Entries Tagged 'Taking Risks' ↓

Last week we talked about the joys of having pets.

comics.com/Duncan

But if you’re a loving and responsible caregiver they are a major commitment:

comics.com/Duncan

 
My daughter gets up at 5:30 on workdays to walk Sammy and Banshee. Her husband walks them again in the evening and they pay someone to take them out in the middle of the day. Then there are the costs of veterinarians, dog care if they go on a trip without their four-legged family members, their new car, etc.

Are Sammy and Banshee worth it? How could you doubt it? Still, there are moments…

As I’ve mentioned before the four of them drive from the Chicago area to Ann Arbor, Michigan every time there’s a home football game at the University of Michigan. Torben’s family lives in Ann Arbor and they’re all football fans. So a couple of weeks ago they left at 4:30 in the morning to get there in plenty of time for the game. Needless to say they were exhausted that night and went to bed early. Then around 3:45 a.m. Sammy gently woke Kaitlin up by touching her face with his nose. When she woke up enough to figure out where she was, Banshee started vomiting. Presumably Sammy was trying to tell Kaitlin his sister was sick.

So Kaitlin and Torben went into action. He took the dogs outside, in case Banshee had to vomit more, while Kaitlin started cleaning up the mess. Unfortunately in the confusion they forgot to check the yard for skunks. Sammy tangled with one last year so they usually try to be careful it doesn’t happen again. Sure enough, there was a skunk, Sammy chased it, and he got sprayed once again. (He’s a sweet dog but not a fast learner.)

Torben grabbed him by the collar and rushed him into the bathroom so Sammy couldn’t contaminate any porous, nonwashable surface, and Torben and Kaitlin scrubbed Sammy good with their deskunking cleaner…which they were careful to have on hand. It took a while but they eventually could go back to bed and get a bit more sleep.

They woke up to a horrible stench, of course, made worse by the fact that Sammy had been like Duncan in the cartoon above. He had crawled onto the bed between them. That is never allowed, but presumably he needed some reassuring closeness after his ordeal. They were not pleased. Even if the dogs were allowed on the bed, that was not the time. Sometimes you don’t want them to snuggle.

I recently read Peter Mayle’s Encore Provence, and I loved his reason for not having a garden:

It would be fighting nature, and nature always wins. It has more stamina and it never stops for lunch.

Peter Mayle is a wise man. His quote reminds me of a friend of mine who said one spring:

I love this time of year! The new plants are spouting and growing…before they get eaten by the deer and beaten down by the hail.

And that was down here in town, where the elevation is only 7200 feet.

So I suppose some people would call our garden in the woods, at an elevation of 8800 feet, an exercise in foolishness. The picture above shows me walking down the path to the garden. The figures slightly to the left of center are Kaitlin and (probably) Andy looking at the garden.

 

In fact, it was a fun adventure and we were successful for a while. We carefully hauled down sacks and sacks of sterilized manure each year and rototilled them into the soil. And we did produce some lush cold-weather crops…crops that needed more warmth didn’t do as well. We harvested most of our tomatoes after the first snow flurries, while they were still green.

Unfortunately just growing crops isn’t enough.

Animals Don’t Understand Sharing
There are a lot more animals than humans up there. Now we didn’t mind sharing. We thought it was cute when we saw a pile of pea pods, neatly stripped of the peas, under the leafy protection of Kaitlin’s pumpkin plant. We didn’t even mind the ground squirrel chattering at us when we stayed in “his” garden too long. But he eventually ignored us and came in to harvest even though we were there. (We tried two different fences, but they couldn’t keep him out.) It did bother us when we were admiring our handiwork and saw a wheat stalk topple over in front of our eyes, And the last straw was when we watched a bean plant disappear into the soil, to be replaced by a gopher hole.

Andy’s solution was to set traps and kill the animals, but I didn’t care about the produce as much as watching the plants grow. And killing animals does not make my little corner of the world a friendlier place.

