When I saw Zelda lying by the hay feeder, she is old now, has lost much of her fire, I often see her sitting out in contemplation alone, she has nothing to prove any more, nothing to fear. I get the sense from her that she has lived a long and full life, and is accepting of the next thing. She never seems to be fighting death or hiding from it, as people do.

Perhaps it is because this is something animals feel, but not something they know. Looking at Zelda, I stepped for a moment into the sweet stream of solitude.

I am not at that stage of life where I sit around waiting to leave it, but it isn’t too far away now for me to ignore it, as I used to do, and as most people do.

There is no reason for the young to fear death or think about it, they have plenty of life to live, plenty of choices to make. For most of my life, I made bad choices, but as I yearned more and more for a spiritual life, I’ve made better ones. I think the simple act of wishing to have a spiritual life is transformative, I may never get there, but I am on the way.

St. Thomas says that a man is good when his will takes joy in what is good, evil when he will takes joy in what is evil. I suppose this is what bothers me about our President the most, he seems to take joy in what is evil, and what are the angriest and least generous parts of us.

I am learning just how much good a blog can do, I shudder to think of the good 50 million followers could do.  Talk about doing good rather than arguing about it.

If you are a mystic, which I am, them I picture all kinds of demons and dybuks transmitting  angry and disturbing messages along the new highways of hate, social media. Their, hate is clearly, infectious.

I have learned recently to take joy in what is good, and I feel this joy almost every day. Thomas Merton wrote that there is no greater disaster in the spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality, for life is maintained and nourished in us by our relationship with truth, awareness and reality.

When I told myself lies and lived in unreality, my life began to die, starved of any real meaning. When I faced the hard truth about myself, I began to heal, to feel joy again, and to find meaning.

I project a lot of this onto my animals, as do we all. Zelda looks so wise to me now, meditating and pondering things by herself under a beautiful Spring sky.

I am enough.