I missed my morning cat meditation in New York, Flo and I participated in a meditation this morning. I am finding the stillness and self-containment of cats calming and powerful in my morning meditation. Most mornings, Maria and I meditate together, she was out this morning, I sat in my chair near the window. In the morning, as the sun rises, Flo is always on her stand, she stares out the window, and then grooms herself quietly and deliberately. This spot has become a spiritual place for me, watching her helps me center and settle down. This morning, I meditated a bit on the cold, it is bitterly cold again and will be for some time, well into March.

I am okay with upstate winters, this is the life I chose and you don’t move upstate if you don’t want to experience winter, but this one has been unique in my experience, just relentless. We are burning lots of wood, navigating ice, struggling with farm chores, feeling for the animals, sparing the barn cats by bringing them inside, where they have been day and night for more than a month. The dogs have had few walks or time outside, the house shrouded in ice and snow.

We dealt with it in our own way, by taking some short trips, once or twice to Vermont but two or three times to New York. I have loved these trips to New York, they have pulled me out of myself and this long winter. I get to see my daughter, we see museums, a movie or two, we have restaurants we love, I am pulling in the energy of New York, it warms my soul more than it has for some time. It gets me in touch with my publishing side, it eases the isolation of a long and unending winter. I have a lot of good books left in me, many more blog posts, I have some new ideas for bedlamfarm.com, I’m eager to share them with you.

I appreciate my cat meditations, such a thing would never have occurred to me, Flo has led me there. She has the presence and poise of the barn cat, she seems so at home inside of our house. This morning, I’m going to meet George Forss at the Round House, we are preparing a video for his Kickstarter project, “The Way We Were.” Then I’m going to write about my carriage ride in New York City.