The Greenhouse

 

 

Andy had always dreamed of having a greenhouse, so we decided to spend the money and have one built. The garden was about 30 feet by 50 feet, and the greenhouse is 25 feet by 75 feet… big enough to do some good.

The walls are cinderblock and the roof glass. The left wall in the picture of the inside is about 7 feet high, the one on the right 9 feet high.

The second snapshot shows how the higher wall is nestled into the slope of the land to conserve heat.

We asked the contractor to save all the precious soil we had laboriously built up, but he forgot. It ended up buried under the concrete porch. So we built up more soil by growing “green manure”, crops that nurture the soil when rototilled in. It didn’t take long before we producing good crops again.

We had several years of bountiful harvests before the drought hit and our well couldn’t produce enough water for the plants. My husband has great hopes that the drought will eventually end, but I’m relaxed either way. I’m glad we did it, but I’m happy to move on.

A Waste of Time?
Was our garden in the woods a waste of time and money? Were we foolish to do it? Not in my book. For me growing a garden is like raising a child, I do it for the joy of being involved and watching things grow. I do it for the process, not for the end result. When we bought the land we knew it could be devastated by forest fires at any time. The fact is, we’re been lucky to have had that many good years up there. We managed to have some good harvests, but even more important we had a great shared adventure and have years of precious memories.

What About You?
Have you ever done something that other people might have thought foolish or that didn’t turn out the way you had hoped? How do you feel about it? Are you more focused on productivity and achievement than in enjoying the adventure of life? Do you think the two approaches are incompatible?

 

You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.
–Robin Williams

I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality….
–Joseph Campbell in “The Power of Myth”

It’s a magical world, Hobbes, ol’ buddy…let’s go exploring!
–Calvin to Hobbes

I hesitate to tell you how long I spent taking the above picture for last week’s post. I had the post written by a reasonable hour, and it could have been a nice conclusion to a productive day. All I needed was a simple illustration for the text.

Instead I took picture after picture, varying the lighting, pose and camera angle. From time to time I downloaded the pictures to my computer and noticed what resonated and what didn’t. When I first started getting involved, the “rational” part of my mind said, “This is crazy. The picture you have is plenty good enough. Just let it go and get a good night’s sleep.” And a soft inner voice replied, “Yes, what you say makes sense. It is crazy. I’m doing it anyway, and you can’t stop me.” Once I get in that situation I don’t fight myself. I open myself to the experience.

I ended up going to bed about 3 a.m.

Was that really the best use of my time? When babies lie in their crib experimenting with making sounds, is that a waste of their time? Or when they start exploring their hands and feet, being completely open to the miracle of movement, is that a waste of time? I think not. And I believe that feeling of fascination and discovery shouldn’t be reserved for children. I personally regard that state as sacred space, when one forgets about time and is completely immersed in the present moment. So what if I got to bed late and slept in the next morning? It was a small price to pay for feeding my soul. Sure it was crazy, and I agree with Robin Williams, we’re only given a little spark of madness. We mustn’t lose it.

What about you? Do you have a spark of madness that makes you feel more alive, that lets you slip into sacred space? Please share your thoughts and experience in the comments section.

Thanks to bikehikebabe, David, Daz and Shilpan for commenting on last week’s post.

 
 
kaswenden. Creative Commons license.

 
Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.
—Heraclitus

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
—Ernest Hemingway

Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. That’s my favorite mantra when I try something new. It quiets my inner critic and gives me the freedom to experiment and learn new things without worrying about being judged.

For instance, when I first started writing an inner voice would say, “What makes you think you can write? Why would anyone want to read anything of yours?” The only solution for me was to get my ego out of the way and write in the spirit of sharing. It doesn’t matter if my writing is “good” or “bad”. The important question is, “Is it honest?” Does it accurately express one person’s way of experiencing the world? Maybe some people will be judgmental, but that’s not my problem. My job is simply to play my part well…to immerse myself in the process and leave the rest to the gods.

