Welcome to the Butcher Shop

     I have a job in the butcher shop this week.  I don’t have to go, but if I don’t, in nine months there won’t be anything to eat.  I like to eat, so I go to my job.  

     With my previous job it was different.  If I didn’t go then I would have to listen to my boss deal with me.  And I probably wouldn’t get paid.  Going to that job did not seem directly connected to eating, although I did use $ from the job to buy food, that I would eat.  Now I go to the job to harvest the food that I will eat.  No job, no eat.  Simple.  

     Its not really a job but it feels like a job more than anything else I do here on the farm.  There is a leader and I am the minion.  Not really but I can’t do the job without the leader, whereas he could do the job with out me.  He doesn’t want to do my part of the job and I don’t even want to learn his part of the job, so it all works out.  

 In the tall, tall cooler, hangs a one thousand pound animal carcass.  It is our food for one year.  Its also part of our money system because we regularly trade bits of meat for other items that we want or need.  That big beef hanging there is significant, its important, can’t just space out on this one.

     The leader’s part involves knowing where to cut the big beef.  He has knowledge and experience and the will, to turn this huge thing into small cuts that can be wrapped up for the freezer.  Yes, I am the wrapper.  I’m good at it because I’m so obsessive.  Our meat can stay in the freezer for two years perfectly safe from freezer burn.  Its so intimidating to me to look at the entire side of an animal just hanging there.  But the leader looks at it, makes a decision, and he cuts it.  He cuts through meat with a sharp knife and he cuts through bone with a hand saw.  That is one of the parts of the job that I love, when he calls me away from wrapping into the cooler, and says, “catch that when it comes free”.  I love to feel strong and use my body so holding a 45 pound piece of raw beef while a determined man with a saw cuts through bone makes me feel like a bad-ass.  Then he grabs the knife to finish the cut and whoop, the hook it was hanging from rises up and my body braces against the weight now fully in my arms.  I got it, I’m a strong woman farmer.  I carry it out of the cooler and slap it on the butcher’s block.  Yeah, that part is really fun.

     Then leader comes out and looks at the huge slab and again, he makes a decision of where to cut.  He wrestles the chunk onto the band saw, wiggles the meat into the correct position, turns the saw on and eeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzz, cuts off a steak, or something.  He cuts that entire big beef into roasts, ribs, steaks, round steaks, soup bones, brisket, and chunks for hamburger.  Its amazing to me, so impressive.  I so, so appreciate that he can do this and mostly that he wants to and is able to do it.  

     I guess that’s sort of where this started.  I can’t speak for him about whether or not he wants to do it.  I know for me that I also make decisions here on the farm.  I decided that I want to live like this, I want to participate in harvesting meat.  I decided that I don’t want a job that pays money, money I would use to buy food.  I want to put in any labor necessary to harvest my own food.  So when its the week that we spend at the butcher shop, I want to go.  I want to go to my job at the butcher shop.  I know I don’t have to go.  I choose to go.  I desire to go because of the decision I made about what I want to eat.  So its simple.  Some times it feels like I don’t want to go and so I immediately change my attitude.  I am conscious of how I’m feeling and I change things up easily when I’m feeling lazy or resistant.  

     Its the Freedom.  That’s what gets me going.  By walking an eighth of a mile down the road to the butcher shop, I am claiming my freedom.  That is an awesome feeling and it is exhilarating to know that I am Free.  Its a choice I make every day, to be free.  I think it is possible to see the big beef as commanding us to cut it up and so the job in the butcher shop becomes a job, something we “have” to do.  The details are the same but the perspective is different.  I like my perspective.  I am bouncing down the road, claiming freedom, filled with energy from the universal source.  I made my decision and I’m loyal to it and I’m tapped in to the infinite stream of love energy.  I’m ready, let’s go to work.   

46 trips around the sun

 In January of 2020 I felt God telling me it was ok to leave the farm.  Take mateo and go.  I felt inspired to move towards something instead of away from the farm partner.  It became clear to me that I was to take mateo and move towards Community.  I desperately wanted to live with mateo in community with other humans.  It felt wonderful.  There was a twinge of confusion because I was a bit surprised to be leaving this lovely farm, my home, where mateo came to live.  But I felt sure every time I thought about moving towards community living.  

