Poems by Cynthia Edmonds-Cady

Finding the Solace Outside

by Cynthia Edmonds-Cady

From Canary Summer 2023

Cynthia lives in the wide-open spaces and rolling farm fields of central Illinois, where she runs a small sheep and wellness farm using regenerative, organic methods. Her little farm on the prairie is surrounded by tall white pines and spruce trees, and her watershed is Kings Mill Creek, a small stream that flows into the middle fork of Sugar Creek, which continues to the Mackinaw River along steep ravines and newly restored prairie oak savanna.

As a trauma survivor, fleeing from abuse, I found solace in the world outside, the natural world. Being close to nature, living in a wild place near the beautifully cold deep waters of Lake Superior and the pine forests that surround it, feeling connected to woods, rivers, lakes, wildlife, and other animals, saved my life. Leaving my past, my trauma, would also mean leaving my savior, the Northern wilderness that I called home. But in moving to the wide-open prairies of the Midwest, I learned to listen to the grassland whisper. Lying down along the banks of the numerous snaking rivers that border miles and miles of farmland here, I heard the slow murmuring of the waters comforting me. Healing happened in earnest when I started a small farm of my own here and began to vibrate along with the cycles of life and death in nature rather than within the anticipation of explosions of human violence.

But life, especially a life lived close to nature, brings both joy and pain, as the following narrative of my last lambing of the season here on my small sheep farm illustrates. Although being outside on the land, in the natural world, is comforting, there is also difficulty and suffering there. No life is ever completely free of suffering. Those of us who live closely connected to nature are granted both the beauty and the curse of seeing up close the cycle of life repeated, continuously experiencing both birth and death, on the farm, in nature, all around us. We are also the ones who find comfort in this cycle, in the world out there, beyond the window, beyond the door. We are the ones who find our solace outside.

That Night in the Barn

The first thing I remember is the pungent stench of sheep urine. That smell will linger, stinging my nostrils for days.

As I sit on the straw bedding in the stall in the hot, humid air, flies biting my bare legs, Evelyn lies next to me in the lambing jug, straining and grunting with nothing to show for it.

It has been hours since her labor started. We have gone from the intense heat of sunset into the dark cooler air of dead night. But still, she has nothing to show for it except a tiny bit of a water bag that she simply cannot push out.

She will not hold still for me to do an internal exam, so I call my daughter to come sit this lambing vigil with me.

Thankful to have someone else there in the barn, I put my daughter to work right away. “Hold her tighter,” I yell, as the ewe bucks and tries to run off. My soapy fingers are barely able to fit inside to check her. Where are the lambs? Why can’t I get all the way in? She is not progressing. Not properly dilated. Just felt a water bag, but she is not able to push it through. Something is wrong.

Something is very wrong.

Calls in the middle of the night to the vet, to other shepherds. “Just wait,” they tell me. “Sounds like she is taking her time because she’s a first-time mother. Just wait,” they say.

So we sit.
So we wait.

As I walk up to the farmhouse in the middle of the night to get a glass of water and a brief respite, I notice how the lights from inside the barn reflect off the pinecones high up in the giant Norway spruce outside. Beautiful dancing slivers of light.

The path between the house and the barn is well-worn, dark and lonely at 3:00 am, lit only by my headlamp. As I walk with my head tilted downward, this small circle of light shines on the grass casting eerie shadows. I think of the spring night when the previous ewe lambed and my headlamp illuminated night crawlers jumping over the grass. A sign of life perhaps?

There is no such sign tonight.

Back in the barn, the flies bite my ankles as I sit and wait. The acrid smell of sheep urine is so strong down here in the soiled straw bedding. I tried to freshen it up, earlier in the day, added more straw, but the heat, god, this heat is unbearable. Why is she lambing so late? Why did the ram not breed her earlier with the rest of the ewes? Must be my fault. Must be my mistake.

I’m tired now, tired from being awake so long, tired from feeling helpless in the face of life…death…beginnings…endings. So many endings.

