holy heehaw voices

Shirley T and Blacknosed Kate have been with us for a month or two. They are small Jesus donkeys with the black cross on their backs. They stepped off the trailer, looked around, sniffed and smelled, put Junie B in her place by kicking her in the nose when she got too pushy, and began to graze. For the first month they were silent. We kept waiting for the heehaws to commence but they had nothing to say. When the farrier worked on their hooves, they were silent. When Junie B tried to play with them, they had nothing to say. But early one morning, for no reason apparent to us, the concert of donkey voices lifted in conversation and songs began. Our days now begin with sunrise and donkey song. When visitors come, or strange dogs run through the pasture, if they are hungry or if they are just in the mood, the sweet ragged heehaws float over the fence as the girls greet their world. They have found their voice in their new home and are giving it all they’ve got. I wonder if there is an American Idol program for donkeys?
I’ve been thinking about how we humans find our voices. For years I was unable to speak feelings of anger and frustration without dissolving in tears. I would have to wait a day to process internally before I could name and speak my intense feelings. Like the donkeys, one day an invisible shift occurred and I began to speak.
Writing has become one of my most precious ways to speak. I have begun reading journals others have written and am caught up in word time travel, making friends with those who have written their lives down day by day. When I look at other peoples’ blogs (our current way to self-publish journals) I am aware of the still strong need to be known and remembered through words. Somehow the act of writing our lives assures us that insignificant as our lives may be in the grand scheme of things, we really matter, and we become better people through the process. Marcus Aurelius wrote in his Meditations “Remember to retire into this little territory of your own, and above all do not distract or strain yourself...Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will always bubble up if you will ever dig.”

-----------a ninety minute interlude for feeding the horses, scooping poop from the stalls, relocating the electric fence for grazing, pulling bean vines in mama’s garden for the cows, feeding the cows hay and vines------------- So much for distractions and strain...

Finding my voice has also come through accomplishment of long held dreams. Returning to college to take art classes helped me rediscover the artist within and led me to teaching others how to honor the artists they already were within. Feeding and tending livestock has brought me out of the house into the world of creatures that surrounds us. Sacred dancing helped me find my body’s voice so that my soul could take wing and fly. Taking riding lessons with Junie B is leading me into new places of self discipline and self expansion. Worship is another place where I speak to God and sometimes God speaks to me. Slowly, ever so slowly, my voice is becoming a truer reflection of all I am and all I can yet be. Like Shirley T and Blacknosed Kate, I have begun to heehaw and cannot stop. Thanks be to God for all the voices of creation, all the ways these voices speak, for holy words that are a lamp for my feet and a light for my path, and for the written words that capture songs sung long before I came into being.