Katie’s Ground Podcast

About Katie’s Ground Podcast

A newsletter about coming to the ground and catching light through words and pictures. katieandraski.substack.com (https://katieandraski.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Katie Andraski

Category

religion & spirituality · religion & spirituality

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

25 Feb 2024

Latest episode

11 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

109 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   11 Oct 2026

   America Like Broken Pottery. America with Dragons Roaming

   Mwanner/Wikimedia Commons[/caption] Fifty years ago, I was hired to do archeology at two New York State historic sites: Claremont, the home of Robert R Livingston who was one of the five who wrote the Declaration of Independence. I worked at Crown Point, an English fort located off Lake Champlain the same year we celebrated our nation’s two hundredth anniversary. I wrote the following about digging at Claremont: Sometimes I muse glass pieces we find could be chunks of the Hudson River mined and later tossed from the mansion. The frosted glass cools our fingers like summer water. It’s cheap in the ground unless it’s a candlestick base wrapped in with air bubbles, or a stem of a wine glass with a twisted gauze stair. Because they’re broken, the wine glass, the candlestick, the windowpane seem sturdier than when they bore wine and flame and a view.1 It’s hard to write about my love for this country because I have mixed feelings. Like the artifacts I pulled out of the ground, I know how broken we are—slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, genocide, so many millions killed in the womb, endless wars. But the very fact we name these evils, protest them, and work to change them belies our greatness—the sturdiness of self-reflection. But I wish we could stop ruminating on the wrongs and be grateful for the gifts this country offers like freely speaking and worshiping. Yes, I’m a little shy to admit that I love my country. I’m Katie Andraski and that’s my perspective. If you’d like to hear me read this click here. (https://katieandraski.com/i-shout-out-my-secrets/) That same summer there was a tiny art fair by the fort at Crown Point. I was taken by the dragons, fierce, fascinating dragons. I wasn’t sure why anyone would bring one to their home. I wasn’t sure why they wouldn’t. Here is a revised version of the poem: Dragons rose from plexiglass Held still by hammered copper, Talons clutched crystals Wrapped in spells Scales like tiny pennies Ran down his neck Along his back. My horror at his beauty, My fear taken form. I thought of these dragons as I continue to think about our country. It seems to me that the dragons are roaming, blowing fire between people, breaking relationships, breaking trust because of a person’s political affiliations, which is odd because presidents change every four years, Congress changes every two, the Senate changes every six years. So why are we clinging like a fundamentalist who shuns dissidents when our government will change? When Trump is gone? Our obsession with politics, how they’ve become a fundamentalist religion is dividing people. In “The False Comfort of No Contact (https://www.nationalreview.com/2026/10/the-false-comfort-of-going-no-contact/)” Noelle Mering writes, It’s often called going “no contact” — discarding family and friends over political or ideological disagreements. Though in some ways those hot button topics have receded or been replaced, many people, like citizens in a war-torn city, are still navigating a lingering obstacle course of rubble long after the bombs stopped dropping. With approximately 68 million (https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2020/09/pillemer-family-estrangement-problem-hiding-plain-sight) Americans estranged from a family member, such ruptures are now quite common and affect friendships and families alike. Estrangement is nothing new, and sometimes, it is entirely warranted. But something has changed in both its justification and its direction — not to mention the frequency at which it now occurs.2 I’ve had this happen. Friends one day, gone the next with no explanation, no willingness to talk it over. A friend of over twenty years slapped the following meme on our friendship, saying she couldn’t shake it out of her head with regards to her conservative friends. “I’m so tired of being told ‘we disagree politically, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends!’ Dude your political opinion is that children shouldn’t be fed, that the poor shouldn’t be housed, that the sick shouldn’t be cared for, that women can’t control their bodies, that Americans can’t marry who they love or that certain people shouldn’t exist, then yes that most definitely means we can’t be friends.” We talked this over and made a sort of peace. But these stereotypes show a misunderstanding and an unwillingness to learn what conservatives think about these issues. There are good reasons, having to do with preserving our republic that resulted in Donald Trump’s double election. But there seems to be little self-reflection from the left as to their part in this. Just obsession with how the media and academia characterizes him. In The Righteous Mind (https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics-Religion/dp/0307455777/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2OPWRJXFCUSTZ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.mDMWwnblRPgtwZ6iZuKy07RcV5LzFmLQbRY_OKW3p2Hx9Zn3FSrsoBIv-NWfYDOO2sF4B5ar6cBiaDwEbZzKuqhhnmC6mTrY7WMg4BkUfD0mn35cPbdoucqtdYA5zoxl3XemmVwmXHF720Ls4ePJyCN56rCmlVbjozgTjJnacxKa-Pw41VceEHtbedLY1dQlV2EWihT8_83-MljXxdvsVpFpFDuMRRqqtTd5Bs8_eqg.p7Qbfin2EcPSaLovSdCJCaXXNFZtFC7uHmSaFcR7oP4&dib_tag=se&keywords=The+Righteous+Mind&qid=1791654644&sprefix=the+righteous+mind%2Caps%2C183&sr=8-1) Jonathan Haidt says: “The results were clear and consistent. In all groups, moderates and conservatives were most accurate in their predictions, whether they were pretending to be liberals or conservatives. Liberals were the least accurate, especially those who described themselves as ‘very liberal.’ The hardest soul for a liberal to imagine is someone who approves of loyalty, authority, and sanctity.”3 In Liberals or Conservatives: Who’s really Closed Minded (https://www.aei.org/commentary/liberals-or-conservatives-whos-really-close-minded/) Andrew Biggs summarizes Haidt’s findings: But Haidt’s research went one step further, asking self-identified conservatives to answer those questionnaires as if they were liberals and for liberals to do the opposite. What Haidt found is that conservatives understand liberals’ moral values better than liberals understand where conservatives are coming from. Worse yet, liberals don’t know what they don’t know; they don’t understand how limited their knowledge of conservative values is. If anyone is close-minded here, it’s not conservatives.4 68 million people are estranged from each other. Seems to me we are all being manipulated into these estrangements, when perhaps our real enemy is not family and friends who see things differently than we do. Perhaps we’re all being haunted by a dragon that wants to divide us so it can swallow us in a totalitarian state that is much harder than the soft totalitarianism we’re under now. In A Rule for the Rest of Us (https://www.amazon.com/Rule-Rest-Us-Practice-Decisions/dp/B0GC2LZHMY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=33OHECAIG9CJI&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.USbeBkJN52LXPk15xmJno715JGZhFIVkQ2h5xwvHakiiKQ3WauPHGPPv5fLXdT96C4cyn7ICFVD0TzqHY1IgdVOwemkyc0WChvZAOVd6vjFyeJd729fmXtQk9r-6IqtMcfBf9EjtrBCxg6ClZ5iZZX30QbY1BtP9wdpxPGNNvjFyT-ZaCCNylaA-tKRp3MBNj-zS87DFIICMY5StdoOgdOf20_n0xYpfpxhV-mKVPtw.F6fNKYFs3ucCKJUIYdWScY0_rEKvW5DVJiIAyOK_Z20&dib_tag=se&keywords=a+rule+for+the+rest+of+us&qid=1791655221&sprefix=A+Rule+for+the+rest+of+us%2Caps%2C187&sr=8-1) Jen Michel Pollack makes the point that if we’re not careful our culture can form us spiritually as surely as reading the Bible and praying. She says: There is a concerted conspiracy against the practice of a faithful Christian rule and it demands a forceful, emphatic no to the sources of evil, which Christians have traditionally categorized as the world the flesh and the devil. The trinity of malevolent influence is at work to distract, discourage, deceive, divide, accuse, afflict, tempt. …Both sides, right and left, have swallowed among other lies, the deceptive idea that a political persuasion defines a person’s identity… Either way, when your politics becomes your identity, there remain no ordinary citizens, limited wisdom, and humbly trying to make sense of how we do our civic housekeeping. We have also swallowed the lies that politics can change the world. That we must