The storm is beginning to be felt here, and I had an overpowering and to me, a profoundly spiritual feeling about it. I took all three dogs – Frieda alone was on a leash – up on the hill across from our farm. The roads were quiet, the wind was beginning to rise, a rumble coming through the hills. I took Frieda off the leash, an act of trust and faith and the three dogs and I sat on that hill and welcomed the storm, invited it, drank it’s raw beauty and power. The dogs, sensing the moment as always, sat quietly and waited, they seemed to be gathering themselves as well.

It is something to be respected, but not, for me to be feared. I remembered reading St. Augustine’s “City Of God” to my dogs at the top of the hill overlooking Bedlam Farm and how mysterious and wonderful, I thought to be bringing them up to this hill to wait for the storm to come roaring up from below. So this is my life, really searching for this hill, for the meaning here, for the beauty of the world and the peace inside of me. The dogs are my witnesses, my guides and spirits, my magical helpers, marking the way, sharing the moment. How wonderful that I felt this impulse, how grateful that I followed it, how powerful it was to see the dogs enter into the spirit of the moment, just as happened at Bedlam Farm. Such moments mark the passage of life and its meaning, consecrate my new home, affirm the power and the promise of the City Of God, the light on the hill, the brightness in my heart.

We sat there for an hour or so, until my fingers and toes begged for mercy and I thought of a cup of tea, and I prayed there, and then we came back, welcoming the story, greeting it, a sacred ritual again.