep products that complain I never answered their emails, when in fact I had never received any messages from them.

It's very frustrating and makes me really paranoid. If I answer a horse buyer inquiry and they don't respond, have they changed their mind and decided they're no longer interested? Or did they never get my answer? Or did they send me a reply that I never got? The wondering is driving me nuts!!!

So anyway, back to what I was saying about ancient cultures believing in curses and evil spirits:

Clearly, we all have hardships in our lives. And for some reason, those hardships and difficulties always seem to hit the aspects of our lives that are the most important to us, the things we focus the majority of our attention on.

To an ancient mind, uneducated by modern scientific thought, and unsullied by modern cynicism, would that not suggest some kind of malevolent intelligence, seeking the most effective way to cause harm?

And, in some roundabout way, might that not actually be a comforting thing to believe?

What I mean is, if all these difficulties are simply "The Way Things Are," then our only choice is to accept that life is hard and bad things happen when you can least afford trouble. There is no hope for relief from the troubles because that's just "The Way Things Are." It's depressing!

On the other hand, if instead you believe that malevolent pixies have infested your home and are tormenting you on purpose, then at least you have the entertainment of wondering what invisible pixies might look like, what their motivations might be, and how you might appease them.

In Ireland, farm wives used to leave out saucers of milk, honey, or whiskey on their doorsteps to feed the Fairy Folk, to keep on their good side and avoid being cursed or having mischievous tricks played on them.

Regardless of whether the pixies are real, just by wondering about them, you've engaged your imagination and had a brief respite from the drudgery of trying to overcome your latest batch of problems! Not only that, you can also indulge in the hope that if only you find the right way to appease the mischievous sprites, life could be easy and good again.

And that's the crux of the matter: When times are at their very hardest, sometimes the ONLY thing that you need to help you survive is the hope that things will eventually get better.

Here's another example:

A couple of weeks ago, when I was feeling very stricken and depressed about parting with my favorite horse, my sister sent me some homeopathic medicine intended to help cure grief and emotional upset. She said it had helped her, and she should know, since she's had plenty of cause for grief and upset in her life.

My husband, on the other hand, thinks that homeopathic medicine is a load of hooey. At the levels of dilution they claim, he says, there are not enough molecules in the bottle for even ONE molecule of the original medicine to still be in there. So how can it possibly work?

Me, I tend to stay open to both sides of the debate, and be willing to experiment to find what works for me, regardless of WHY or HOW it works. So I decided to try the homeopathic pills.

The directions said to take 4 tiny pills, 4 times a day until I felt better. My symptoms might intensify for a few days before they improved. I could take the pills for up to two weeks, if necessary.

Sure enough, for two days after I started taking the pills, I felt so sad that I would start crying at a moment's notice. I lost my appetite. I didn't want to do anything but lie down and sleep. But after another two days, I felt better. I was able to get on with my life.

Was it the pills? In a way, I think it was. But maybe not in the way you might think.

You see, regardless of what is IN those pills, they have another potent effect: They distract your mind briefly from your pain, and they give you hope that things will get better. Like I said before, sometimes that's all you need.

Four times a day, when I took those pills, my mind was able to stop dwelling on my sorrow long enough to think, "I wonder if these will work?" By the very act of wondering, my mind was admitting to the possibility that I would soon feel better. Which generates hope. Which, in itself, makes you feel better!

The directions warned that the feelings might intensify before improving. Letting my mind absorb that information gave me permission to mourn as much as I needed to, right away, rather than trying to hold it in. How better to heal from grief than to actually go through the mourning process?

Did the actual ingredients of the pills have any effect on my mood? I don't know. Do I feel better now than I did before I started taking them? Absolutely.

I'm a firm believer that there are many layers to how we interact with the world, both seen and unseen. Sometimes when things get really hard, if we're going to make it through, we have to find whatever methods we can that allow us tap into that undercurrent of hope that runs beneath it all.

Imbolc

I've been thinking about Imbolc, which is the ancient Celtic festival celebrating the fertility of the sheep flock and the very earliest signs of returning spring.

Wikipedia says:

In Irish, Imbolc (pronounced im'olk) from the Old Irish, meaning "in the belly" (imbolg), referring to the pregnancy of ewes, and is also a Celtic term for spring. Another name is Oimelc, meaning "ewe's milk".

