Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

(Bud at the dump, waiting for his biscuit)

“I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.”

-T.S. Eliot

The essence of mediation, I was taught, is to know things as they are, not as we might wish them to be.

I would rank this among the most powerful lessons of my life, along with being crazy and different. Maria cracked me up today, we were riding in the car and she asked “do you sometimes think that we are not normal?” I replied “Where have you been this past few years?”) I almost spit up my water laughing. Er…yes, I said, I think we are completely not normal! Who do you know who is anything like us?”)

Meditation is important to me, and mostly for selfish reasons. It was in meditation that I first learned to see the truth in my life, to  seem me as I am, not as I thought I was, or hoped I was.

There I began the process of trying to become the person I wanted to be. There was – is, I’m afraid – a very wide gap between the two and one of the things I know now is that there are nowhere nearly enough years ahead of me to get where I really want to be.

I don’t mean that in a depressing way, I’m just learning what it takes to really change and grow and find real peace.

The author Amit Ray wrote something I am learning, it really doesn’t matter how much money you make, what really matters is the amount of good energy and positive vibrations you radiate in life. As someone who often poisoned the air with angry and resentful energy, I see the wisdom of his writing every day. It feels good to do good, period. When I had money, I almost never felt good.

I am learning that there is a way to be sane. I am doing it by being a witness to my own mind, to my own thoughts. I am learning that I am not the mind, I am the witness, the watcher. Thomas Merton says this is the way to true enlightenment.

I don’t expect to get all the way to true enlightenment, but I am working hard, and seeing the truth in myself was and is both painful and difficult. I understand why so few people try to do it.

This is the most difficult spiritual work I have done. It can’t be done quickly and easily, at least not for me.

Every day reminds me how flawed and broken I am, every day gives me hope that I am getting better. Authenticity is a kind of faith for me now, a demanding companion and a rewarding one.

I’ve driven past this farm in rural Vermont for more than a decade, and it has been abandoned all of that time, decaying, collapsing, coming apart a bit more every time I drove by.

It’s become a symbol of me of change, and of my belief in radical acceptance, the practice of accepting life on life’s terms and not resisting what you cannot or choose not to change. Radical acceptance is about nodding to life, just as it is, not as I might wish it to be.

Every winter, the heavy snows collapse a different part of the roof and barns, the old abandoned farmhouse is literally caving in on itself.

I have come to call it the Acceptance House. It is always sad to see yet another abandoned farmhouse fall into decay and disrepair. We are in some ways a cold and callous people, I can imagine there are many families in our country who would be grateful for the chance to live in an old farmhouse and fix it up over time.

I see it is too l ate for the Acceptance House, I always expected to drive by and see a new, perhaps young, family love it and bring it back to life. But there it sits, a monument to many things, acceptance being one of them.

There are a heartbreaking number of abandoned farmhouses around here these days, the small family farm is being pushed into oblivion by an indifferent government and the rapacious expansion of corporate mega-farms. The old farmhouses are testament to a wonderful culture that we will miss more than we know.

I accept the end of this once beautiful old farmhouse, this is life, just as it is. And curiously, the old farmhouse has become somewhat beautiful, like a flower or leaf at their end, the snow gracing it, the blue, blue sky framing it.

As you know perhaps, Maria and I are starting our own Bedlam Farm podcast (name suggestions are welcome, we haven’t settled on a title yet). We were asked to chat a bit as a trial so the tech people can figure out sound levels, etc. So we did our first trial Saturday morning on zoom.com. It was easy, and our Shure microphone worked well.

We do ask for and welcome your feedback (we don’t promise to follow it) so feel free to tell us what you think of this first effort: [email protected], [email protected]

As we say in this audio strip, the podcast will be free, weekly and will cover our lives together – the farm, the dogs or other animals, our creativity. Like our blogs, it will be authentic and unedited or filtered.

We hope you like it, we are serious about doing it well. FIrst effort is below.

Audio: Maria and Jon: Practice Podcast

My diligent New York CPA send me our tax returns this morning, and I learned that in 2018 I learned less money than at any point in my life since I was 22 years old.

He told me there was good news and bad  news, I owed very little in taxes (we overpaid last year) but that I also made very little money. I told him not to feed badly for me, I have never been richer or happier or more fulfilled.

Since it took my editor nearly a year to read my last manuscript, I didn’t get any of those big book checks I used to live on (and mostly gave away during my mad period.)  Maybe he’ll find time this year.

I should say that all the money I receive from the Army Of Good for the Mansion and refugee work is kept in a separate account, is audited monthly and also regularly by my accountant.It is not mine, nor is it mine to use. And I don’t leave it lying around, I put it to use quickly.

It might be true for last year that I received almost as much in donations as I earned myself. Wow, that is quite a turnaround. And it feels right. Doing good has been good for me.

This feels quite wonderful to me and to Maria. My blog is widely read, so is Maria’s, she is selling art almost as quickly as she can make it, and I am writing – for the first time in my life – whatever I want, and in whatever form I wish. I even sold some photos this year.

I launched a radio show, am finishing another book, and we are planning a weekly podcast from Bedlam Farm (name to be decided.)

Maria laughed and said it was odd to be so happy about making so little money. But we both grasp the significance of it – we are free and happy and living the free and creative lives we always dreamed of. I just hope the car keeps running and the roof stays intact.

I wish all of you as happy a tax report as we got. It all depends on what you want your life to be. I am right where I want to be, it is a special feeling.

Money does not bring happiness, I can testify to that. Helping the vulnerable brings happiness, and I am committed to doing even more this year, with your help.

And oh yes, if you wish to contribute to the very gratifying work at the Mansion and with refugee children seeking full scholarships to good schools you can do so by donating to me via Paypal, [email protected] or sending your checks (and $5 bills) to Jon Katz, Mansion/Refugee fund, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.

It’s strangely wonderful to  be making less money and feeling so good.

There are all kinds of ways to talk to animals, and Maria has instinctively known many of them. I often look up at the farm and see conversations taking place. It’s hard to look at this photograph and not believe some communicating is going on between Maria and Liam, a wether (neutered ram).

I wouldn’t presume to know what they are saying, but I have seen Maria and the donkeys talk for  years now, you can almost touch the emotion passing between them. Maria is scratching Susie’s back and talking to Liam over her shoulder.