Powerless. I feel powerless. I pray. I pray that she will push the water bags and the lambs out on her own. I pray that they will all live and be healthy. I pray, and I put my fingers inside to try to help her dilate. I pray and I watch helplessly as she does not progress. She pushes but nothing comes. She sleeps. Her contractions slow down. They stop.

I drift off to a semi-sleep, my head against the barn wall. I picture myself floating on a raft down a lazy river, slowly passing pine trees and wildflowers along the banks. I want to stay there in that vision, stay on that raft floating along without fear, without pain, without death, without loss. I want to stay there, but something is wrong. She is not progressing,

I call the vet again. It’s 4:00 am. He will be here. It might be a C-section. Hope is fading.

They all might die.

I cannot do this anymore. My heart hurts. Too much loss.

So much loss and grief over a lifetime. How can I continue?

He brings his chains to pull legs. It’s not working; he’s having a hard time. The lambs are tangled up, two of them with legs mixed up and heads turned backwards and twisted around each other.

They must have been tangled together the whole time, a boy and a girl, a ram and a ewe lamb, impossibly entwined. Poor Evelyn could never have pushed them out.

The vet yells for me to get the other puller. I run to the farmhouse and get the noose that pulls heads. That is what it reminds me of: a noose. He tries to put it around the head of the closest lamb. Its neck is frozen in a bent-backwards and turned-to-the-side position. He can’t make the head move; it stays frozen.

The sound that a ewe makes while you reach inside to try to save her and her lambs is an awful sound.

Evelyn screams with pain.

I hold her head still and talk to her while the vet keeps reaching, reaching, grabbing, grabbing, further and further, but the lamb keeps slipping.

Finally, he gets the noose around the lamb’s neck and gets the head to move, elongated and in position, so it can be pulled out. The chains go on its hooves, which are pointing out at the same time, and finally, finally, he is able to guide and pull the lamb’s head and feet together to get it out.

Off to the side this lamb goes. No heartbeat. It’s dead. Then he reaches in to pull the second one. No heartbeat. It’s also dead.

The ewe is alive but torn, hurt, sore. She gets a shot, another shot. Then she is set free. Finally.

Free.

She stands still in shock, eyes wide. The eyes. Always the eyes know. Her eyes told me in the middle of the night that something was wrong. Her eyes told me that she could not push this out, could never push this mess out, the tangled sad mess that was a black ram lamb and a reddish ewe lamb. Her eyes told me.

But I could not do it. I could not help her. I did not get the vet here soon enough. Maybe. Maybe it did not matter. She was doomed. These lambs were doomed. They were already doomed from the beginning.

So much doom in my life.

She bred late; she lambed in the high heat of summer, the sun setting, the hottest time of day; she acted unsure, restless, moving from lambing jug to pasture back and forth all day. Then at night she tried, the lambs tried, but they just could not do it. They were not alive for long. They were not meant to be alive for long.

Waste. Such waste. Such loss. Such death. Such sadness.

The rain is coming down now in the early light of dawn. I drag the two dead lambs to the burial site.

There is no ceremony.

No prayers. No sadness. Just exhaustion. Failure. Disgust. Letting go.

I let go.

I let go of the fear from the night; I let go of the expectations from the day before; I let go of the guilt; I let go of the pain; I let go of control; and I let go of the weight of trying to be someone that I am not.

I turn my face upward and let the warm summer rain wash me clean.

Although my story of the last lambing of the season exemplifies the inescapable reality in nature of death, loss, and darkness, it also embraces nature’s beauty and renewal. The light glinting off the pinecones, the grass glistening in the beam of my headlamp, the soft light of dawn breaking, and a warm rain shower, all brought beauty and healing to my experience. Our encounters with loss, grief, fear, or sadness over the course of our lives, are mirrored in the cycles of death in nature, as are our joyful moments of life, rebirth, and renewal. For those who are connected to nature, there is beauty and healing in both the darkness and the light if you are willing to see it. The lesson is one of letting go so that you can see more clearly. Coming to understand that we humans ARE nature, that we exist within these cycles of birth, death, blossoming and destruction, can help lead us on a path towards interconnectedness, and towards finding our own solace outside.