How cool is it, for a shepherd, that there is a specific holiday in honor of sheep? It's celebrated on February 2nd---nearly 3 weeks ago now---but I've been so stressed and swamped this year, I sort of let the day slide by without much notice.

It wasn't until today that I remembered I had neglected to do my annual Imbolc ritual: The year's first Groping of the Ewes.

Each November, I put the rams and ewes into the breeding pens and hope they do their jobs properly. Then I wait, full of hope and faith, for the lambs to come. Imbolc---the festival of "ewe's milk"---is when the ewes' udders begin to fill up in preparation for lambing. It is the time of year when I can first get confirmation that my faith has been justified.

When the ewes are busy eating, and too distracted by food to pay me much mind, I walk along behind the row of them and feel between their legs to see if their udders are starting to develop: a sure sign that lambs are on the way in another couple of months!

It's such a simple thing, but after I've been so down and out all winter long, you have no idea how uplifting it is to get that small sign of hope and renewal for the farm: ewe after ewe, each with a small udder starting to form, each getting ready to give back to the farm, in the form of lambs, my year's payment for all the work, love, and money I've invested in the flock for the other 11 months of the year.

We're a partnership, the sheep and I. Going down the row of pregnant ewes, I am filled with gratitude for all they give back to the farm.

Imbolc can also be seen as a metaphor for the other aspects of my life right now. Just as Imbolc is a holiday celebrating the return of spring during a time that is still deep in winter, our farm is still deep in hard times, but with a glimmer of hope beginning to shine through.

On the one hand, we are still broke and worried about money, but on the other hand, I got 4 new inquiries about horses for sale today, and now have 4 "almost definite" sales plus a few other "possible" ones. If we can just get these horse sales completed, everything will be fine. We'll still be in debt, but without the horrendous hay bills, we'll be able to manage it.

What will that be like? We've been struggling so long, I can barely remember what it was like to be able to pay every bill as soon as it came in and still occasionally have something left over to put into savings or to spend on something fun.

After two days of not feeling well, my health seems to be looking up, too. Maybe it was the vitamins I took before bed the last two nights, but I feel almost better today. I'm going to take another batch of vitamins tonight and, after another good night's sleep, I hope to be back to normal by tomorrow.

Heartbreak Ahead

I've been crying all morning.

I just can't put it off and avoid thinking about it any longer. Today I have to gather up all the paperwork for Char and Scylla and write up a sales contract for the Trading-Horses-For-Sheep deal.

Char and Scylla's new owner, David, is already on the road, driving here from Wisconsin with a trailer full of sheep. He'll arrive sometime tomorrow, drop off the sheep, and the next morning he'll leave for home, taking Char and Scylla with him. After that, it's very likely I will never see my Char-char again.

This is a really good trade for both of us. David is getting a couple of gorgeous, high-quality horses, and I'm getting a group of gorgeous, high-quality sheep. The only trouble is, I LOVE those horses, and he LOVES those sheep, so even though we know it's a great trade, we're both going to be really sad about it at the same time that we're excited.

This whole time I've been working out the details of the trade, I've been able to concentrate on the facts: Adding the new sheep to my flock is an excellent business decision. Value-for-value, if I count the lambs that the bred ewes will have in a few months, I'm getting more in "sheep" currency than I could sell the mares for in cash right now. The sheep will eat less hay than the horses, so we'll save money there. And I know that David will give the mares a fantastic home where they can be very happy.

I know all those facts. I've been clinging to them for weeks. I've been able to go about my life, do the chores, spend time petting and talking to Char and Scylla, and I've been pretty much okay.

But today, every time I so much as look out the window and see one of them, I start crying. It's a beautiful day out, warm and sunny. It would be an ideal day to go out and spend one last day playing with Char before I have to say goodbye. But I can't bear it. I can't stand to spend time cementing that bond we have, only to have to break it forever tomorrow.

(Sheesh, now I'm crying again, just writing about it. Part of me feels stupid for getting this worked up about a horse---I'm a grown woman, for Pete's sake. I made an excellent business deal that will help our farm. So shut up and stop crying about it, already!)

It would make it easier, I think, if parting with Char and Scylla was the magic sacrifice that would instantly cure all of our endless worries about money. But that's not the case. On Friday morning, they'll leave here, and on Friday afternoon, we're still going to be wondering how to pay our electricity bill and how to stretch the last of Ken's paycheck until the next one arrives.