Mateo and I had train tickets to travel to New York state to visit one of two intentional communities that had fit what I was seeking.  Four days before we were getting on that train, the “shut-down” of 2020 began.  Our visit was canceled.  We stayed home.  I praised the Lord in my confusion, knowing for sure that all was well and I was living inside God’s loving arms.  I continued communicating with the 2nd community in the Ozarks, planning to visit.  Then the shut-down got even bigger and that trip was cancelled.  I continued to praise God in my confusion and chose to know, that all was truly well.  

As much of human culture plunged into strangeness and fear, I praised God to be home, to have my child in our home where we are comfortable and we have everything we need.  There is no other place I’d rather be on earth and I was so grateful that I didn’t have to leave.  I gently asked God to show me when I was able to see, what was all that jazz about living in Community?  

The answer came loud and clear and beautifully and so sweetly, so beyond my tiny human imaginings.  The WWOOFers came here!  They are farm laborers looking for temporary assignments on farms.  We have been involved with the program for 4 years and have had occasional WWOOFers, maybe 3 every year, for one week at a time.  Not in 2020, no, things have been very different.  The requests to come here started pouring in and it became challenging and hilarious trying to keep up with it all.  Ok I get it Lord, community is important and I was hearing correctly from you and you are creative and infinite and you Love me and yes, I am living in Community.  Since March, there has been a continuous stream of laborers here, living and working with us.  I tremble at the brilliance of the design.  

This is a picture of my child playing with our current WWOOFer, Bettine from Wisconsin.  Tater is the one in the pink snowsuit pretending to be a snow dragon.  Bettine is gracefully natural with children and she genuinely enjoys playing with mateo, really playing, being silly and fun and light hearted.  What a Blessing!!!  

Today is my birthday and there’s nothing I want more than to know that my child is full of joy and ease and being his full child self, free of any heavy stuff.  I know I am a good mother because I know that I’m a partner with God in my mothering.  When I want something for the child I know that God is infinite and creative in how the desire can be fulfilled.  I do not have to do it all.  Many times its better when I step back and just watch the majesty unfold.  So today is the best birthday ever, because I live in Community, and my child is bursting with sunshine-on-snow sparkle JOY!   

 

Pig - the story continues

      2013 I lived in Ypsilanti from March until October.  Miguel got piglets that spring and fed them all summer.  I moved back to the farm in October and would sometimes go with miguel in the van as he drove the pig milk down the road to Jake’s where his pigs were kept.  I remember it was December 26th when he finally shot and butchered those pigs.  There was deep snow on the ground.  I had started feeding round steaks  to the pigs because I felt awful that they were still alive with nothing to forage, no hay, no grain and minimal milk to drink.  I distinctly remember an argument with miguel where I was defending my position, trying to get him to understand that I was thrilled to participate in butchering but I was obviously NOT able or willing to initiate the activity. I don't use guns.  He bought pigs and fed them all summer while I was living and working 90 miles away from the farm.  I remember being so frustrated and confused in that situation, day after Christmas and he’s dragging his feet to butcher the pigs, making vague comments about how I should do it if I think they need to be butchered.  This was the beginning of a ride that I have been so confused about.   This fall, 2020, I was so anxious about discussing and planning the pig butcher with miguel that I arranged to have a mediator present.  What he made clear in that conversation, was that I needed to allow him to get in the right frame of mind to butcher the pig.

Now I know.  Now, after 8 years of the same situation, the same arguments, the same confusion, I can see and it feels good to have clarity.  I am a good farmer.  I am able to look at the whole picture and evaluate pieces of information that inform a reasonable decision.  Then I make a decision and follow through with it, taking full responsibility for my actions and the outcome.  I learn from the parts that go well and the parts that don’t, and I keep it all in mind when I’m evaluating the situation the next time it arises.  

    This post is a follow-up to the 11/19/2019 post "Pig".

    So 2013 I remember clearly and 2014 there weren't pigs to butcher because they died during the summer.  I don't remember details of '15 through '17 but I remember 2018 was the year he, by his own description, didn’t sight down the barrel and then proceeded to cut the foot off the pig while it was still alive, causing it to scream.

2019 - Pig - already written about

2020  -  A week before Thanksgiving, I made a casual comment to miguel that made it clear I thought the pig could / should be butchered before Thanksgiving.  He heard me and said something, so I clarified and confirmed my thoughts. He did not comment.  In order for things to be ready, I cleaned the side porch where the pig hangs after butcher.  I trained the pig to calmly enter, and then be locked in, the kill pen for his milk every day while the other two pigs followed me to the other side of their pasture for their milk.  I was ready and I felt strongly that the pig was ready and I didn’t have words for it yet.  The clarity came later.  