do something to bring about change and to make that change reflect our political side.5 In How Powerless Are You Willing to Be (https://glory2godforallthings.com/2026/10/10/how-powerless-are-you-willing-to-be-2/) Stephen Freeman in says: There is a certain freedom (though it be false) found in being able to shift the blame to others and put them forward as scapegoats. We imagine that making the world a better place can be achieved by fixing the goats (or getting rid of them). At its deepest level, such thinking is nothing more than envy, the “evil eye,” and it is the source of every murder, both individually and collectively.6 How does he say we should respond? By the cross, the “weapon of peace.” The Cross is ironically described as the “Weapon of Peace,” in Orthodox hymns. Though it may appear passive to outside observers, it is the most singularly “offensive” action of power available to us. The Cross triumphs even over death. The Cross is our self-emptying union with the Crucified Christ in which we offer ourselves “on behalf of all and for all.” It is both prayer as well as the inner shaping of our outward responses. When cursed, we bless. When struck, we turn the cheek. These are not symbolic actions, but actions of supreme spiritual power that diffuse the poison begotten in the evil actions of others. These are actions that “atone,” in that they cause an “at-one-ment,” a “union,” between a situation and God. Goodness in anything can only come about through union with God, in that He alone is the source of goodness.7 I’ve often wondered what it means to carry the cross, but after reading this I could tell you a story about how I was called a racist in front of my students, my immediate supervisor, the athletic director, how I had to answer to why I was offended and alarmed by black athletes saying “F” this class. I was shattered and found support with counselors at my school. I found the third way, the way of the cross, holding hard, going no further to confront the bullying behind this meeting. I was no victim. I was no fawn. I turned the other cheek and found this power. Well, I’m curious to hear what you think. What are your thoughts? What are the dragons you see roaming? Works Cited 1 Katie Andraski. When the Plow Cuts. Thorntree Press. 1988 2 Noelle Mering. The False Comfort of No Contact (https://www.nationalreview.com/2026/10/the-false-comfort-of-going-no-contact/). National Review. October 4, 2026 3 Jonathan Haidt. The Righteous Mind (https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics-Religion/dp/0307455777/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2OPWRJXFCUSTZ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.mDMWwnblRPgtwZ6iZuKy07RcV5LzFmLQbRY_OKW3p2Hx9Zn3FSrsoBIv-NWfYDOO2sF4B5ar6cBiaDwEbZzKuqhhnmC6mTrY7WMg4BkUfD0mn35cPbdoucqtdYA5zoxl3XemmVwmXHF720Ls4ePJyCN56rCmlVbjozgTjJnacxKa-Pw41VceEHtbedLY1dQlV2EWihT8_83-MljXxdvsVpFpFDuMRRqqtTd5Bs8_eqg.p7Qbfin2EcPSaLovSdCJCaXXNFZtFC7uHmSaFcR7oP4&dib_tag=se&keywords=The+Righteous+Mind&qid=1791654644&sprefix=the+righteous+mind%2Caps%2C183&sr=8-1). Vintage. 2013 Chapter 12 4 Andrew Biggs. Liberals or Conservatives: Who’s Really Close Minded. (https://www.aei.org/commentary/liberals-or-conservatives-whos-really-close-minded/) American Enterprise Institute. April 12, 2012 5 Jen Pollack Michel. A Rule for the Rest of Us (https://www.amazon.com/Rule-Rest-Us-Practice-Decisions/dp/B0GC2LZHMY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=33OHECAIG9CJI&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.USbeBkJN52LXPk15xmJno715JGZhFIVkQ2h5xwvHakiiKQ3WauPHGPPv5fLXdT96C4cyn7ICFVD0TzqHY1IgdVOwemkyc0WChvZAOVd6vjFyeJd729fmXtQk9r-6IqtMcfBf9EjtrBCxg6ClZ5iZZX30QbY1BtP9wdpxPGNNvjFyT-ZaCCNylaA-tKRp3MBNj-zS87DFIICMY5StdoOgdOf20_n0xYpfpxhV-mKVPtw.F6fNKYFs3ucCKJUIYdWScY0_rEKvW5DVJiIAyOK_Z20&dib_tag=se&keywords=a+rule+for+the+rest+of+us&qid=1791655221&sprefix=A+Rule+for+the+rest+of+us%2Caps%2C187&sr=8-1). Waterbrook. 176 – 177. 6 Stephen Freeman. How Powerless Are You Willing to Be? (https://glory2godforallthings.com/2026/10/10/how-powerless-are-you-willing-to-be-2/) Glory to God for All Things. First published in March 2022. 7 Ibid. Note: I used Google AI to find the quotes from Jonathan Haidt and Andrew Biggs. (I have read part of The Righteous Mind.) Get full access to Katie’s Ground at katieandraski.substack.com/subscribe (https://katieandraski.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