That's not NEW, of course, we've been in that situation for months now. It just makes it harder to think that parting with Char and Scylla makes no difference in our situation at all. It makes it feel like they were never here or that my sacrifice doesn't matter.

I know that's not really true. Parting with Char and Scylla will help our finances in several ways. It's just that those ways are more gradual: saving money through decreased hay usage (using 1 fewer bale per day at $7 a bale saves us more than $2500 in a year) and earning more money through increased sheep sales later this summer (the lambs those new sheep produce in the spring should sell for about $6500 by fall).

But those are not quick fixes that my heart can latch onto. The heart is all about the NOW. No matter what the mind knows, the heart is never content to trade sorrow today for some distant future reward, because today is all the heart knows.

The only way the heart can find solace is to turn to some greater love. For me it is this: Even more than I love my beautiful Char-char, I love my farm and I love my husband. Our financial situation has been very hard on both of them, and this sacrifice will help ease the burden.

And that is how I am able to do this with a willing (although sorrowful) heart.

Going Gray

Ever since we bought this farm, my hair has been going gray at a much faster rate than before.

You think it's related?

Do you think that chronic worry, stress, and exhaustion really does make your hair go gray? Or is it just that I'm over 40 and would be going gray by now regardless of what I was doing for a living?

I discovered my first gray hair on my 17th birthday. By the time I was in my 30s, I still had less than a dozen. But now... they're everywhere! Not quite enough yet to change the visible color of my hair, but it's getting there.

My feelings about it have been interesting to observe. On the one hand, a woman's hair is a symbol of her youth---and when I was younger, my thick, curly, waist-length hair was always my one vanity. So naturally, I feel a pang at seeing the symbol of my youth morphing into a symbol of my age.

On the other hand, I've always admired those confident, all-natural women who let their hair go gray without fussing about it or covering it up with dye. These women are always so beautiful... in their confidence and simplicity, they usually end up looking younger than the women who fight the aging process with dyes and makeup and face lifts.

What's so bad about getting older, anyway? As the saying goes, it's better than the alternative!

The difficulty is that it's a transition, and transitions are hard. When we first admit that we're passing into a new era of our lives, we're not sure what our new role will be. What will people expect of us now? What should we expect of ourselves?

For me, it feels psychologically and spiritually healthier to keep the gray hair, so that it's there as a reminder of the stage of my life's journey that I have now reached.

Middle Age... If I tilt my head and squint just so, I can almost envision it as a magical Tolkien-esque land, filled with hobbits and elves. Oh. Wait. No, that's Middle EARTH. Darn!

Well, it'll be an adventure, just the same. Day-by-day, I'm building the person I'm going to be when I'm old. What will THAT be like? By the time my hair is fully gray, who will I be?

I won't know until I get there.

Reasons For Bad Housekeeping

After the farrier left today, I spent some time catching up on some long-neglected housework. This got me thinking about how some people always have spotless houses, while the rest of us seem to accumulate more than our share of clutter and filth.

While washing the kitchen counters and sweeping up dust bunnies the size of subcompact cars off my floor, I got to wondering why that is. Before long, I came up with a set of theories.

1. People who have jobs that leave them exhausted at the end of the day do less housework than other people because when you've spent the day lugging hay bales, cleaning hooves, mucking paddocks, and wrestling unruly horses, all you want to do when you're finished is collapse on the couch and eat cold pizza straight from the box.

2. People who have jobs that expose them to dirty or gross conditions on a regular basis do less housework than other people because they've acquired a higher tolerance to filth. Face it, after you've had your hand inside a sheep to reposition a lamb so it can be born, a little spilled jam on the counter just doesn't have the same "ick" factor it once did.

3. People who don't get a lot of visitors do less housework because, frankly, who's going to know? So, if you're ever planning to come visit me, call first, okay? Trust me, you don't want to see what the place would look like otherwise! :-)

4. People with open-minded, or off-beat personalities do less housework because they're used to not caring as much what other people think of them. That's right. I'm not a slob, I'm a rugged individualist!

5. People with 8 cats, 3 dogs, 15 horses, a flock of sheep, and a husband do less housework because with the amount of grime that gets tracked in on a daily basis, it's a hopeless task. You may as well surrender!

Having conclusively proven to myself that it's a miracle I ever do any housework at all, I decided to postpone scrubbing the toilet, and go collapse on the couch.

Now where's that cold pizza?