It reminds me of a child going with his mother to meet the teacher he would be having in his new school. During the visit he looked at the pictures on the walls and asked, “Who painted all those ugly pictures?” His mother was horrified at his rudeness and was going to intervene, but the teacher just answered, “Johnny, in this class people don’t have to paint pretty pictures, they can paint anything they want.” Johnny visibly relaxed…this school was going to be a safe place.

 
 
Sheree K. Creative Commons license.

That feeling of safety is so important to learning. That’s one reason therapy reading dogs work so well in schools. The dogs are nonjudgmental and the children feel safe with them. Reading aloud is something to be shared with an interested listener rather than a chore, and the children look forward to doing it.

Children have to rely on adults to give them a safe learning environment, but as adults we can provide it for ourselves. So I no longer worry when my inner critic sneers, “What do you think you’re doing? What makes you think you can write? No one is interested in what you have to say!” I simply answer, “Yeah, sure. You’re probably right. And it doesn’t matter. I’m writing anyway, and you can’t stop me.”

Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. And for me there are few things more important than writing.

So, that’s what I care about, and that’s what works for me. What about you? What do you care about…care about so much that you’ll do it no matter what other people might think? Please share your thoughts and experience in the comments section.

Thanks to Shamelle, Daz, Jenny, Paul, Noa, Bruce and Liara for commenting on last week’s post.

Photo by carf. Creative Commons license.

So long as we love we serve;
So long as we are loved by others,
I would almost say that we are indispensable;
And no one is useless while they have a friend.
—Robert Louis Stevenson

Until one has loved an animal a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.
—Anatole France

I’m not sure the words “an animal” is needed in Anatole France’s quote…one’s soul can also be awakened by loving humans, too…especially babies. But it is true that often children learn how to love and be compassionate by connecting with an animal. The above photo was taken by Gregory J. Smith working with Children at Risk, a program to help street children in Brazil. He says,

Even if they’ve been neglected, children need to connect, to love.

St. Francis Project–Final Week, Last Lines
To me that need to love is what the last lines from Bob Clubb’s St. Francis Project are about:

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

As I’ve said before, I don’t believe in a theist god, so I don’t believe in eternal life or that we will be rewarded by some higher being for loving and giving. I believe the awakening of the soul that these actions bring is reward enough.

Stray Dogs and Human Hearts
Other examples of this need to love and connect can be seen in Iraq, in the interaction between homeless dogs and some of the American men and women serving there. Members of the U. S. armed forces are not allowed to have pets in a war zone, but this rule is often violated because it goes against human nature. Iraq has a multitude of stray dogs looking for companionship and a home. And service people can’t always refuse them.

The story of Marine Major Brian Dennis and Nubbs, the abused dog he rescued, is one example of the power of love and loyalty. Major Dennis nursed Nubbs when he was on death’s door, and when he left the area Nubbs tracked him down to his new location 65 miles away. After a lot of red tape Nubbs is now in California waiting for the major to join him after his tour of duty is over. It’s a story well worth reading.

Photo by smiteme. Used with permission. Owner reserves all rights.

The story of Hero, shown on the left, has a sadder ending. He was adopted by Army Spc. Justin Rollins the day before Rollins was killed by a roadside bomb. Hero is now safe in New Hampshire with Rollins’ parents, a precious connection to their son.

The Prayer of Peace
Once again The Prayer of Peace (often called The Prayer of St. Francis) is:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

Photo by Mr.Jadkowski. Owner reserves all rights.

Life can be harsh and heartbreaking at times. but we’re not helpless. We can’t do everything, but we can do something if we don’t close our eyes and our hearts. Love and caring can hurt at times, but the alternative…putting on blinders and having a heart of stone…to me would be infinitely worse.

What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

Thanks to Robert, bikehikebabe, Al, Ellen, Jonathon, and Truthteller for commenting on last week’s post.