2. 

   29 Sept 2026

   I Wrestle the Powers of Darkness and Forget About a Rainbow

   I walked out. Even though morning was mostly cloaked in gray clouds, the sun made the fields and distant woods glow. Slowly I watched a rainbow form, barely a whisper, one of those patches of light you’re not sure you’re really seeing. But then it brightened. Not the full bow, but a muscular bar standing. Across the field another whisper of light appeared. There was no obvious sun to make it. Just slate grey clouds. I thought about the rainbow promise not to destroy the earth by flood, not to destroy all the animals. The old story of the righteous man and the animals kept alive in the ark. I used to believe that Christians would be raptured when Jesus returned, but I don’t think so. If we were, I’d want my animals and even the farm to come with. But there’s much to be said about God being our refuge and strength. Psalm 46 talks about how God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble. “Therefore, we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea.”1 Mountains I take to mean nations and civilizations. Right now, western civilization is crumbling. The center is not holding. The mountains are falling into the sea--the chaos of populism, the chaos of lies, the chaos of people breaking friendships and families over politics. We still have the power to change this by our vote. We have the power to change this by how we treat the people who see things differently than us. The dragon lurking over the horizon that I have feared is rising. I have not settled enough into these promises. I have not held them in my mind. Instead, I turn to the likes of Donald Trump and Governor Pritzker. Watching, reading Democrat and Republican stuff might be a witness but does no good. The Psalm goes onto say: “He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the chariots with fire. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”2 I walked back to the house. “I saw a rainbow,” I said. Bruce looked tired. “You should go out and look at the barn door.” Morgen was eating her hay. I looked. The steel rivets had been popped off and the frame was broken. This is a big barn door. Hard to replace. Already, earlier she’d rolled it off the rollers and Bruce had to put the ladder up and I had to move the door enough so he could roll them back on the rail. That’s all I want to say but a wad of tears welled up , stopped at my chest. Mrs. Horse doesn’t get enough attention. My guilt sears me. I’d like to place her. But this has been her home since she was a coming yearling. It’s a dangerous time for horses. I watch the Fjord rescue desperately trying to rescue horses from the slaughter pipeline. She is our friend, probably brushing her, cleaning her stall and occasionally driving her into time slowed down is the healthiest part of my life. Those bedroom eyes. That wanting to be in my presence. We decided to move Morgen’s stall to the other side of the barn, so she would not rub her ass or shoulder on the door. We already had mats there, so we straightened them. At night we’d close the east door and leave the other east door open. I was plunged into darkness then, hard to breathe darkness. The kind where tears well at the kindness of a Substack reader whose comments showed he saw me. The kind that bubbles out of you, where you know your energy has become a suck hole. My hairdresser cut my hair—her little comments, good grief, you’re fine…helped. That evening I settled into “The Demonological History of the World (https://www.thesymbolicworld.com/courses/a-demonological-history-of-the-world)” class that Zachary Porcu,3 is teaching sponsored by The Symbolic World (https://www.thesymbolicworld.com/)4 .Why would I take this class? Because it’s good to how the church has viewed the powers of darkness from the beginning. Because the powers of darkness have shown up in my dreams. I have done battle with them, armed with the Jesus Prayer. Porcu talked about how early church fathers such as Origen and Augustine classified them. I came away knowing the demons fall to the earth away from heaven because they indulge the passions. They are heavy, indulgent and scammers. These creatures are liars. (And we live in a culture that is bathed in lies.) Porcu says that’s why fasting is good. The saints deny themselves. They take up their cross. They die before they die. They are light enough to glow with uncreated light. When I have wondered what the cross means in my life this has been the answer that comes back--You must die before you die. Being self-indulgent is not a good thing. My conscience was pricked. Porcu also said that demons hate the cross. He says he’s Italian, so he has one in every room of his house. Before our house was blessed, there was a resistance here that felt like a horse tensing to buck. It was obvious the house resented the deep changes we made. But even now, sometimes Aiden barks at the space by our spinning wheel, a place where a former owner was laid out for a wake. Sometimes I want to say, “The Lord rebuke you,” but the television is going. Ironically the cleanest room in our house is where our Native American prints and corn husk dolls are hung. Maybe because there was Christ and love behind their making. Our pastor has blessed each room including the barn and the place lightened. When I closed my-before-bed-reading and shut down the lights the tears came. My tears are not clean sorrows. The world hurts so much I visit the roots and dirt and closed box of the grave. I tell Jesus, “Please forgive me. The world hurts too much,” but this little farm is beautiful like paradise, I know it, but the darkness swirls. I weep. Lord have mercy. I like my comforts. I know this is an attack. I’ve had them before. Psalm 116 is as good as any description of this. “The snares of death encompassed me; The pangs of Sheol laid hold on me. I suffered distress and anguish. Then I called on the name of the Lord; ‘O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul!”5 The next morning, I asked if Dr. Porcu could lead our group in prayer. “This class is excellent, but it has stirred up some things.” Benjamin Feehan, the class administrator, replied, “Dr. Zac