When I awoke this morning, my thoughts went quickly to Bob, and there again came the pall of sadness. Conversely, when I allow myself to go there, I realize that the sadness is covering a bedrock of gratitude and affection. I never--ever--thought that a cyber community could engender such strong sentiment, but the truth of the matter is ineluctable.
The thing about standard-bred, aka heritage, fowl is that they are, indeed, a heritage. They are a legacy. They are passed down from one breeder to another, and their provenance, care, and descendence is only vouchsafed by relationship. Standard-bred fowl are so much more than backyard chickens, not simply in that they approach the Standard but because they are, each one, a signature. They are the work of human hands, and that work is infused with creativity, discipline, and obedience, which is to say, with a sort of active love. All who enjoy them eventually transcend the appearance of the fowl to the process needed that created the coveted beauty and utility. Eventually the art will bring you to the artist.
The artist may guard his work jealously, like a dragon on his gold, refusing to share, refusing to extend, and many do. As the new-comer approaches, this dragon-artist clutches his work closely and hoards, building walls that refuse entry, but this eventually leads to a form of sterility; the art of the hoarder becomes locked into a singular space in time and loses the necessary flow of sharing, the creative need to give, to receive and to give and to build communally. The other artist comes alive with his art. He has received it from a fount of generosity and so reveres it as a gift and a privilege. It is forever a thing of beauty and joy-making because it is a gift, but the love sustaining the gift is in the person of the giver. For this artist, the gift is always enshrouded in the skill, dedication, and attentiveness of mentors and the ages. When the new-comer approaches this artist, he is embraced by enthusiasm. En-thu means Into-God. This artist greets the newcomer with joy, because the new-comer is an opportunity to expand the gift. The mentored artist becomes the mentor and honestly desires to impart everything that he himself was given. When the new-comer is so greeted, he or she, too, is enfolded in this legacy of enthusiasm, and one recognizes that one has encountered the transcendental. The result is a joy that springs from gratitude. This art is not religion; however, it is devotion, and devotion is where we hone our sense for religion. The very word "religion" means that thing that "binds us together".
Bob is the artist filled with generosity and awe before the beauty of the gift he was given. Through shows and friends and the long-reaching arm of this thread that he so dedicatedly maintained--for years now, Bob has delighted in the opportunity to share. He has done so tirelessly and with great gratitude. He has repeatedly extended welcome and magnanimously shown patience. Because he believed in the value of the gift he had been given, he believed in the possibility that each new-comer could, also, be part of the heritage he so enjoyed. This is the heart of Bob as a teacher.
The teacher never knows where his legacy will end. Every lesson ripples out, and a lesson given is passed on and on until the words of the teacher have traveled far an wide. Many, many things Bob has said to us, to me, on-line, in messages, on the phone, have thoroughly become part of my practice and of my active imagination of this legacy that we hold. Can we not all say the same? His stories about the Reds, the Red Club, and E. B. Thompson, about his mentors, his firmly held beliefs of those things that will lead to success and of those that will lead to failure, his generosity of sharing his own experiences, positive and negative, that they might be tools of learning for others, all of this and so much more are now a permanent part of the legacy, the heritage of the gift he so enjoyed.
Much of the beauty of standard-bred poultry is wrapped up in its utter simplicity. It is an art open to all. It needs not the weighty, unattainable gold of ore; it has beautiful golden shanks. It needs not the costly acquisition of expensive, plush fabrics; it has feather quality and a plethora of patterns ranging from simple, pure self-colors to the most dynamically complicated parti-colored varieties. One of the great beauties of the art and challenging science of standard-bred poultry is that, in its simplicity, it transcends class and finance. It is complicated enough to stimulate for a lifetime and simple enough to be open to all who would learn. Beautiful results can be had with simple infrastructures. Appropriately run, small programs can yield masterful outcomes. The enjoyment of the fruits of these humble yet creative and disciplined labors can fill life with such blessing, and Robert Blosl exemplified the artist who delighted in this work and sought to foster it in the hearts of any who would consider its possibility.
Bob was enthusiastic, generous and kind. He shared with us all. He enriched all of our practices, which is to say our lives. He enkindled the nobility of the simple in sharing honestly his devotion to these fine fowl and the craftsmanship that led to their creation. He brought to us the legacy, the heritage of all he had learned and shared it without hoarding or reserve. He modeled the strength of perseverance and the discipline of focus, yet, in the proper form of a good teacher, he illustrated them in such a way that we could all relate and feel capable of joining him on the journey. It is our heritage and his legacy. Thus, truly, with enthusiasm, joy, and gratitude, we keep kicking the can down the road. KISS.
