Being With Cows (eBook)

Dave Mountjoy (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
224 Seiten
Bedford Square Publishers (Verlag)
978-1-83501-035-8 (ISBN)

Infos

'An unexpected sanctuary from grief... a tonic for the soul' Mary Costello An intensely transformational story of how grief became gratitude in the presence of a humble herd of cows. Being With Cows details the incredibly moving story behind the tragic death of one man's brother and how his personal quest for inner healing came to him unexpectedly on his organic farm in the French Pyrenees. A remarkably powerful yet heart-warming story, Being With Cows pays homage to Life's unending compassion and insistence that in the very centre of all things, lies pure and untainted simplicity. Through a deeply tangible sense of gratitude, it tells of how tragedy can be overcome through the healing power of nature. The book contains 12 original illustrations of cows by Sean Briggs©.

Dave Mountjoy is a cattle breeder, the founder of Being with Cows Retreats and father of two slightly wild young boys. He is inspired by living in dedication to quietness, to acceptance and the understanding that behind the rough and tumble of everyday life, the unchanging presence of Love seeks only to guide us back into the lasting peace of the Heart.

Textauszug

CHAPTER 2

It’s all about the cows

‘Cows are amongst the gentlest of breathing creatures; none show more passionate tenderness to their young when deprived of them; and, in short, I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these quiet creatures.’

THOMAS DE QUINCEY

The first three heifers arrived in January 2015. On a bitterly cold day, Diana, myself and Gabi, our gurgling six-month-old son, fetched them from a beautiful farm high up in the foothills of the French Alps, near Gap. I don’t know what it was that had persuaded me to go for Galloways, a hardy ancient breed from the Scottish borders, and to drive so far when the landscape around Mirepoix was sprinkled with an assortment of cattle farms. The fact that I didn’t question such an apparently illogical decision was an early indication of just how deeply the cows were going to affect me. It seems that their non-thinking presence was already beginning to exert a powerful influence, and that their own quiet version of logic ran along very different lines to my generally accepted definition of the word.

Once we got them back to the farm, everything began to change, immediately. I had been excited about creating the glamping business. The prospect of balancing the books by sharing such an idyllic tucked-away piece of living Pyrenean tapestry was something I felt good about. We’d already built the wooden platforms on which the yurts were to be sited and had started work on the toilet and shower block. But with the cows came something of a different quality, more subtle by far yet somehow still earthy and wholly organic.

The idea for the glamping site had come through a series of brainstorming sessions, in which Diana and I had jotted down a mass of thoughts, covering sheet after sheet with everything ranging from fears and phobias to ambitions and the way we wanted to live.

Not a single word was ever written about animals, cows included, but now that they were here, well, I might as well have taken the biggest marker pen I could find and crossed out almost everything I’d previously agreed to. They hadn’t been part of any mind map, simply because, as I was soon to discover, they operated outside what I normally considered to be the mind – the world of thoughts and mental activity that dictated the rhythm of virtually every waking moment.

For the first six weeks, Isi, July and Valentine, as the Galloways were called, were kept in one of the barns that we hoped their presence would help us convert into a home. It was love at first sight and I delighted in taking Gabi with me. I would sit on a bale outside their pen with sleeping beauty in my arms. It was a sheer delight to be sandwiched between two such slices of wholemeal goodness. If Diana took Gabi to see her family in Spain, I would sit there for hours, mostly free of thought and content to be breathing the same air. They fascinated me and made me laugh. Above everything else, they made me smile in much the same way that Gabi did. There was an innocence about them, an honesty that I found highly seductive, and I became, I suppose, an addict of some kind, dosing up on a daily fix of bovine benevolence.

The more time I spent with them, the more I came to know their characters. Valentine was clearly the boss. She was first to each pile of fresh hay and the least timid of the three. Isi and July seemed tied equal second. Even though they were so few in number, I was amazed at their acceptance of this social structure and that for them it was simply the natural order of things. Perhaps that was the first real insight they gave me – that acceptance is a key to the unlocking of many quiet doors. I could see that the hierarchy to which they conformed allowed them to exist in relative harmony, even in such a confined space as the barn. During those early days, I didn’t see them as teachers, yet simply by being themselves, they imparted a wisdom that I couldn’t help but absorb.

It was during another conversation with Francis in my mangled French that I first came to hear of the Casta, a fabled breed of cattle that came originally from the very heart of the French Pyrenees. Surly, stubborn and difficult to do business with, they carried a reputation of non-compliance and barely concealed rebelliousness. He told me that he’d toyed with the idea of keeping a few Casta, a couple of mothers who he could milk by hand or oxen, perhaps, with whom he could work in the forest, pulling out trees he’d felled in inaccessible places. He also wanted to help save them, as the breed had become critically endangered since the modernisation of agriculture took hold at the end of the Second World War.