expressed some discomfort in leading a large group in prayer, as he is not a priest and there are actual clergy in attendance. In the Orthodox tradition, one wouldn’t typically do so in those cases.” “I would of course recommend you take every personal spiritual precaution. Use every piece of spiritual ‘technology’ at your disposal. As Dr. Porcu talks about, cross yourself, wear a cross, put a cross on your wall. We Orthodox call the Cross “a weapon of peace” because demons /hate/ it. If you are Orthodox, get yourself holy water. Drink it and sprinkle your house with it. Heck, if you’re not Orthodox, perhaps your local parish would be willing to give you some. And of course pray. Ask your guardian angel to be with you, ask the Theotokos and your patron saint to pray for you. Say the Jesus Prayer and have a prayer rope handy. We are not alone in this fight. The very fact that someone like Dr. Zac has delved so deeply into these things and is willing to talk about them at all is a sign that we have only God to fear.6 That day, dog class did not go well. I have challenged my teacher because I know a few things about training, but Aiden, my boy Aiden is not an easy dog. We were doing rally, a dog sport that asks the dog to follow commands written on signs. It’s sort of like dancing. During the first run she said, “He doesn’t want to be close because you pull on his leash.” He worked a bit and then skirted off. “He’s feeling your stress.” Oh my yes, I was stressed. Still worn from crying myself to sleep. Still worn from wrestling darkness. It all showed up on my face and demeanor. The next run I put him on the leash. “This is over facing me and him,” I said. My blessed boy worked the course all right. My brain was shut down. That night, yet again, I lay down to tears. I am afraid of aging, of being frail. I am afraid I am losing my memory. My legs are stiffening. It’s hard to climb our stairs. It doesn’t need to be national trauma to blast apart my life. Being a body that will age and die is enough blast. Then I remembered Benjamin’s suggestion to make the sign of the cross. And so I did. Clumsily. And the darkness left. Just like that. And I went down to sleep. Psalm 116 again. Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; our God is merciful. The Lord preserves the simple; when I was brought low, he saved me. Return, O my soul to your rest; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears my feet from stumbling. I will walk with the Lord in the land of the living.”7 I told Bruce the next morning we needed to get a cross, maybe several for the house. “Didn’t we have one? Where is it?” I asked. Later he brought out a brass cross that he’d received for confirmation. And for now, we laid it across a bureau in the bedroom. I shopped for them on Etsy and have begun nudging Bruce to make one. I put on the small silver cross my aunt gave me one Christmas. All this feels like superstition, but is not because the world is more marvelous than our materialist, post modern, scientific worldview would lead us to believe. Maybe the sun isn’t just a ball of exploding gas, maybe it is also a god, created to create heat and light for this world. Maybe the moon isn’t just ball of rock, but a goddess, throwing light our way at night, and pulling water this way and that. But not to be worshipped. Maybe the ancients worshipped gods that had power but were demons pretending to be higher powers and scamming people that they were something, when they are not. Often when I walk, I think about how God put everything under Jesus’ feet, all principalities and powers, under his feet. So my steps, the gravel crunching reminds me. I wrote to tell Benjamin what happened. He replied: St. Athanasius talks about how in the ancient world, magic ceased at the sign of the cross. One thing I’ve recognized as I became Orthodox out of being a classic American Evangelical, was how holistic it is. I didn’t realize the spiritual nutrients I was missing in my fast-food Christianity. Spiritual warfare isn’t some separate and esoteric aspect of ancient Christianity. It’s baked in. It’s in our morning and evening prayers and the liturgy and the vespers.8 That’s for sure. We’re staying in our Missouri Synod Lutheran church, but our pastor understands that when we take communion, we take the body and blood of Jesus. He has repeated in the rooms of this house and in my ears that nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ. But I asked in my prayers, “Why do I get to experience demons in my sleep but not angels or saints?” But, I forgot the morning before the pit opened, a rainbow appeared. And there was no rain. And no sun. Just the colored pillar. And another one over by our neighbors’ farm, more faint. The other night, in my dreams, a woman prayed over Bruce and I. She came to our very bedroom. I don’t remember her words, just her presence and that she prayed. And that sleep was good. I told Benjamin. He replied, “Also, someday I bet you will see an icon and recognize who it was that came.” 9 The next morning a deer and a fawn walked across our field. Works Cited 1 Psalm 46: 1 -2, ESV 2 Psalm 46: 8 – 10, ESV 3 Zachary Porcu. A Demonological History of the World. https://www.thesymbolicworld.com/courses/a-demonological-history-of-the-world (https://www.thesymbolicworld.com/courses/a-demonological-history-of-the-world) 4The Symbolic World. https://www.thesymbolicworld.com 5 Psalm 116: 1 – 4, ESV 6 Benjamin Feehan, Thread under “Please Make the Chat Transcipt Available..Sept 19 and following. https://the-symbolic-world.circle.so/c/discussions/please-make-the-chat-transcript-available-from-dr-zac-porcu-classes#all_comments 7 Psalm 116: 5 – 9, ESV 8 Benjamin Feehan, Thread under “Please Make the Chat Transcipt Available..Sept 19 and following. https://the-symbolic-world.circle.so/c/discussions/please-make-the-chat-transcript-available-from-dr-zac-porcu-classes#all_comments (https://the-symbolic-world.circle.so/c/discussions/please-make-the-chat-transcript-available-from-dr-zac-porcu-classes#all_comments) 9 Ibid Get full access to Katie’s Ground at katieandraski.substack.com/subscribe (https://katieandraski.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