Four days before Thanksgiving I was feeling strong anxiety about continuing to feed the pig when I didn’t know how long it would be before it was butchered.  I knew that the pig should be harvested at its peak but I didn’t have that language for it.   I also knew from my past experiences here with miguel that him deciding to butcher the pig would be an uncomfortable, confusing struggle and it would happen later than I was comfortable with.  On that particular morning we were out in the pasture locating the cows and bringing them up to the milk house.  Miguel was furthest to the East and he headed back West to where I stood with two of the three cows we are milking.  He started moving the two cows towards the milk house and commented that he didn’t know where Judles was and that we’d have enough milk without her.  It was obvious to me that she was to the East, he just had chosen not to continue walking far enough to see her.   This confirmed my suspicion that he was avoiding thinking about, or considering the fact that there was a pig to be butchered.  If he was literally leaving a cow out of the milking and saying that we had enough milk with out her, then he and I were thinking completely different things about the pig.  I knew it had reached its peak and was ready to be harvested.  By leaving Judles out in the pasture, he was actively cutting the amount of milk available for the animal.  Normally I would have just written him off as the guy who didn’t feel like walking that far, turned around, and gone East myself to get her.  But this was the perfect moment demonstrating what I knew to be true.  He had put the pig out of his mind and was not thinking about the fact that it needed to be butchered.  The pig was not an issue for him.  The pig was real for me.  I was feeding it every day, knowing that it was ready to be butchered, knowing exactly how much milk he was getting compared to what he used to get, and understanding the whole picture which includes the lower temperatures at night and the condition of the pasture this late in the season.  I knew from his current behavior in the pasture along with his behavior in the past, that miguel had pushed the pig out of his mind and was refusing to consider his role in the whole reason for that pig being on our farm.  

So I walked along with him and the two cows and felt it was the right moment to express my anxiety about feeding the pigs.  I knew that if I continued to feed the pigs, it would allow miguel to continue not thinking about the pig.  I knew that the pig was ready to harvest so I did not want to continue feeding it.  If miguel thought that the pig was not ready to harvest, then he was welcome to feed the animal.  I don’t want to participate in something I don’t agree with.  So I told him as we walked through the pasture with two cows, I am having anxiety about feeding the pigs so I want you to start doing it.   He said what’s so hard about feeding the pigs, and I said its not hard, I am having anxiety about feeding them.  He never asked me why or what it was about and I didn’t offer that information because I knew he didn’t care, as he displayed by not inquiring.  Let the defensive pattern surrounding pig butchering begin, every year we go through this dance.  

Later in the house I asked him to please answer the question I brought up earlier.  He refused to feed the pigs.  He told me to get a WWOOFer to do it.  I knew that I wanted him to be conscious of the pig and how much it was getting to eat so he would have to consider his own behavior of putting off the butcher.  Getting a WWOOFer to feed the pig didn’t address the issue at all.  Here we go again.  

At some point he mentioned that in years past we butcher when the ground was frozen and did I want the pig to be flopping around in a bunch of mud when it was shot.  No.  And:

The purpose of the pig on this farm is, during the warm months, to store extra milk from cheese and butter making.  A pig on this farm can forage and drink milk and grow fat, meaning, it is making food for us with its physical body.  

The purpose of the pig has been fulfilled when it stops making food for us, when it stops growing fat. This happens when there is not excess milk and the temperatures turn cold.  The pig stops making food for us and begins using its body simply to stay warm.  

When the pig’s purpose has been fulfilled or completed, it should be harvested.  It should be harvested at its peak, or at the beginning of the time when it starts using its physical reserves just to stay warm.  

     So miguel was writing off the decision to butcher the pig simply because the ground was not frozen.  I had looked at the 10 day forecast and saw nothing indicating that the ground would be freezing.  Its been such a mild fall, who knows when the ground is going to freeze?  That is a ridiculous parameter to lead the decision about when to butcher an animal.  Totally consistent with what I’ve seen from him in the past.  Its taken me this long, how many years, to finally gain clarity and language about when the pig should be butchered.  I know for sure back in 2013 that the ground had long been frozen well before that snowy December day when miguel finally got up the gumption to shoot the pigs he had purchased and fed all summer.  

     I am so glad I finally learned that it doesn’t have to be some weird, twisted head game.  There is a time when the pig is ripe, like a grape on the vine.  Just pick it. 

