Beautiful Tendings
  • Home
  • Wedding Officiant
  • Infant Massage
  • Art
  • Ponderings Blog
  • For Educators
  • Events
    • Prior Events
  • Contact
  • About Kathy

We are not so Different

4/18/2021

0 Comments

 
​Cows are a part of my ordinary life.  They are neighbors whom I chat with on my walks and who make me laugh when they all decide to come to the fence to hear my jokes.  I pass them in fields everywhere as I drive about running errands or seeking the season’s roadside wildflowers.  I love seeing them graze, nuzzle each other, and roam in that slow, steady fashion that reminds the rest of us to take it easy, to slow it down, and to seek out the good that is present.
 
Delilah and I have grown accustomed to walking alongside of fence rows when we take our big hikes in the countryside and watch the cattle watch us.  Sometimes, Delilah will pull me to the fence and beg me to let her scurry under the wires so she can be her full beagle self and play tag.  The cows will have none of it, of course, so I keep her close and we simply watch and chat from afar.
 
Recently, we were passing a familiar field full of cattle, but they were making sounds we had never heard before.  Delilah stopped first and looked up at me.  What was that noise?  She stood there with great concern.  Were they giving birth, I wondered?  Were they hurt or chanting some strange mating call?  I kept saying to Delilah, “What are they doing?  What are they crying about?”  We stood there a long time feeling such a sense of concern.
 
The next day, we were on a morning walk near a completely different field miles away from the other one, when we heard the same sound from cattle in that field.  They seemed to be lowing a song of despair.  It literally sounded like mourning.  And that afternoon, a neighbor told me that the young had just been weaned from their mamas... and that the cows were, indeed, grieving.  As I write these words before bed, I can still hear one lone cow crying in the darkness for the young she has lost.
 
What strikes me about all of this is that I’ve lived here in the valley for years, and I’ve never heard the cows bellow like this before.  Have I not been paying attention?  Or is it that all of the broken pieces of my own heart can finally hear their wailing?  Or could it be that they cry not just for themselves, but for the humans who have faced so much loss in the past year, who are struggling to live peacefully in their own fields and who spend night and day tending what cannot be repaired or replaced?
 
We are not so different, the wild ones and the human ones... the cows who are mourning, my little dog who senses their loss, the vastness of sky, the solidity of earth and this tender human heart giving thanks for each breath.  Let us not grow weary in loving.  Let us bear one another’s sorrow.  Let us fully show up for the beauty and the pain.
Picture
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Kathy Guisewite

    "To be about there
      first attend to what is here
      everything connects."  KFG

    Archives

    April 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    September 2016
    August 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.