3. 

   19 Sept 2026

   St. Ciaran Draws Animals. My Animals Draw Me

   Sunday, Sept 6, 2026 Walked out this morning with fog beginning to rise, the sun a milk white eye, stunning blue pushing the clouds to the side. Walked out with glistening, delicate spider webs spun in the weeds, weeds that have been particularly beautiful this summer, especially since the redwing blackbirds and killdeer are gone. Could it be the owl living in the neighbor’s barn, and the red tail hawk I see sitting on an electric pole by our neighbor’s pasture that drove them off? While putting up hay, yesterday our neighbor showed us pictures, those wide yellow eyes, those wide pools of darkness. He’d come over to help us put up a wagon load of hay. Bruce doesn’t usually like to ask for help but he saw Terry drive by. I was grateful. Before he got here, I hauled on those bales, tumbled together in the hay wagon. My arms and legs ached like they do and the words, “I’m too old for this” rumbled through my mind. I pulled one out of the pile, and other forty-pound bales tumble down. Any several could knock me off the wagon. Before he arrived, Bruce ran down the ladder to put hay on the conveyor and ran back up again. Terry traded places and tossed the bales off the wagon. I placed them on the conveyor. This was hay we had to buy because the last cutting had been rained on. We’d only had to do this one other time, when we lost 500 bales, as a front moved from Minnesota to Northern Illinois faster than we could bale. Even so my arms and legs and breath whispered this is too much. But on the other side of the fence, Mrs. Horse has to have hay. Mrs. Horse comes by for hay cubes and company, her eyes bedroom eyes. We hitch her and drive around the field, where time blessedly expands, and we are slow looking at the sky, occasional jets, and roadside weeds. Did I tell you this year, the roadside weeds have been particularly beautiful? I walk by the delicate purple of smooth blue aster, the shouting wild perennial sunflowers, shy white frost aster, the common evening primrose and biennial bee blossom. These plants feed pollinators. We’ve been seeing butterflies gathering. And the other day a small swarm of dragonflies darted over the drying corn. Martin Shaw’s Sunday morning story was about St. Ciaran, whose bell, given to him by St. Patrick, rang at the very place he was supposed to set up a monastery. It was dank, swamp ground, not appealing at all. Have you ever smelled a swamp? Earth and rotting water and slurpy creatures. Ciaran had the gift many saints have—being able to communicate with wild animals. Shaw spoke: Such different beasts, such different intelligences, but each made that spark of contact with the vastness of Ciaran and knew this was a place of peace. Some essential, quick connection that they recognized as truth – like flesh, or nuts and berries, or cool clean water is truth. The Dreaming Bell drew animals not humans as the first brothers of Ciaran’s wild monastery. It took Ciaran to dark, dank haunts. You’d need a sparky mind like his to stay dry there. And the animals taught him too, their temperaments’ energies he would learn to negotiate. Later, when humans started to arrive, it was this first apprenticing with his animal brothers that would show him quite how to approach them, strange and holy lad that he was. Sometimes animals were easier, and distinctly less hungry, than men.1 I wondered if that taming made work because animals dependent on humans need feed and water and shelter. Did these animals lose their ability to survive on their own, to let God tend them as scripture says? I wonder if there was a time when humans were saintlike and animals wandered in, choosing their people, offering themselves in service to us. I think about my creatures who call for my attention--Mrs. Horse calling me to come out, Omalola and Aiden each needing my focus, just me. Kalizoo, crawling into my lap when I read Morning Prayer and Smudgie climbing over my bedside table to watch over us from the top of the dog crate. Even Tyger, the feral barn cat pathetically cries, in the way cats do, because he wants us to leave, so he can eat. These animals call me to attention, to my body, when I’m off thinking about trouble. After a bout of loneliness, post Tessie’s death, Mrs Horse and dogs are bringing me to other