     A friend of ours needed to learn and miguel made a plan with her to butcher, when I would be away at church.  He told me clearly, twice, that he didn't want me around for the butcher.  I decided to stay home from church because its important to me to be present when food for my family is being harvested.  I am a farmer, this is my home, that is food that I helped raise and my child will eat for the next year.  I will be present when it is harvested.  I have integrity.  I will not be intimidated away from my own home and my own food.  

    Yesterday I put a thick layer of leaves inside the kill pen.  I brought the milk and calmly, easily, skillfully led the pig into the kill pen.  miguel shot the pig.  It fell.  It kicked and its hide did not get muddy because the unfrozen ground was covered with leaves.  miguel got the chain on the foot and I had already gotten up on the tractor when he told me to raise it up.  I was present and able to anticipate what needed to happen. I am good at butchering and my contribution makes things smooth.  The pig died well.  Its over for this year.  

    Ultimately I do appreciate all of these experiences.  They are painful to go through but I do know and Love that it is how I learn, its how I practice presence and listening.  I want to learn all this stuff and I am grateful that the intense learning is over for a moment and I can breathe easier for a bit.  

     I am letting go of all the confusion.  I am letting go of feeling bad because someone else is trying to put their junk on me.  I am an intelligent, thoughtful person and I have gained clarity about raising pigs and no one can take that away from me.  He can blame me for not allowing him to be in the right frame of mind and I can finally see through that and know that I am ok, that he has issues, as we all do, and I am not going to accept any negativity from him.  He can offer it and I will just be still in my own peace.  I know when to harvest a pig and that feels good.  I am sorry if you haven't let yourself learn when to harvest a pig, but that doesn't change the wisdom I have gained in my own life.  

I love being a farmer.  I love learning and adjusting things year by year.  I am good at it.  This is my bliss and I am thriving here.  I appreciate him trying to drag me in to his confusion, it makes my own clarity so much the sweeter.  

Had we practiced leading the pig into the small pen together, it would have gone differently.  I was doing it by myself for the week leading up to yesterday and I always put a bit of milk in the big pig's pan to keep him quiet.  Because you chose not to participate in the practicing, you didn't know, and were unable to anticipate, the big pig trying to follow me with the bucket of milk to the other pigs' pan.  

Blossom

   Blossom had her calf yesterday.  Farm partner saw her out in the little swamp with the sac poking out of her rear.  He came to find me at the house with the kid and we made a plan to meet back there after his next load of compost.  When we met up again Blossom was licking a healthy little bull calf.  He was all slimy and wobbly like they are, with bright eyes and obvious determination to master his legs enough to stand up and get himself some milk.  Thank God the sun felt warm and it was early in the day, but partner wondered aloud why she had looked so incredibly wide earlier and Blossom’s behavior now indicated that she might not be done.  Twins?  So we made another plan to let her relax and have a good opportunity to move the second baby out, then we would walk her across the road to our primary pasture with the milk cows.  

     Partner moved many more loads of compost from the barn, spreading it on the hay field.  I gathered the garlic to plant for next year’s harvest.  Child did not want to go to the hill garden and I gave us both a pep talk about how we use the garlic to flavor our beef jerky and our pork sausage.  He came along willingly and we brought a cat with us too.  What a gorgeous day.  Then we found papa encouraging Blossom and her new calf out of the swamp and towards the road.  He had seen feet when he first arrived and he guessed they were back feet.  Blossom needed help.  I put a twine halter on the little guy and partner got Blossom moving down the road to the next gate.  I love living on a dirt road.  We let them free in the primary pasture and went home to change clothes and put the tractor away.  

     I found her close to where she was last seen, laying down pushing with feet poking out.  By this time the bulls and young cows had come over to investigate so we started moving her towards the milk house where she could be away from them and we could tie her up.  My anxiety was real high by this time.  It was basically dark and I like it so much better when the calf just comes out all easy and natural and we don’t even participate.  90% of the time we walk out to the pasture in the morning to get the milk cows and there’s a new calf standing up looking at us all wide eyed and full of milk.  That’s how I like things.  And I totally trust partner to handle everything.  He has pulled countless calves in his 40 + years of dairy farming so the pressure to save the cow’s life is not on me.  It’s a strange dynamic.  We work well together in these situations.  Again, thank God Blossom walked to the milk house nice and easy and left her slow, sleepy bull calf out in the pasture.  She seemed to have good energy which was reassuring.  