If you can’t pronounce it, say it loud!

That was the advice Professor William Strunk gave to his English students many years ago. He was telling them to let their voices be heard. Don’t keep quiet for fear of making a mistake. Mispronouncing a word is not a big deal, and if you keep quiet you will never learn to pronounce it correctly.

That quote reminds me of babies learning to walk. It’s a complicated task, but they want to do it, and they’re not worried about constant criticism. They’re not worried about doing things wrong. Falling down is just part of the process…it’s not a sign of failure. I believe that as parents we need to provide that kind of learning environment for our children, and that as adults we need to provide that kind of learning environment for ourselves.

So, when I noticed this past week that the layout of this blog was garbled in Internet Explorer (I use Firefox), I was forced to practice what I preach. I wasn’t happy about the problem, but I tracked it down and corrected it. That didn’t mean the layout would work well in other browsers, so I hired someone to clean up my coding. I care about my blogs, but I care even more about the excitement of learning new things and sharing them with others. So I’m not going to spoil the fun by worrying about mistakes. If there are occasional “oopsies”, it’s just part of lifelong learning.

What about you? What new things are you trying? Is fear of criticism getting in your way?

This site is about sharing, so please tell us your thoughts in the comments section.

Photo by Ben McLeod via Flickr. Creative Commons license.

andyi . Creative Commons license.

For a larger version of this picture and comments by andyi, click here.

The photographer, andyi, has written a short essay on having the courage to celebrate your own personal joy, no matter what other people think: “By celebrating your personal joy, you add to the whole of the Universe. I heartily salute this woman…it’s a gesture of great generosity to share that sort of joy with thousands of strangers.”

Dave Schoof, author of Engaging the Disquiet, also inspired this week’s post. In his comment to my last post he wrote, “I actually think it is the things we hold as the ‘imperfections’ in us that make us loveable. When I see someone’s vulnerability, struggle or even suffering, my heart opens.

There is a wonderful expression and practice in Japanese called Wabi-Sabi: the beauty in imperfection.”

(See Tadoa Ando’s discussion for more information about Wabi-Sabi .)

Amen to that, Dave. I feel the same way. I’m guessing it’s not a common reaction, otherwise imperfection wouldn’t be such an issue. But as I see it, that’s not our problem. Our job is to put as much as love, acceptance and compassion as we can into the world. I’m convinced it makes a difference.

If you ever do find yourself feeling unworthy and unlovable, I would suggest looking at the video of Jessica the Hippo, especially the very end, when she gets tucked in at night. It’s one of the most heart-warming videos I have ever seen.

Thanks to Gimundo for introducing me to the video. That is a site worth visiting if you like uplifting stories and videos.

The Goddess
Originally uploaded by Eus

Oops! I was trying to change the font size of this post and the content disappeared. At least the mistake is consistent with the title. If you’re interested, Carol Manning’s comment will give you the gist of what I wrote.

Yesterday’s post was a real stretch for me. Baring my soul to anyone who might stumble across this site. Hmm. Am I ashamed that I love deeply? No. Do I feel exposed and vulnerable? Of course, and that’s fine, too. What does that have to do with the purpose of this site? Just about everything. I’m not selling anything so I don’t have to worry about people’s reactions, even assuming anyone actually visits here. In one sense the purpose is to affirm my deepest values by being open and honest about them. Then if anyone does visit they’ll be contacting an open and authentic human being, with no social masks in between.

In a recent post Adam Kayce suggests:

“1. Take a moment (or two) and reflect on your patterns: your life patterns, your work patterns, the habitual ways you go about doing things, the rhythms you’ve settled into as a result of living in the way you’ve been living.

2. Now, get in touch with your heart. Connect with your heart’s sense of knowing (using the Remembrance is a great tool for this), and ask to be shown the place where some evolution would be good for you and your growth.”

Stepping out of my comfort zone and publishing this afternoon’s post was a major breakthrough for me. Thanks, Adam.