Cause and Effect

The sound came again: a deep, hoarse, wavering bellow, something like you'd expect to hear from a dying walrus.

I had just gotten up and was groggily checking my email. Because the house windows were closed, the sound was muffled and faint, so it took a few moments for my brain to register what it was.

Maggie.

One of our broodmares, Maggie has a voice that evokes images of elderly elephants and wounded sea-beasts. But why would she be bellowing repeatedly first thing in the morning?

~~~~~

This is a story about cause and effect, how the littlest things can have the most unexpected consequences. You never know what little thing you do---for good or ill--will have a profound effect on someone you've never met, or what insignificant event will change your life forever.

Here's what got me thinking about that:

When I opened the window to listen more clearly to Maggie's whinnies, my hand knocked against a glass ornament that was hanging there. It fell from its hook, tumbled out the window, and shattered on the ground below.

Well, shoot! The decoration wasn't valuable, but I'd liked the cheerful spark of color it had added to my office. A minor disappointment, but nothing to get upset about.

Still wondering about the commotion outside, I put on some shoes and went out to check on Maggie. She was standing alone at the hay feeder, hollering. All the other mares were out of sight, probably swishing flies down among the cedars at the bottom of the big pasture.

When Maggie saw me, she gave one more bellow, and cantered off to find the other horses. Nothing was wrong with her. All I could think of was that she'd fallen asleep near the feeder while all the other horses were still eating, and had been distressed to find that she'd woken up alone.

It was an insignificant event. But it made me stop and think what a quirky little chain of effects it had been. Who would have guessed that a sleeping horse in the pasture could manage to break an ornament upstairs in the house?

The minutiae of the causes and effects that shape our lives fascinate me. You never know at the time what insignificant detail of your day will end up changing the course of your life, even decades later.

For example, if it hadn't been for one photocopied flier on a bulletin board in Portland, Maine, sometime around 1987, I would never have met my husband in Boston in 1993. Here's how it happened:

1. 1987: A flier on a bulletin board announces the formation of a new writer's group. On a whim, I decide to join. Through this group, I meet a man named David who I eventually date for several years.

2. During that time, David and I take a road trip down the east coast to visit some friends of his. The friends take us to a local festival, where I discover the SCA for the first time. I love the idea of a medieval recreation club, so when I get back home, I join the local chapter.

3. 1992: David and I have broken up. At an SCA event, I meet Derek. We begin dating, and eventually I move to Boston to be with him.

4. 1993: Derek and I are not getting along. One particular night towards the end of our relationship, we have an argument. Needing to get out of the house, I go alone to the local SCA dance practice, which I have never been to before.

That night, I met Ken, the man who two years later became my husband. We've been married for twelve years, and still going strong---all because of a flier, a road trip, and an argument. If that flier hadn't been on that bulletin board that day, I can't even imagine how different my life would be right now.

An example of obscure cause and effect came up on the farm recently, too.

Somewhere in California not too long ago, a boss stiffed an employee for a month's pay. I don't know the details. All I know is that the employee is the person I talked about in This is a Test, who wants to buy my mare Bonnie. "Oh I want her, " she told me in a recent email. "I think about her all the time." But now, because of her boss's action, she doesn't have the money right now.

If I had sold Bonnie to this woman a month ago when she first inquired, I would have had the money to buy hay for my herd and pay our neighbor Bob for the alfalfa he gave us on credit. And with that money, Bob would probably have been able to do a few things in the past month that he has not been able to do without it. All the while, somewhere in California, that boss has no idea that his behavior is affecting the lives of farmers in Virginia.

So much of the time, we live our lives feeling alienated in our own little world, never realizing the far-reaching ripples our actions can cause.

I try to be a good person. I'm not an angel, by any means, and I've certainly had occasions when I've been impatient or thoughtless or unkind. But for the most part, I try to treat people---and animals---at least as well as I hope to be treated myself.

Even if I can't always see the effect of my choices, whenever I think about the tiny details that can change a life, I know that it's worth it to make a little extra effort to put some kindness and helpfulness out into the world.

~~~~~

So who would have thought that a sleepy horse in the pasture could break an ornament upstairs in the house and inspire a philosophical blog entry that would be read in [fill in the name of YOUR town here]?

Where will the ripple of cause and effect go next? If even one person who reads this is inspired to go out of his or her way to take a kind action towards another human being, there's no telling how far the results will reach.