     The child was so helpful in the process too.  He followed us and then ran ahead to his safe spot in the hay feeder.  When we got up there I told him we’d need the flashlights in the milk house and he proudly ran ahead and met us there with both lights.  We got a halter on Blossom and tied her up real easy.  I massaged her back and cried a little while papa got himself a pail of soapy water.  She was quite calm and receptive to our plans.  Papa pulled a foot out and broke the sac and I got a piece of twine around it.  I held tension on that leg while papa got the second, back foot out.  We put a towel on the twine to protect our hands and we pulled.  Blossom was pushing and it wasn’t long before the calf was out far enough that I let myself breathe and know that we were almost done.  I imagined the calf was dead but I really wanted Blossom to be ok so it made every thing we did well worth the effort.  A few more pulls and then that glorious, fantastic event of the calf slipping out of the mother.  Now she was free.  I was free.  She could go back out to the pasture and care for her healthy bull calf and I could go back to my simple life where things are generally easy and not scary and bloody and life threatening.  That’s how I like things.  

Morning chores

     Opening the chickens is the first thing to do outside every day.  There is a little door, just the size of a chicken, and it lifts up when the rope is pulled and hooked on a strategically placed nail.  If the chickens come blasting out of the chicken sized door then it could have been opened earlier.  I like to find that sweet spot of opening their door when its light enough to see as I’m walking down the path towards the coop, but before they all hop down off the roosts and start scratching around on the floors.  There is a pecking order and for some of the chickens it can be really uncomfortable to be trapped in a building with particular members of the flock.  Its nice to open their door early and let the chickens exit peacefully instead of running for their lives.  The rooster starts to crow and I am already up and about well before daylight.  Opening the chicken door too early presents the possibility that a night creature may enter and take a chicken for a meal.  Possums and raccoons find the roosting chickens such easy prey so the door must be closed as darkness falls each evening and only opened as morning light brightens the sky.  

Then a bit before chore time, I head out to the milk house and begin.  Chore time lately has been about 8:30 am and it adjusts with the seasons.  The water heater gets turned up to high after resting all day on low.  Two 5 gallon cans sit waiting, mostly full of clabbered milk.  One can gets emptied into a bucket and the other can is lifted and about 3/4 of the thick, sour milk is poured into another bucket.  The empty can sits by the sink to be washed later, when the water is nice and hot.  Milk remaining in the 2nd can returns to its place by the door and will be added as the starter, to skimmed milk, for another batch of clabbered milk.  Buckets are moved into the holding area and eagerly await their trip down the lane to feed the piggies.  I think of these as buckets of sausage and they are precious, not to be spilled.  A bit does get poured into pans in the yard where cats, chickens, and dogs gather to enjoy their morning treat.  

Now its time to skim the cream.  Two milk cans, each holding around 4 gallons of milk, have been sitting in the refrigerator for two days.  Over that time, the cream has generously risen to the top and can be easily skimmed off.  Transporting these cans involves careful attention to the contents.  They must be lifted and moved in a way that does not disturb the cream layer, which could be easily mixed back into the rest of the milk that it sits upon.  These cans are heavy and they must be sort of levitated out of the refrigerator and held quite still until coming down to rest where the light is good.  Normally when carrying a can full of milk, say for cheese making day, the weight of the can may rest against the legs and the whole body used to move the can around.  For skimming cream, the can must be brought out of the refrigerator and held out away from the body, clear of the legs which are moving, walking towards the final destination.  This technique allows the cream to remain on top, in skimmable position.  Its quite satisfying to be able to move a full can in this fashion and I feel it demonstrates my love for, and devotion to, cream.

To receive the skimmed cream, an empty two gallon stainless steel can rests between the two full cans and the large ladle is rinsed in hot water.  I take my place on the green crate and lean over a can for the best view.  The forward edge of the ladle is pushed gently down to break the surface and thick, heavy cream reluctantly releases and flows into the bowl of the ladle.  The angle is changed as the ladle fills and then the load is carefully poured into the receiving vessel, minimizing drips and saving as much cream as possible for butter, or ice cream, or coffee, or whipped cream, or just plain drinking.  The cream almost displays layers as it is removed, changing from thick, heavy, and sticky to thin and loose.  There comes a moment when a distinct color change appears under the lifted ladle as the bluish-white of the skimmed milk shows itself.  This can is through offering cream and now cream from the second can may be lovingly harvested, beginning again with the thick cream that clings to the ladle.  At the end of a can, It is fun to try and skim off as much of only the cream as possible, playing with the color change as the pale blue skimmed milk tries to slip in to the ladle along with the yellower cream.  It reminds me of video games played as a young child.   Any anxiety about “getting all the cream” or “not too much milk” in the cream can is soothed with the knowledge that it all just becomes sausage.  Cream not harvested from a can will be fed to the appreciative piggies.  Milk put through the butter churn will drain out as butter milk and get carried down the lane in a bucket to the happy pigs.  Just relax and skim in joy.

