November 10,2007 – Cold, raw. Put the de-icers in the cow and goat water tanks, replaced the heating coil (or Annie did) in the sheep and donkey waterer. The barns are stuffed with hay, and I brought corn and grain to the animals for the first time, as they may need the extra energy. Quiet day. Stayed on the farm, cept for a quick trek to Saratoga to shop and bring new photos to Stephanie Arpey, owner of All the Right Angles, where I a doing a photo show next Saturday from 12 to 5 (518 587-4320). Tomorrow, go to the Georgi Museum in Shushan at 2 p.m. to talk about my photos. I am sick of me sometimes. Photos shows are strange, often people by grim-faced people staring at my photos with their hands clasped behind their backs. I think, that is a picture of a dog. They think it has some portent and symbolism perhaps. But I love taking pictures, more and more every day. One day I hope to be good at it.
  Anthony will be at the Georgi, and also in Saratoga next week, talking about his concrete, and Mary Kellogg will be there also, reading from her poems. Anywhere Mary is is a place of grace and warmth. Maria Heinrich’s very striking fiberworks will also be on display.  Settled in for the night. Wood stove, roaring, writing a blog and two books at once. Dogs dozing all around me – Lenore on the couch, Izzy under the chair, Rose in her secret lair.
  Got a very strong response to the announcement of the picture/text book “Pay Attention” (see below). Had more than a dozen speaking requests about it already. Nice. Now I have to write it.
   It’s been more than a week since I was extricated from my quiet cabin in the Merck Forest by Bill and Maria Heinrich, who told me that Anthony had learned that his sister had been killed, and had asked them to go and get me in the woods. 
  The tragedy opened up something deep in me, even though I barely knew his sister and did not suffer a fraction of the grief his family and her daughter did and are. I was already struggling with a gloomy bout of what I call spiritual fatigue, and was trying to crank myself up by writing, camping, reading, thinking. I’m on the mend, I think, thanks in part to poor Anthony’s, whose family tragedy brought perspective and real contemplation.
  I suppose I was most affected because of my friendship with Anthony, who I have known for five years, and has become like family to me. Anthony worked on my farm as a handyman, now owns and runs a concrete design workshop and studio. He suffered a near collapse earlier this year and was diagnosed with severe ADD and stress and trauma symptoms triggered by abuse outside of his family when he was younger. He is recovering, and we have gone through this experience together, in various ways. We are inseparable buddies, yakking on the phone a dozen times a day and yelling at each other about various things nearly continuously. When Anthony suffers, I guess I do.  And he has suffered a lot lately, though he never complains about it
  I think the world of him, never more so than when I saw his astonishing compassion and courage after the killing, when he turned himself inside out to help his overwhelmed family. Talk about rising to the moment.
  The death and Anthony’s response triggered a lot of blogging.
  I can’t imagine not having this blog, although I resisted having one for  years. I am sorry that many of you have tried to e-mail me, but can’t, as the queues are full. I keep clearing them out, they keep filling up. I can’t figure out how to deal with it.
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  I am a believer in the conscious self, that is I divide people into categories, those with a conscious self, those without one. People without a conscious self go through life much as that cow above, chewing and grazing without much consideration of the circumstances.
  The conscious self involves self-awareness, thinking about decisions and consequences,
bringing some self-awareness to the decisons we make and, I suppose, goes to the question of conscience. I don’t really think that consciences can be created or acquired late in life. I suspect we are born with a conscience, and no matter how much we disregard or ignore it, we can’t silence what one theologian calls its insistent demand that we do good and avoid evil.
   “The first duty of every man,” writes Thomas Merton, “is to seek the enlightenment and discipline without which his conscience cannot solve the problems of life.” One of the first duties of society, he adds, is to enable people to receive the spiritual formation they need in order to live by the light of a prudent and mature conscience.
  I don’t know what society Merton means, but I don’t see society playing much of a role in the spiritual formation of anybody.
  Anthony and I have been conducting our own spiritual formation society for several years now, mostly in cell phone conversations and occasional talks on the farm or in his workshop. We talk about the ethical man, the self-aware man, the nature of conscience, the choices we make. Anthony and I argue all the time about Hannah Arendt, the moral philosopher, and her powerful notions about right and wrong, which have guided me much of my life. Arendt believes that a good and moral choice is one which brings us self-respect, that causes us to not despise ourselves. The object of spirituality, moral reflection, conscience, she argues, is self-respect. That is the rule, the barometer, the benchmark to guide us. The conversations as well support Merton’s idea that you have to work at spiritual formation, it doesn’t just happen, and even when you work at it, it often doesn’t happen.
  I agree with Hannah Arendt.  When I face a question of conscience, or of consciousness, I ask if my decision will give me respect for myself, not respect or approval from others. If it does I do it
  Anthony’s week confirmed her idea for me. He had some awful things to confront and face and has more still yet in front of him next week. But he will be all right. He knows better who he is now.
    In being strong for his family, in forgiving people who have troubled him, in practicing true love – doing something truly for someone else, not for yourself, giving of yourself   – he offered powerful testimony to the triumph of his conscious self, and the strength that brings.  Society didn’t offer him much in the way of spiritual formation, so he did it by himself. And a lot of people respect him.
 So, perhaps it’s time to move on, get to work, move forward.
  I respect and appreciate the relentless of life. Pulls you forward, even if you don’t really want to go.
  Most of the world, a monk once wrote, is either asleep or dead when it comes to consciousness. I can’t speak for most of the world, but I don’t dare fall asleep or die. Too much going on, and the water line to the cows has to be thawed out in the morning.