a gentle place
Avondale, Tasmania
A Gentle Wall
: I hope all are well, long time no hearing from you and you're missed.
: Hi Harry
Have you seen this?
http://www.earthlings.com/earthlings/video-full.php
Its beautiful, and painful at the same time....and worth the watch.
Hope this finds you well my friend.
Nikki: If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. Dalai Lama
: Human morality loses nothing when it expands the scope of its ethical concern. Kindness and peace toward other living beings will never deprive the human [...]
: Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child as it is to the caterpillar. --BRADLEY MILLAR
» A place to leave inspiring thoughts and words ...
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A new addition to Avondale
Posted By Harry on December 17, 2011
As a young medical student I was commonly told, Don’t feel too much. Keep your distance from patients and their emotions. I disagreed then and, after 20 years of experiential learning on the matter, I disagree now. One needs to feel for and with patients. Experience their joy. As well as their fear and aching. It enables one to travel better the journey with them. But, and this is essential, one must look after oneself. For the emotional workout can be extreme and exhausting. Work those emotional muscles but then relax. Stretch. Lie on your back in the middle of the paddock naming cloud shapes, with animals all around you. So that you can go back stronger and do it with even more caring. And live a more connected, deeper, richer life.
Well, those 20 years of exercising my heart have come in handy this week. I feel every possible emotion has had its moment with me these last 7 days, including some numb voids in the changeovers. You see, not only did my little porcelain doll, who in her short time at Avondale taught me more about the handling of adversity than any other, and showered us all with head-rubbing love at every opportunity, leave us for the Rainbow Bridge on Wednesday, but on Tuesday morning I received THE call that Sue and I have been waiting for since January; I write this post high above the clouds on our way to pick up another addition to the Avondale family. Click here to continue reading …
The Grim Reaper’s come calling lately …
Posted By Harry on December 2, 2011
… but at times has had to retreat with only the scythe he brought.
When death involves those close to you it’s hard not to fall back on old paradigms of death involving fear and nightmarish images of the Grim Reaper. But when I quieten my aching heart and sit quietly with those departed I think of death as did the Grecians of old:
Death, or Thanatos, is the counterpart of life, death being represented as male, and life as female. He is the twin brother of Hypnos, the god of sleep. He is typically shown with his brother and is represented as being just and gentle. His job is to escort the deceased to the underworld, Hades. He then hands the dead over to Charon, who mans the boat that carries them over the river Acheron, which separates the land of the living from the land of the dead. (1)
Perhaps since then they’ve constructed a bridge. Complete with an overarching rainbow …
Rainbows over Avondale
Back soon …
Posted By Harry on November 12, 2011
Dear Friends
Apologies for the silence on this blog over the past month and, more importantly, apologies for the posting of this only now. The lack of posts (and presence on other blogs although sometimes I think my presence is excessive) has caused some concern and this being posted earlier would have avoided that. All at Avondale are well, or almost so. Friends of Avondale have not, unfortunately, been so lucky. Will be back soon …
Attached Horses
Posted By Harry on October 11, 2011
Much of the insight into humans that I have gained can be attributed to the teachings afforded me by non-human animals. Perhaps because we humans have a tendency to blur our real nature with spoken words – far too many of them – I find I get a clearer picture if I look at humans as if I’m doing so with non-human animal eyes, listen to them as if with non-human animal ears, and feel them as if I possess an uncluttered non-human animal heart.
Click here to continue reading …
Family (… or is that pack?)
Posted By Harry on September 25, 2011
I’ve been thinking a lot about Family lately – who wouldn’t after picking up a wandering little four-legged boy at 2.30 in the morning who should have been sleeping (safely, lovingly) at home with his family? (Boy?! Don’t you mean dog?) And that thinking intensified when, after almost 3 weeks, his ‘owner’/ carer/ family finally contacted us (I was waiting for someone to call me. I didn’t know he had lost his tag.).
Thinking about Family, quietly in the deep, private recesses of one’s mind, is one thing, but writing a blog post on it is something altogether different. Putting fingers to keyboard should signify that one has, at the very least, a basic understanding of the subject matter. Yet those of you who know me will know that Sue and I have no human children, all of my ‘family’ is in South Africa, and all of Sue’s is in Melbourne. So how (I hear you ask) can I possibly be qualified to speak on family? If we were to go with the multitude of definitions put forward by Dictionary.com I’d have to admit to being somewhat under-qualified to write on the subject. The same would hold true for the Oxford and Merriam-Webster dictionaries. Not even the definitions of kin and kinship grant me any credibility. But faithful Wikipedia does, in sentence 10 of the 10-sentence introduction: Click here to continue reading …
Monty (a short story about a wandering dog)
Posted By Harry on September 12, 2011
So there we are returning from a friend’s party at 2.30 am, driving in a convoy of 2, when we find this little fellow: Monty.
Monty
As we drove up Summerleas Road this without-a-care in the world character was jogging up one side of the road, peeing on a lamppost, casually crossing over the road, peeing on a garden gate, crossing over again, peeing, cross … $@*^%. Blinding brakelights. Screeching. Almost hit by our friend in front. We stopped our car as our friends headed off home and, aware of our penchant for picking up stray dogs, calling the number on their tag, and delivering them to the house we’re standing outside of (!!!), we thought we’d sit quietly on the side of the road and watch as this night-time wanderer headed home. But, after watching him pee on a multitude of vertical items, on both sides of the road, and holding our breath for his safety as a cab drove past, Sue finally opened the car door with the plan of getting out and catching him. Monty, as he’s come to be known, was not to be caught though. No, he just ran up to the door and jumped in! Click here to continue reading …
A Tale of Three Pups (a pictorial)
Posted By Harry on August 13, 2011
You may recall that after Plato’s move to higher ground, and some weeks to settle our aching hearts, we took Chelsea
Chelsea
down to Brightside Farm Sanctuary to see if we could find her a pal amongst the 55 dogs rescued from a Puppy Mill. You may also recall how Chelsea chose, in no uncertain terms, this pup, Abbey.
Abbey, an hour after her arrival at Avondale, desperately hiding from the unknown.
The small steps must go forward
Posted By Harry on August 6, 2011
(This post is is in response to comments on a previous post. Thank you. You will find a continuation of this theme on Provoked as well.)
The posting of a piece to do with James LaVeck’s recent article Let’s Not Give Up Before We Even Get Started has aroused some emotion both on and off this blog, and on other blogs. Having read and listened to comments I’ve taken another look at the article, at what I wrote in support of it … and why I did so. The reasons why I did so are best explained by a series of photographs that I took this morning. But before getting onto those I’ll offer some background to where I’m going.
Please note: What follows are some strong opinions of mine. Mine and mine to own. They have changed as I have changed. They are not meant to take way from the good work that many people are doing. If they sound judgemental please know that there is no intent for them to be so. I have too much to learn for me to be judgemental. They are not attacking of anyone else. They are not intended to shut down others’ viewpoints. They are just my own passionate opinions:
Click here to continue reading …
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