people, so I don’t forget how to talk--a once-a-month lunch with women my age, tougher than me, working their farms and riding horses out on the trails. They were the ones who brought me to Aiden. The dogs have brought me back to my work as a writer, and classes that allow us to sit with each other and chat in between practicing. I learned how to teach my students, by looking for the things they did right. I learned how to stay with the difficult, the young, the wild, how my perceptions shaped my relationship with Mrs. Horse, and how changing those perceptions changed everything. I learned how to ride through fear, the ground and Tessie’s back holding me. I learned that horses and dogs understand our words. I learned to breathe and my breathing slows and quiets. Aiden has been teaching me about my short temper and reminding me that speaking to what he does right works better than what he does wrong. Omalola watches, wants me to remember she was here before Aiden, that I am her person. And the barn itself is a refuge of old wood and sparrows. Decluttering has become a madness. Sometimes it rises up and I want clear the house of stuff, while I have my wits and my health. I’ve whirled through my house, pulling books, sending them out the door, only to wish I’d kept this one or that one. I took stuff to a recent tack sale and sold a couple Breyer horses and a Mylar bit. I took old eyeglasses to Walmart for re-use. I took the picture I based the cover of my book to Salvation army because I found a picture I like better for that wall. I have a possible buyer for much of my Breyer horse collection. Maybe doing this pulled out the rock that will let the whole project slide serious sending stuff out the door. Maybe not. Someday the jig will be up—our bodies will wear out or die and I feel the urgency to get ahead of it. Even my dreams are full of packing up, trying to fit stuff in a limited space. Several friends have moved. I empathize too closely, thinking this should be us. I even wonder about placing Mrs. Horse in a home where she’ll be worked, where because the guilt of not doing much more than brushing her in the morning and throwing hay can burn like failure. When I think that, I walk out and see a tear running down her eye. She is happy here, but happiest when I give her hay cubes and scratch her back. She is a neighbor that needs tending and time. Those bedroom eyes, when she comes in the barn for currying and hay cubes and company. Bruce said when selling her first came up, because she was too much, years ago, you can’t take her back if you let her go. At that time, he said don’t do it, because it had been a grinding hard school year. And my vet says why not keep her, she’s happy, you can afford to feed her. And I settle into his words. But the farm is inching towards being too much. This week Bruce pulled the big heavy ladder and climbed to the gutters to clear them of leaves. The power went out last night, though thankfully our basement didn’t flood when the sump pump went quiet. This winter Bruce will take out the tractor to push snow back, open to the wind and the snow. Where will we go? We don’t know. Taxes, energy costs would rise. (We have geothermal.) Homeowners associations don’t sell themselves as good neighbors. We have no family to settle nearby. Maybe by then, these questions will be moot. I wonder if Ciaran’s animals missed him when the humans arrived. Did they wander back to the wilderness, or stay curled up outside the monastery walls, hoping for him to glance their way, drop his hands to stroke their backs, scratch their ears. The neighbor’s cows are crying for their babies. We heard their calls coming up from the valley last night . We heard them this morning. I couldn’t help but think about Rachel weeping for her children. It’s likely those calves have gone to be fattened and later slaughtered. The sunlight dances on the soybeans, the leaves like tiny waves catching the light. They are changing color, now mottled with green and yellow. Soon the leaves will fall, leaving beans withered and dried for harvest. Work Cited 1 Martin Shaw. St. Ciaran in the Hotel Lobby. Get full access to Katie’s Ground at katieandraski.substack.com/subscribe (https://katieandraski.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

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