Published in the Winter 2013 edition of Asset magazine
Andy Merrifield’s Musings on Life and Donkeys
by Susan White, Halfpint Hollow, MN
Having just finished reading The Wisdom of Donkeys, Finding Tranquility in a Chaotic World, by Andy Merrifield, I find myself needing to share the author’s wonderfully philosophical observations during his trek with a donkey along bridal paths of the Auvergne region of France. I will tuck in some of his quotes, to better convey his feelings and artistic ways of expression.
Andy Merrifield grew up in a home with little money and no books, quit school at the age of 16, and worked unhappily as a clerk on the docks of crowded, polluted Liverpool, England. Wanting to escape the “iron” in his “soul,” ten years later found him at Oxford and later in New York City as a college professor, caught up in hectic city life. Yet, after finally attaining his goal, city life left him cold by its “unfeeling isolation” and “its brutal indifference.” A “lifetime later” found him retired and writing books in a cottage “far away from anywhere” in rural France.
Much of Merrifield’s reflection and insight came from his pilgrimage with a donkey companion named Gribouille, whom he found in a small herd of chocolate and turtledove colored donkeys at Sidmouth Donkey Sanctuary. A donkey seemed such a perfect walking companion…so calm and gentle…with “nonjudgmental eyes” behind which the author sensed “deep philosophical thoughts as well as a tacit fraternity.”
Along their journey they stop at historical pubs and inns such as the Lepin Inn, originally owned by a friend of Picasso. This owner owned a donkey named Lolo. Legend has it he gave Lolo the Italian name of Boronoli and attached paint brushes to the donkey’s tail, having it backed up to a canvas. “Boronoli” would swish his tail continually while being fed fresh vegetables. Art journals declared Boronoli’s “Sunset on the Adriatic” as “an excess of personality,” “temperament of a confused colorist,” “precocious mastery.” Finally the owner revealed the truth…People flocked to the inn to meet this famous little donkey, yet, Lolo “remained modest!”
This was a donkey’s tail that became famous, but as the author says, a donkey’s tail is “less proud, less flamboyant” than a horse’s. It is a “frayed, everyday rudder, without a pretense.” Its main function is to simply swish away flies.
Another comparison to a horse the author makes is the donkey’s hooves. They are smaller and more dainty, yet tougher, needing no shoes for protection. And they wouldn’t even need trimming if they still walked 10 miles a day foraging for food and water.
A donkey’s ears he likened to warm French baguettes and its eyes, quoting French author Maurice Barres, “chapels of meditation.” Merrifield says when you look in those eyes you see a soul, a “window of peace.”
The temperament of a donkey sometimes is described as stubborn, but all donkey owners know it is really all about caution. Once the author prodded Gribouille to take a short-cut along a pond’s shoreline, but it was too close to “wetness” for the donkey…”too adjacent to the unknown.” The author reflected that often people want the fastest route. And, he noted, we may also take wrong turns in life and have to turn back, but the experience is often not a waste, even though it was a wrong turn.
Wandering under the stars, the author identifies the constellation Cancer, the Crab, in which are two donkeys eating from a manger. According to Greek mythology, Dionysus, god of wine, and Hephaestus, god of fire, rode on donkeys into battle against giants. The giants fled. The heroic donkeys were then placed in the sky on either side of the manger so they would always have feed…a “donkey paradise.”
Donkeys predated camels by thousands of years in Egypt. Archeologists have discovered donkey bones dating back to 4,000-3,500 B.C. By 3,000 B.C. they were used as beasts of burden, plowing roads and hauling barley for the fermentation of beer. The Egyptians brutalized their little donkeys, yet they also considered their milk a luxury for both drinking and bathing. Cleopatra is said to have kept a stable of 300 donkeys so she could keep her skin young by bathing daily in donkey milk. (Note: Donkey milk indeed contains high amounts of age defying fatty acids plus vitamins A, E, and F.) By 2,000 B.C. donkeys were being packed to the Mediterranean coast where they hauled grapes for wine making and supplies for road building.
Donkeys have been and still are indispensable in many countries as beasts of burden, yet often these animals are horrendously abused, loaded down with too much weight and receiving little medical attention other than occasionally attending a free clinic. Blood letting, rubbing manure into bleeding saddle sores, and sewing string into the skin are common superstitious treatments. To the owners there is no time nor money to have their donkey treated by a vet. The life expectancy of a donkey directly correlates with the care and concern it receives. The average life expectancy of a donkey in Ethiopia is 9 years, Egypt 11 years, Kenya, Mexico, and China 14 years, Europe and North America 35+ years. “Global donkey inequities mimic the human world’s inequities.”
