Losing My Love. But Worth It.

I know it’s Mother’s Day.  And this is a sad story.  But it is also a story about being a mom. 

And a love that took me by surprise.  

If there is anything you have ever lost that you loved, I thought you might relate to my yesterday.

See the other night we had a thunderstorm.

I thought “I should go check on the babies.” And then I fell right back asleep. 

In the morning I could not find baby Rumi. Then I saw a hay bale in their fort that had been pushed about 6 inches out from the wall.

Rumi was down in the crack… upside down between the hay bale and the wall.

I can only imagine the babies got scared from the thunder and piled on top of each other (as they do) and Rumi got crammed down in the crack and couldn’t get back up.

I pulled him up and he was still warm, but not breathing. We tried all the things you try. Pumping his heart. A sort of goat CPR.

Panic. Shock. Desperation.

Baby was really truly gone.

And while many of the thoughts rolling through my head include phrases like:

— “I should have…”
— “If I’d only…”
— and “Why this one?”

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My main question today is actually about love. What do we do with those moments of love that change us? Do we just be grateful for them and let them go? Do we let them haunt us? Do we bathe in them? Learn from them? Hold them lightly?

You see, Rumi was not just one of six little goats.  He was my wise little mystic.  There was no hiding that he was my favorite. Rumi was just pure love.

I slept with him in the hay. Fed him bottles. Nursed him back to health one scary night after he had found and nibbled on a toxic bush.   In a few short weeks he prodded open a very tender part of my heart.

In in turn, he returned to me just peaceful… open… sweet love.

I am so aware that I could do so many things with my sorrow. I could say I don’t want any goats. I could stop loving the other babies. I could say “it’s only a goat” and move on with my day.

Or I can just let that love wash over me. And that sorrow wash over me. And sit quietly in the grateful complicated mess of it all.

We all have loss.  

All day I have gotten messages, incredibly sweet messages, from people who have lost their pets or their children or their spouses.  Notes of beauty and caring and grief. 

We don’t choose what we lose.  But we do participate in how it shapes us.

Do we love less or more? Do we care more or less? Does it break us open or closed?

I don’t know what it is you have lost.  Lost your love? Lost your way? Lost your faith? Lost your parents? Lost your friend? Lost your dreams? 

I wonder…. How will that loss shape your future? Shape your heart? Shape your day? 

Today, I will cry until I’m ready to stop. 

I will celebrate this little goat man who passed too quickly through my life.

I will go plant a field of wildflowers and invite him to stay in my life.  

And then I will wonder who else I can love like that. Tenderly. Bigly.

Rumi, I will miss you so very much. I really am so very sorry you had to go so soon. But I thank you for coming in the first place. It was truly a gift to be your mom.

Happy Mother’s Day to all.  Be it a day of great joy or a day of deep sorrow.  

You are loved.
You are love.
You get to love. 

As the saying goes, you know that “better to have love and lost” one…

It is worth it.

Tenderly,
Blossom

P.S.  Warning: this video is a bit sad, but I was truly captivated by how my dog Milo responded to losing his friend.  If there was any way to bring baby back to life, Milo would have found it. He licked and prodded and whined desperately until the very last moment Rumi was blanketed with earth. What truly incredible creatures.

An Uncanny Change

I used to think I had an anxious horse.

I’ve since realized I have a very psychic horse, and I was actually a bit anxious.

In my recent season of more quiet and space, my horse has completely transformed!

I made you a video!

(Remember this is the horse that stepped on my head and would get so freaked in the woods she would occasionally rear and race home.)

Here she is today calmly learning to bow and graciously hosting Charlotte’s first ride on her back.

It’s easy to get so busy that you don’t even realize the energies you are being.

But as you choose peace and joy and ease… those around you will feel it. And like my horse, they just might change as well.

What can you gift yourself this season to have more of those energies?

The space filled?

Light filled?

Angst-less ones?

Are you willing to do less this season? And have and be more?

Blessings and gratitude to my FB friends and family this year. Merry Christmas to all!

P.S. For those following my horse saga…

This sweet horse was named Tormenta, and since my accident she has really wanted a new name. After months of wondering and many lists, she is now officially Maia.

Happy happy girl!

A Snotty Mess Over the Caring In the World?

So I don’t think I’ve ever made a video where I was such a snotty mess…

It’s the good kind. I swear.

My hometown is on fire this week. Massive, out of control, raging fires. So I’ve been watching the story closely.

And this morning I woke up to a Facebook post that sort of wrecked me.

It was just a list.

But a list of businesses donating food, offering clothes and free bowling and pet boarding and miniature golf and internet and housing…

and the list just kept going and going…

I guess I was just really touched by the caring. By the spirit of love in the face of catastrophe and despair.

The last few days I have been undone by that energy again and again. My eyes just keep welling up with tears.

I’m in Birmingham this morning— having traveled up from New Orleans to Jackson and heading to Atlanta.

The last four days have been confusing and opening and inspiring in so many unusual ways.

Teachers who have given their lives to breathe into kids and believe in their futures…

White folks who moved here as teens to ride busses and lay on floors during the Civil Rights movement…

Pastors and storytellers and organizations that are championing goodness and change.

And that in the face of a really ongoing disaster. One that started hundreds of years ago and has not really changed.

It has me wondering if it sometimes takes a tragedy for us to come together?

It makes me wonder if these natural disasters are in some strange way gifts from the earth to challenge us to see we are part of something together?

It also makes me aware of the disasters that just get so drawn out that they lose our attention. That we forget about the radical need. Or that caring still brings out the best of us. And is part of what we can always choose.

It’s easy to turn on the tv and forget that. To think that humanity is one big mess and there is nothing we can do.

But there is so much we can do!

Open our homes. Our hearts. Our conversations. Our resources. Our questions.

Gratitude for everyone in California who is reminding me of that today. And so many in the South.

And what role can each of us play in that journey along the way?

Changing Hate & Violence on the Planet Starts From Within

I received a question yesterday about animal cruelty from a woman who said these horrible photos she was sent made her want to kill.

She asked what questions I asked when the dear rhino orphan babies I cared about were attacked.

This video is not a full answer, because I don’t have one.

This is a question I am very much exploring myself… “what can we be in the face of darkness that creates more light?”

But I will share with you one thing that I do know to be true.

And that is that I must first always start with myself.

If killing makes me want to kill…
Or racism makes me hate racists…

Then there are places and spaces that I could shift within me that would do more good in the world than waving a flag or sounding a horn.

Perhaps once we have eradicated that darkness within ourselves, bringing light into the world will be as simple as being?

At least today, that is where I am starting for me.

What My Horse Taught Me About Relationships- yikes!

Oh, I am hitting my forehead.

Here I thought the problems I have been having were problems with my horse.

Turns out… the problems was me!

Have you ever desired or expected someone to be something they just are not?

Happy, grateful and blown away by the ease that showed up when I stopped projecting the kind of idyllic relationship I would like to have with her and wondering what is actually available between us.

Hurray for awareness. Even when the awareness is of my own stupidity.

Actually… Especially then!

Cause that I can change