"Look where I am"

 ...so you’re family and I love my family.  Especially ones like you that are basically strangers so you and I don’t have any personal history between the two of us, but I can talk to you like a friend because we sort of know a lot about each other's lives and where your mom and my dad came from.  I want to write some things out, I like to write.  Writing letters is something I enjoy and you are a perfect target because I can write to my cousin while I process some things by writing them down.  You can burn this letter if you want to.  Its sort of for you and it is also very much for me.  I will likely print out two copies and keep one.  

My dad left his physical body this past March, he died.  Your uncle Joe, he was the first of the eleven to go.  I think it really freaked out some of the other siblings because their own mortality was staring them right in the face.  I thought it was great that he died.  To me he did not seem peaceful or content.  He was surface-happy but I could see just under the surface all the old pain and anger, masking fear, that had always been there.  Seemed to me that transitioning back into non-physical was his only option.  I mean we are all going to die, but I am actively seeking more peace and more contentment every day and I am finding it, while I’m still alive.  He seemed to be just surviving, just keeping pain under the surface with activities that hid his heart and filled up time.  Now, my dad is Free.  He has returned to pure positive energy and he is fully Love, totally Free.  He’s still my dad and he is different now.  

My relationship with him while he was alive was pretty nice.  We shared infrequent visits and infrequent phone calls.  There was never any pressure to visit or call but when it happened it was pleasant.  I like my dad.  I had learned to navigate around topics and keep things easy and comfortable.  I had let go of all the stuff I was mad at him about.  None of my business.  I am healing.  I have my own child now so I see what its like to be a parent.  He did the best he could at the time he was parenting me.  So our visits were pleasant and we shared our current lives with each other. I live on a 200 acre farm with the farm partner who has lived here since 1979 and is the same age as my dad.  During visits we would walk around the farm and then eat really yummy farm meals.  My dad is intensely curious and he loves to eat.  He asked Miguel 1,000 questions about the farm and how things work and Miguel is very intelligent and felt comfortable with Joe so the two of them could talk forever.  It was fun to watch.  

After living here for four years and enjoying visits with Dad and his wife Donna, I got pregnant and they were both a wonderful support to me the whole time.  They continued visiting and were here 3 days in a row during the first week that the baby was here.  That was awesome and I was so glad to share such a special time with family. What I’m trying to explain is that the relationship with Dad was what it was.  It wasn’t fully honest and I didn’t trust him and it was all ok because none of that was really required to have pleasant visits.  I wanted him in my life.  That became important after I worked for two years as a home Hospice nurse in 2008 and 2009.  I watched these old people dying in their homes and thier adult children would come to the bedside with 30+ years of pain and questions on their shoulders, weighing them down.  Usually the person dying was not really affected by any of the weight.  They were dying, they had their own thing going on.  But the adult child was generally racked, just wiped out and confused and angry and the other parts of their life were really touched by this huge weight they carried.  I saw that enough times that I made a firm decision, no matter how much I didn’t like what my dad had done and how my childhood was, I was going to have a relationship with him and it was going to be a simple, comfortable relationship.  I didn’t know or care what it would look like but I was not going to carry around the weight and squish joy out of other parts of my life.  In the homes of dying people, the Universe showed me what I did not want and then the kind, generous, creative Universe gave me what I did want.  

