Farm Girl Blues

So here I sit, in tears over the death of a nameless little lamb of two days old, and all my childhood memories came flooding back. There were three orphaned lambs that were just too weak to survive on their own during this exceptionally cold winter and had to be hand reared. Despite our best efforts, one of them died this morning. It's really just part of nature, but still it evokes strong emotions as you witness it.

I am spending a few weeks on a friend's  farm in the harsh and unforgiving, but breathtakingly beautiful Karoo. It has been a very dry three years for them, but still just as beautiful as I stand here overlooking the unspoilt vastness of the farm with not a soul in sight for miles and miles. Peaceful. 

Being more of a city girl, although I spend endless holidays on my grandparents' farm as a child, I am in awe of how quickly you feel reconnected with nature and yourself again. We lose a lot of our sanity in the city. Here everything is so real, so immediate, so connected. You come face to face with life, death, our dependency on the land and the vulnerability to the elements of nature.  Everything co-exists symbiotically here, as it was meant to be before we disrupted the balance. I absolutely love it here. The boundaries of my comfort zone has shifted significantly and things I was a bit squeamish about the first few days, comes naturally now - but don't tell anybody...

I once saw an episode of a reality show where they put a few snobby city slickers in a wood to survive for a week, with no experience outside of the city whatsoever. The first few days were tough and they were complaining like crazy! They were self professed vegans, and said that they would never kill anything under any circumstances. Others literally had withdrawal symptoms of not being on the internet and social media. Their lives as they knew it were falling apart. 

Bottom line is, after four days with little sleep and no food, they saw a deer and finally decided to try and hunt it down out of desperation for food. They tracked it down for an entire day, and eventually managed to kill it.  When they got to the deer, they spontaneously started crying. Exhausted, hungry, but with a tremendous sense of accomplishment, and something magical happened right there. Their reactions were priceless. 

They had so much new found respect for the gracious animal they just killed, and finally saw the circle of life play out right in front of them. Suddenly the lights went on! Their lives made sense and they understood their role in the greater scheme of things, as was evident from their conversations around the fire that night while they all devoured the deer.

We are meant to have a purpose and serve others. Accomplish things. Love and be loved. As soon as that balance is disturbed, we become unhappy, depressed, discontent and ungrateful, which are followed by it's own set of problems and symptoms.

So next time you feel dissatisfied with your life, unplug. From everything. Find and restore that balance in your life. You will be so much happier!