I'm not willing to list the endless stream of things in my world, shallow absurd relentless things, that can bring my hyper sensitive nervous system to the brink of shrieking madness or tantrum. Trust me, the list is long. But I am beginning to notice life is not here for our convenience.

Two years ago there was a fly problem on the farm. We all have flies and farms have extra. One expects fly season on a farm to be noticeably full of flies. But this one summer a conflagration of events turned fly season into genuine madness. It was fly insanity. The ground buzzed, the air was a black cloud, and everyone seemed to deflate in a helpless depression.  The flies were abundantly crazy bad.

I had to sit in the middle of the worst fly area twice a day to milk the cow. The milk bucket was constantly dive bombed with flies. I put a colander over it and learned to direct the milk stream around the flies scattered on the bottom. Flies careened, bounced off me, the cow, the milk bucket, the ground, each other.  Flies were everywhere. The farm is organic. Morals and ideals were questioned.

In the midst of their moist shiny black bodies hefted and crazy, fanning their buzz around, I sat. I feel certain I wept occasionally. I cussed. I considered quitting. I marveled to be in such a situation. I was helpless, even as I raked, hung fly paper, tried to time milking with the sun, changed to long sleeves and pants even though it was averaging 95 with a similar humidity at that point in our southern summer. Something about the intimacy of the thud of their bodies on my arms made me furious. But the threat of flies in my ears and eyes was the worst. I could milk through all of it, except flies trying to get into the holes in my head. That was too far.

Imagine my desperation. Imagine the poor cow, dear dear old girl. Actually, it was imagining the cow's feelings that saved me, in part. Humans are such fools. To think we know what animals are thinking, we constantly assume the superiority of our experience, yet how monstrously small and stupid we are, how insulated and infantile. Which is what makes me sort of irate about PETA. I have yet to meet a PETA supporter consciously trying to escape the pathetic bias of human experience when dealing with animals. Ugh, that's a whole different blog post, I won't go there now. They are well intended fools, as are most of us. We don't know how the animals feel.

Fleas in the 70s were not like fleas today. Yeah, I know you all think Frontline isn't working well. (What a joke, spoiled little babies, did a flea jump on you?) Fronline is working just fine, thank you very much. Living creatures are adapted to variations of shifting climate. We are even adapted to infestation. For instance, I discovered as a child in the 70s, that after awhile you quit noticing fleas. It has to get pretty bad first. You have to spend plenty of time noticing and a certain amount of suffering does appear to be, yes, as Buddha has instructed, as Jesus knew, as all great religions teach, inescapable and fundamental. But after awhile, fleas quit mattering. You just stop noticing. You may feel an occasional itch and reach to scratch, but even that becomes a background reflex. After awhile, you stop noticing.

Remember when you were a kid and you hated blankets and your mom was always trying to cover you? Can you remember the feeling of being curled into your bed, focused effortlessly on the warmth in your body and between you and your mattress? Were you aware of the shift when your mother pointed out the outermost layer of your skin felt cool? Did you lay there a moment marveling at the interplay of warmth and cold, wondering why anyone would care dwell on such a thing? I did. And maybe you don't remember, but it likely happened. It was the moment your mother taught you to be more like a person and less like an animal. Though she didn't mean to, she was teaching you to notice duality.

So there I sat one blazing sweaty infested afternoon not fully in my right mind. I felt desperate. Milking is imperative, there is no running away even if the milk will simply be given (flies and all) to the pigs. Milking must continue. And I milked there with the flies and my desperation, their fat oddly soft weighty bodies thunking my skin, my hair, my ears, my vision, my emotions, my thoughts. I drifted from rational me and I wondered what Jesus would do. I actually sat there wondering. I considered the way Buddhists blather (they never blather) about duality and illusion. The flies certainly felt real, separate, and horrible. Could they be accepted or loved? Would that change anything?

I did it. For one very real moment, I did it. I loved and accepted the flies. It took major force of will. I loved the flies, bent all my chi to it. I accepted their need, their truth, their lives and reality and I extended my love to them.

It helped, and profoundly. For about two minutes. And those two minutes gave me a glimpse of something important. There is nothing flippant I want to tell you about my two minutes loving flies. Loving them helped me feel better, it calmed what I had thought was hurting, it drained the drama of the moment, and they just didn't seem so bad. Flies being flies, me doing my human job, the cow continuing to placidly eat.

Yes, I snapped back to the reality of my revulsion and discomfort. But I glimpsed a new perspective. I remembered the fleas of the 70s, the warmth of a body curled in sweet sleep, that its possible we don't fully understand our own reality or what we are supposed to be learning here.  And the next summer when fly populations were better managed and summer bloomed a fine thunking normal fly crop, farm interns complained. But they hadn't seen the summer before. They had no perspective and they suffered that season. I shrugged, hardly noticing.

Life is not here for our convenience. We have no clue what animals are feeling, though I suspect their internal control is far more sophisticated than ours. (Irony, listen up, PETA.) Compassion is healing. Yet it all starts with an internal experience of love and acceptance. Not with controlling external circumstance.