I was intrigued with what he told me, and that very evening I took what proved to be the first steps into what might be called the Castaverse, a journey from which I’ve yet to return. Within minutes of typing their name into the search box of Leboncoin, a French version of eBay, I discovered that there was a whole herd for sale just 20km away from the farm. Coincidence? No mate, no such thing. I laughed as I read through the advert: a fair price, organically certified and ready to go immediately.

A week later, on another cold and sleety Pyrenean day, we slowly snaked our way along an impossibly twisting lane that meandered this way and that through some forgotten backwater of the foothills. On arriving at the farm, we were taken straight into the gloomy, ill-lit shed that contained what seemed at first glance to be a swirling nervous mass of hoof and horn.

A swarm of frightened bees came to mind, flashing out their barely concealed fear in a series of rapid, reactive movements. The farmer was all smiles and full of good humour, yet the twenty or so young heifers that he had for sale reflected something far less welcoming and warm.

We stood for some time just looking into the pen. For such a cold, murky day and in such poorly lit conditions, the atmosphere inside the shed was surprisingly loaded. The constant skittishness of the Casta acted like some kind of dynamo or generator, filling the air with a very raw and unpredictable energy.

Several times I thought some of the youngsters might take flight and sail clear over the gates that kept them locked inside. It was almost painfully obvious that they weren’t used to being so contained and some of the faces showed sure signs of distress.

I had already told the farmer upon arrival that we wanted to take three heifers off him but when, after half an hour inside the shed, he asked me which ones we were interested in, it was a job to separate one from another, so tightly packed together were they in an ever-shifting circle, let alone decide which ones would come and live near Mirepoix.

However, I’d already noticed that there were three, a little group within the group, who were even more edgy and uneasy than the rest. They were smaller, too, and less well-formed. They never managed to burrow their way into the relative safety that lay at the centre of the circle, so I had a good view of them each time the movement of the herd brought them past us.

I can’t really say what brought me to tell the farmer that we would take them. He looked surprised at first, surprised and in some way secretly relieved that here was someone prepared to take what looked distinctly like the runts of the whole group.

There was just something about them that pulled me. I certainly didn’t feel any pity for what appeared to be the three skinniest waifs imaginable, no honourable sense of compassion or kind-hearted do-gooding. Some happenings are best left unmolested by words and are perhaps most accurately explained by an absence of detail and description. That it was simply meant to be is the best I can do at this moment.

Even during that first contact with them, I couldn’t fail to see how alert they were, and I left with the impression that they wore domestication like some ill-fitting robe, which they could jump out of at any moment. If the Galloways expressed a sense of being solidly grounded and firm, these things were all electricity and sensitive beyond belief.

On the way back home to Mirepoix, I experienced a surge of some undefined excitement and was left feeling that I’d been touched by something pure and perfectly clean. And that evening back in the chalet, sitting quietly in front of the fire, I instinctively understood that the Casta demanded transparency. I was reflecting on how some of them we’d seen earlier had had such a deeply penetrating look in their eyes – not necessarily borne of fear but of something wild and elemental, even. As I poked at the embers, I had the clear impression that there would be no hiding place to be found in their midst. Little did I know how accurate these intuitive insights would prove to be.

Judith, Jacinthe and Jalie arrived towards the end of February. The Galloways had been turned out onto the land and the Casta took their place in the barn. Where a week before there had been three plump and docile choirgirls, we now had a trio of brooding teenagers, gaunt, incredibly nervous and already, probably, looking for the exit. Chalk and cheese came to mind. The atmosphere in and around the barn had gone from a veritable love-in to something supercharged with caution and a deep sense of reservation. They would have absolutely nothing to do with me, backing away into the farthest corner of the pen whenever I approached. Unlike the Galloways, who had let me get in there among them right from the very start, the Casta were constantly on the back foot, refusing my...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 23.5.2024
• Verlagsort: London
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Lebenshilfe / Lebensführung
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Psychologie
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Psychologie ► Trennung / Trauer
• Schlagworte: Cows • Grief • Health • H for Hawk • Mental Health • Mind • Mind and body • Nature • Raynor Winn • Salt Path • Self-Help • Wellness
• ISBN-10: 1-83501-035-0 / 1835010350
• ISBN-13: 978-1-83501-035-8 / 9781835010358