Today, a new header and spirit for Bedlam Farm. I am catching up with myself, figuring out how to become who I am or want to be.

You can see it at the top of the Bedlam Farm Journal page (above), just under the “Bedlam Farm Journal” title.

The blog is my doppelganger, alter ego, and life story. People always ask me when I am writing another book, but that is what the blog is: my next and continuous book, my great work.

This is perhaps the most thrilling part of my spiritual work – I am getting comfortable with myself, loving my life, and understanding who and what I want to be.

I can feel the anger, defensiveness, and fear melting away.

In no way have I fought my way to peace. In another, I have rooted out the better parts of me and brought them into the light.

Maria knows. Zinnia knows, and now Zip knows what is inside of me.

So do my many wise readers.

The blog is a safe and peaceful place, full of real life, ideas, and a love of nature and animals. I will always have some anger and sensitivity; that is a part of me. I don’t have the power yet to remove it all; I doubt I ever will.

But I can toss it out in bits and pieces, like all garbage. It is becoming a much smaller part of me.

I was in a thrift shop the other day with Maria and saw an old, discarded wooden sign. Simple and warning, read: “This Is Us, Our Life, Our Story, Our Home?”

I thought of the current header, “Creativity And Gentle Warmth.”

There was no question, I thought; the one I was looking at spoke clearly and powerfully about the farm as not just mine but mine and Maria’s. We have our work to do, but we share the farm.

This header is not about where I want to go but where I am.

And we have come a long way together, working to understand the truth about ourselves and working hard to improve.

The blog has finally figured itself out, perhaps reflecting what is happening inside me. This is us, our life, our story, our home. In three works, the old sign captured what we are all about.

Maria and I have come home, taken our blogs, and lives with us.

I asked the clerk how much the old sign cost, and she said, “I’ll give it to you for $3.” She said it had been lying there for a long time. I suspect it was waiting for me.

We gathered up our bags and walked out. As I entered the car, Maria looked at me and said, “You love that sign, don’t you?” She initially didn’t consider it something we needed or should buy.

As I thought about it, I thought, “This is us, this is what and who we are! all in three words.”

She got out of the car, returned to the store, and returned with the sign. “I get it now,” she said.

We put the sign on the back porch for now, and I e-mailed Chris Archibee from Mannix Marketing and said we had a new header for the blog.

He agreed. Chris is my blog godfather; I don’t do it if he says no.

This afternoon, the old motto was replaced.

This feels very good to me. It’s a marker for me and my life.

When I started the blog, this sign would have had no real meaning. Now it says it all. That is how much I have changed and how much my life has changed.

The blog and I are one. It honestly reflects who I am and who I want to be, and who we are and want to be. I was miserable before, lonely, living in panic and miserable. I am in a good place now, happy and at peace. And hopefully, still me, always me. When the blog was launched, I had been living alone for six years.

I am not alone now.

I don’t believe anyone can change who they are and be someone else. When people tell me I’m a different person, I laugh inside. I don’t think anyone can be another person. I’m not looking to be an emotional eunuch. Sometimes, sparks fly out of me. I like that part.

But I can be different and better, a different version of my former self. I’m not sure what drove me to start the blog in 2007. I knew something inside of me wanted to come out. I was confused about who I was, what I wanted to do, and where I wanted to be.

In desperation, I decided to write myself to salvation and healing. I didn’t need a book. I needed my blog. I needed to write my way to a healthy and meaningful place.

I am still and hope always to be me and never to pretend to be someone else.

I have worked hard to be the person I am underneath the anger, hurt, and fear. I suspect I will always be working on those things for the rest of my life. I did so much of this work on the blog.

I am better, much better. Not perfect, not a saint. But better.

I have shed most, if not all, of the anger: the arrogance and the depression. Help helps.

Panic attacks are rare. I feel other people’s suffering more than I did, rather than focus on my own. I made doing good an integral part of my daily life, not just something I thought of now and then or not at all.

I did that out of selfishness in a way; it makes me happy and gives meaning to my life.

One of the things trying to come out was the artist in me, blocked, suppressed, and hidden.

The photography gave me a way to get that out and into the world.

And, of course, there was time and life: therapy and self-awareness, meditation and ideas. I came to the country to find out who I was and am still working on that. I was not happy with myself.

But I love myself more than before, I love others more than before, and I love Maria more than I thought possible. I am also loved more than before.

Maria and I have achieved something complex and central – independent people with our work but a powerful shared interest.

She doesn’t read or receive my e-mail, and I don’t receive or read hers; that would damage our relationship and break a boundary. People sometimes think of us as one thing, but we are two very separate things with a life that binds us together.

We share a passion for our blogs, work on them every day, and share every bit of life on the farm.

The new header captures us, and the blogs reflect us. This is our life, our story, our home.

This was the hoped-for destination for the blog from the beginning, even though I’ve only recently realized the sign came from the angels that I am becoming who I am, good and bad.  It was waiting for me to come for a long time.

The new header is a miracle in nine words. Even as a writer, I couldn’t have put all that together in so few words.

Thanks once again for coming along with me. Of course, I know I could never  have done it without you.