Fortunately, in much of the world where animals are respected, the loving nature and therapeutic attributes of donkeys are recognized. Hugging a donkey is a great way to “reclaim the feeling of feeling.” Their calming effect lowers one’s blood pressure and stress levels. They help us daydream, reflect, and to encounter ourselves, making us more content, wiser, and philosophical of what lies ahead “despite the endless work of keeping life afloat.” “How precious life is, how vulnerable we all are, like donkeys: finite, wounded creatures.”
by Susan White, Halfpint Hollow, MN
Having just finished reading The Wisdom of Donkeys, Finding Tranquility in a Chaotic World, by Andy Merrifield, I find myself needing to share the author’s wonderfully philosophical observations during his trek with a donkey along bridal paths of the Auvergne region of France. I will tuck in some of his quotes, to better convey his feelings and artistic ways of expression.
Andy Merrifield grew up in a home with little money and no books, quit school at the age of 16, and worked unhappily as a clerk on the docks of crowded, polluted Liverpool, England. Wanting to escape the “iron” in his “soul,” ten years later found him at Oxford and later in New York City as a college professor, caught up in hectic city life. Yet, after finally attaining his goal, city life left him cold by its “unfeeling isolation” and “its brutal indifference.” A “lifetime later” found him retired and writing books in a cottage “far away from anywhere” in rural France.
Much of Merrifield’s reflection and insight came from his pilgrimage with a donkey companion named Gribouille, whom he found in a small herd of chocolate and turtledove colored donkeys at Sidmouth Donkey Sanctuary. A donkey seemed such a perfect walking companion…so calm and gentle…with “nonjudgmental eyes” behind which the author sensed “deep philosophical thoughts as well as a tacit fraternity.”
Along their journey they stop at historical pubs and inns such as the Lepin Inn, originally owned by a friend of Picasso. This owner owned a donkey named Lolo. Legend has it he gave Lolo the Italian name of Boronoli and attached paint brushes to the donkey’s tail, having it backed up to a canvas. “Boronoli” would swish his tail continually while being fed fresh vegetables. Art journals declared Boronoli’s “Sunset on the Adriatic” as “an excess of personality,” “temperament of a confused colorist,” “precocious mastery.” Finally the owner revealed the truth…People flocked to the inn to meet this famous little donkey, yet, Lolo “remained modest!”
This was a donkey’s tail that became famous, but as the author says, a donkey’s tail is “less proud, less flamboyant” than a horse’s. It is a “frayed, everyday rudder, without a pretense.” Its main function is to simply swish away flies.
Another comparison to a horse the author makes is the donkey’s hooves. They are smaller and more dainty, yet tougher, needing no shoes for protection. And they wouldn’t even need trimming if they still walked 10 miles a day foraging for food and water.
A donkey’s ears he likened to warm French baguettes and its eyes, quoting French author Maurice Barres, “chapels of meditation.” Merrifield says when you look in those eyes you see a soul, a “window of peace.”
The temperament of a donkey sometimes is described as stubborn, but all donkey owners know it is really all about caution. Once the author prodded Gribouille to take a short-cut along a pond’s shoreline, but it was too close to “wetness” for the donkey…”too adjacent to the unknown.” The author reflected that often people want the fastest route. And, he noted, we may also take wrong turns in life and have to turn back, but the experience is often not a waste, even though it was a wrong turn.
Wandering under the stars, the author identifies the constellation Cancer, the Crab, in which are two donkeys eating from a manger. According to Greek mythology, Dionysus, god of wine, and Hephaestus, god of fire, rode on donkeys into battle against giants. The giants fled. The heroic donkeys were then placed in the sky on either side of the manger so they would always have feed…a “donkey paradise.”
Donkeys predated camels by thousands of years in Egypt. Archeologists have discovered donkey bones dating back to 4,000-3,500 B.C. By 3,000 B.C. they were used as beasts of burden, plowing roads and hauling barley for the fermentation of beer. The Egyptians brutalized their little donkeys, yet they also considered their milk a luxury for both drinking and bathing. Cleopatra is said to have kept a stable of 300 donkeys so she could keep her skin young by bathing daily in donkey milk. (Note: Donkey milk indeed contains high amounts of age defying fatty acids plus vitamins A, E, and F.) By 2,000 B.C. donkeys were being packed to the Mediterranean coast where they hauled grapes for wine making and supplies for road building.
Donkeys have been and still are indispensable in many countries as beasts of burden, yet often these animals are horrendously abused, loaded down with too much weight and receiving little medical attention other than occasionally attending a free clinic. Blood letting, rubbing manure into bleeding saddle sores, and sewing string into the skin are common superstitious treatments. To the owners there is no time nor money to have their donkey treated by a vet. The life expectancy of a donkey directly correlates with the care and concern it receives. The average life expectancy of a donkey in Ethiopia is 9 years, Egypt 11 years, Kenya, Mexico, and China 14 years, Europe and North America 35+ years. “Global donkey inequities mimic the human world’s inequities.”
Fortunately, in much of the world where animals are respected, the loving nature and therapeutic attributes of donkeys are recognized. Hugging a donkey is a great way to “reclaim the feeling of feeling.” Their calming effect lowers one’s blood pressure and stress levels. They help us daydream, reflect, and to encounter ourselves, making us more content, wiser, and philosophical of what lies ahead “despite the endless work of keeping life afloat.” “How precious life is, how vulnerable we all are, like donkeys: finite, wounded creatures.”
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