The spring before Joe transitioned back to non-physical, 2019, I was building a yard out in the pasture.  I was stringing barbed wire and fencing-off a section of pasture for my camper trailer so I could have a place of my own, away from farm partner because we had split up.  (I am still single and I love it.  I live here, we share space, but I am my own human, in deep relationship with God.)  I had never built a fence by myself before and it was an overwhelming task for me on many levels.  I wanted help.  Where do I put the fence posts, is it ok to string the wire like this?  I started talking to Dad in my heart.  I was out in the deep pasture, next to the woods and I haven’t had a cell phone in years but I did have an active connection with God and I believe that humans can communicate through our hearts.  So I tried it.  I focused on dad and talked to him right out loud.  I was pretty angry because I was scared and my dad can handle anger so I talked to him and it felt great.  He’s real logical and engineering minded and I was able to hear his guidance about the questions I had.  I love building stuff with my dad and we put that fence up together over two or three weeks.  It was one of the most special times in my life.  Never once did I even mention it to him on the phone, I don’t even think we talked at all that spring.  My relationship with my dad had expanded from infrequent physical visits to heart space.  

Then he died.  About a year later, March 15th of 2020 my brother called me after church.  He said it right away, real plain and clear, “Dad died this morning”.  Time stopped.  My identity fell away, I was in a space of nothingness that people try to reach through meditation.  It was the most beautiful moment in my life.  Then, because of strong social norms and not being accustomed to that transcendental state, I came back into my body and spoke to my brother, into the phone.  “That’s not what I expected you to say.”  Anyway, I was happy for dad.  Now I know for sure that he is Free, he is peaceful, he is pure Love.  I know for sure that he is totally Free of all the pain he seemed to be dragging around with him.  And my relationship with him continues to grow.  Since he transitioned back to non-physical, he has helped me heal a food addiction that has caused imbalance for me most of my life.  He also told me a story that helped me heal my uncomfortable sensitivity to noises.

Its an old Blouin story so I thought it might be relevant to you.  Grandpa Blouin, Harvey, was a long distance truck driver for some time when the kids were little.  He would be gone for a week at a time.  Coming back into Sturgis, his truck would rumble past the house down to the end of the street and park in the empty lot there.  Marie, Grandma Blouin, would hear the truck and no matter the time of day or night, she would send Joe, my dad, to meet it.  Joe’s instructions were clear: get Harvey calm and safe before he comes back into this house.  So dad learned to read body language, tone of voice, and all the subtle signs that communicate a person’s state of mind.  Then he learned to manipulate the person into the ‘correct’ state of mind.  That’s sort of the part where my dad may have lost himself.  I’m not sure if he ever learned to know himself because his job was to know someone else.  He had to read and control Harvey upon returning from the road but also in just everyday life when they were all together in the house.  That’s what my dad told me later in my heart.  He explained that he liked things quiet in the house because it made it easier to monitor his own dad.  If someone was playing music or goofing around laughing, then Joe couldn’t hear the small, first noises that indicated Harvey was upset and required intervention.  Dad let me know that when it was quiet, he could hear the way a door closed or the particular sound a chair makes when someone stands up and scoots back from the table.  He was alert to any new sound so it could be diagnosed and evaluated for what it might reveal about a violent person’s present or impending state of mind.  Joe leaned this at a young age growing up and it carried over into his everyday life so I learned it from him just through simple imitation.

The Freedom from this noise sensitivity has been such a sweet gift.  It made me quite difficult to live with because I was always jumpy and quick to criticize anyone who caused ‘unnecessary’ noises.  It bothered me to feel such anxiety about noises that other people literally did not even notice.  Then dad explained it to me one day out on the deck.  I was standing in the sun, silently criticizing my partner for the sound created when he pushes the chair back from the computer desk.  Through my heart communication with dad, he told me the things above.  I understood some of what his life was like.  And right away I felt so sorry for him, “I am so sorry you had to live like that dad”.  This is the best part:  he said, clear as anything, 

“It is ok Kari.  Look where I am”. 

  Oh the beauty and the glory of it all!   So sure.  So clear.  Yes.  I know where you are dad.  Nothing can ever happen on this earth that could ever take one bit away from the astounding magnificence we all are headed towards.   Its all ok.  Everything melts away and is stripped of all relevance in the face of unspeakable beauty and infinite Love.  

So I don’t feel sorry for my dad, or any of his siblings.  I don’t feel bad towards Harvey or Marie, they lived their lives and its all ok now or it will be soon for each of us.  There is so much freedom.  Even from the little things like the sound of a stainless steel can clanging on the cement, none of it bothers me anymore.  I am so grateful.

 

Some of Everitt’s behavior pushed big buttons for me.   That’s how I knew it was perfect for him to come here and be here with us.  I need my junk brought out into the light so that I can let myself feel it and it will be transmuted into light and love.  Its good to have a child bring out my junk because I am slightly better at letting myself feel it, meaning I don’t try to numb myself with yelling.  William does this for me also and so did Morgan.  I felt confused around Everitt much of the time because it was obvious to me that he was intelligent and capable and yet he frequently acted confused.  It seemed like an act, it did not feel sincere, it did not feel honest.  Dishonestly causes me much discomfort.  When someone is dishonest, then they are not responsible for their actions.  They can say or do something and not be held accountable because they claim confusion or not being aware, they are unwilling to acknowledge their participation in what happened.  It leaves an honest person feeling helpless.  I saw what just happened, I heard what you said, and now you are saying you were confused, that what I saw or heard wasn’t what happened for you.  Oh!  Its all so confusing.  So that’s how I felt around him.  and its exactly how I feel around miguel much of the time.

Yesterday morning mateo ate a sausage before chores and then later in the day he ate a 2nd sausage.  This was the first time he had eaten sausage in 4 days.  Someone said something about sausage for breakfast and in an accurate imitation of Everitt’s voice and tone Mateo says, “um, I don’t think I had a sausage today… wasn’t that yesterday?”  Oh it makes me want to scream just thinking about it.  

Its just words filling space, trying to get a reaction out of someone.  Because in the past who ever offers a stupid comment like that HAS gotten a reaction.  A professor loves the opportunity to answer the poor, stupid child’s question, they obviously can’t even remember what they had for breakfast, here, let me set them straight, someone has to, poor stupid child.  

So a young child, craving interaction with adults and learning, practicing how to speak and engage and with adults, offers a stupid question and the professor answers, engages them.  The child is happy.  They are not trying to be dishonest.  They know they had sausage for breakfast but they want to engage with an adult and so they form a question, they are learning to speak and practicing.   The arrogant professor who just loves to hear his own voice, jumps at the opportunity to answer a question, regardless of the content or purpose behind the question.  He wants his own needs fulfilled, regardless of the child’s developmental needs.  

Its the same thing when a young child asks “why?”.  They are not necessarily intellectually wondering why about what they are asking.  They are learning to speak and practicing and also desiring interaction with older humans.  That’s why no amount of information will stop the “why?” question.  They are not seeking information.  They are practicing and desiring human verbal interaction.  

When my child started with the “Why?” thing, I would answer him a few times, with eye contact and observing his response.  If it continued and I observed that he was playing with a toy or walking away and continuing to speak the word “why?” then I still held him in loving attention, but offered silence.  He usually just wandered away, his attention on the next interesting thing.  If he did persist with the “why?” after a few reasonable answers had been offered, then I held him in loving attention and offered the word “Lisa”.  That was a word that brought Love to my heart and so I offered it with love and he quickly learned that mama is not going to play the game of "offer endless information", which to him was just interaction, to the persistent question of “why”. 

As he got older his questions would become more involved and seemingly specific, and I pay careful attention to what I believe is his intention in asking.  If he seems to be sincerely wondering about something then I answer as I am able.  If he asks a question that I know for sure he knows the answer to then I assume he is just desiring practice in communication and interaction with me and so I hold him in loving attention and offer silence.  He has become familiar with this response from me and so usually has a little laugh and says something like “oh yeah, I remember” and proceeds to answer his own question.  Its all good practice and he seems satisfied.  And I am satisfied.  

If I were to answer his question, knowing that he knows the answer, I would be participating in something dishonest.  I would be telling him, I know you’re just practicing human verbal interaction and that you know the answer to your question, but I am going to disregard all that and just provide the answer to your question.  

I try to interact with the child holding his developmental stage in mind.  I try to put my own needs aside and interact with him based on what will fulfill his developmental needs.  He is a child and part of my role is to guide and support his development.  

     Many times what happens is, adults, needing to feel superior, jump at the chance to answer a child’s question.  They see it as oh, here is this poor empty vessel asking a question and I am an experienced human with the answer to their question so I will provide the information they are clearly seeking.  The adult does not take into account the developmental stage of the child and the intention behind the question.  So many times the child learns that they can ask any question, even ones they know the answer to, or questions they don’t care about, but just want to get the adult talking.  And it works.  The adult, professor I like to think of them as, they start their lecture and the child is free to listen or day dream.  Its dishonest.  The child quickly learns that if they want to, they can manipulate the adult.  They can hide behind endless questions and the adult will just continue to speak, providing information.  

My child learned from me that we speak about honest things.  We ask honest questions.  We listen to the answers.  He trusts me because I expect honesty from him and he knows he will get honesty from me.