tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61889390662454997542024-02-07T04:33:59.810-08:00Taltos Horse TribeMe + My Horse = a Tribe of 2Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6188939066245499754.post-4061271816326930382010-11-14T15:21:00.000-08:002010-11-14T15:38:43.686-08:00The Journey to Goodbye.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">My dear friend was clearly preparing to leave this world. The time out of time for saying goodbye was ever present during the past several days, hanging like silvery morning mist as the earth exhales the cooling November air. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Tuesday night felt heavy and anxious, so I lit a votive candle in the beautiful natural rock crystal holder that my friend had given me last Christmas. 'Christ - The Light of the World' the enclosed card had read. It burned well past midnight...</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">On Wednesday morning, I knew that this was the day. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">I resolved to make my way to my friend's home after the morning ritual of driving my son to his bus stop. No rush, no urgency, this wasn't a time for rescue. It was a time for honoring a sacred passage. A time to be present and to help hold a space for gratitude and grieving and goodbye. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">On the morning's journey, the sunrise went from a familiar kind of pretty as we left home to a sudden and breathtaking display of bronze, copper, rose pink, magenta and violet as we were lined up in traffic on the approach to the river bridge. Unable to stop or pull over, I pointed my camera out the open car window, and with one hand on the steering wheel and two eyes on the road, I shot four pictures, trusting that I would capture the images I was meant to get. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">What I got was eerie and beautiful, just like the feeling in my heart and deep in the pit of my stomach - the visceral sense that time stopped for an imperceptible instant. That the stars blinked as a soul shot past them, leaving a never ending arc of light in its wake. I knew my dear friend was crossing a bridge then, too.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">After dropping my son off, I made my way to my friend's home, stopping briefly nearby to take a couple pictures of a large carved stone statue of Christ that I passed every time I drove to her house.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">I had always intended to do this small thing, somehow this seemed the right time to do it. The statue's hands were particularly evocative, and as I framed one of them in the lens of my camera, I reflected on my friend's loving intention of offering her hands to do the work of making a difference in the lives of the poorest of the poor in Haiti, where she and her husband supported many initiatives, and are building an orphanage and elder's home. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">As I got back into my car, my cell phone sang out - it was my friend's dear husband, telling me in a soft, heartbroken voice that she had just "gone to Heaven..." if he was surprised when I told him I was just minutes away, he didn't say so... </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">It seems that our entire life is, among many other things, a journey to goodbye. I am forever grateful to my dear, dear friend for sharing some of her incredible journey with me, and for showing me that one can travel, even to goodbye, with love and trust, with dignity and humor, with purpose and kindness... </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Godspeed, my dear friend. We shall meet again.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6188939066245499754.post-14161832864145596242010-11-04T07:57:00.000-07:002010-11-15T06:53:56.291-08:00Rerun.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It had rained overnight, the still-dark streets were shiny wet. We followed the now-familiar route of ten miles from our country home to the Park and Ride bus stop, the first leg of my son's daily journey to school. Garbage bags and bins line the streets. It's trash day in the city. We are avid dumpster-divers and trash-hounds, we believe in lost treasure. So today - garbage day - was particularly full of possibility. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But mostly this time of year it's tons of leaves (as though they are trash...) </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Then I spied it - even in the dark it was unmistakably the shape of a small horse. lying in a heaped tangle of metal piping and angled tubes with big springs. I turned the station wagon around at the first chance and circled back. "Poor baby!" I cooed as I flew out the door and gathered the small figure up in my arms and loaded him gently in the back. My son rolls his teen-aged ayes in mock disdain. I know he'd do the same (not the cooing, but the rescuing!) if I wasn't here to do it. So would his dad. We know lost treasure when we see it. What redeems a human more than to save a helpless creature from destruction? With a thrill of excitement, I realize this beauty is now mine, all mine. I always wanted another horse.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I marvel at the detail of the once-beloved toy, left abandoned on the curbside. I think he's neither very old nor very new, but truthfully I have no idea when he was made but he is sturdy and beautiful. He has wavy mane and tail, a curly 'B' brand and a fancy western saddle. Roy Rogers or The Lone Ranger would've been proud to ride him into the sunset on the tiny TV screen in my childhood living room His only visible fault is the places where he once attached to the springs are now worn and broken. That's OK - he'll be a free horse now.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I dropped my son at the bus stop and smiled all the way home, stopping to take a few pictures of the rain-washed honey-colored sunrise on the way, and marveling at my good fortune.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Think I'll name him 'Rerun'.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6188939066245499754.post-50473639737547939022010-11-04T06:49:00.000-07:002010-11-04T06:52:10.539-07:00Blue Cowboy.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_-47RpPim02N-4O4ZZypfPLkqJtUzgBCXgnLF-YBW1KLNM4ZL0lmb1xfGz0If5E19J2ddjGLBOuT0PefVutV0lNteeggxch5bAhEZEzq6_Q30PIXkWLEsCRkBNBX0FYEh9j7qNOz4fFfH/s1600/blue+cowboy.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Funny, the little things that can catch you by surprise </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">and break your heart... </span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrPa6L1ou9CBpc_Pn6DUh3Zu-Go39WQnE-IxqoYsaNb2jEyF5IxCX8TBXonWwHA-QdQ77EUexgjXoOtQq_fVOc5AljrE6L4W_PD9RMutWLghaQ_1-I2twKJMfN0qu6Tf9QbXsczSIkZW0H/s1600/Picture+7.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrPa6L1ou9CBpc_Pn6DUh3Zu-Go39WQnE-IxqoYsaNb2jEyF5IxCX8TBXonWwHA-QdQ77EUexgjXoOtQq_fVOc5AljrE6L4W_PD9RMutWLghaQ_1-I2twKJMfN0qu6Tf9QbXsczSIkZW0H/s400/Picture+7.png" width="297" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Take this small blue toy cowboy (or is he an outlaw?) </span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I was minding my own business one recent autumn day, cleaning up a bit around the garden near where my son's sandbox and fort had been until earlier this summer. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I was already at a serious disadvantage in this encounter, reflecting as I worked in a sort of melancholy way on all the happy years he spent digging and playing, creating and destroying entire worlds with his own hands. Sand, water, rocks, twigs and some "guys" (his word for any small figure, human, animal or otherwise) was all he needed for a whole day outside, summer or winter. It all went by so fast I kept thinking. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I miss my little boy. (Don't get me wrong - I love the young man he is becoming - I'm just struggling with passing time, change and transitions...)</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This spring we dismantled and sold the fort to a cute family with a animated three-year-old boy. He was so excited, I think he could feel the accumulated energy of this little wooden world. Then my son and his dad built a small circulating waterway, waterfall and pond from free and cheap craigslist finds. It quickly became a bustling destination for the local critters and others we rescued and re-homed throughout the season. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">So there I was, working and reminiscing. I absent-mindedly brushed aside some fallen branches and there he was, handgun drawn and a stance that meant all business. What could I do? I burst into tears. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Damn it all. Ambushed by a plastic cowboy. I didn't have a chance.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">(I left him there at the scene, a fitting testament to a happy childhood, and perhaps someday a welcome find for some young explorer. I suspect he's not biodegradable...)</span></span></i></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6188939066245499754.post-74749679194625794152010-10-14T12:55:00.000-07:002010-10-14T12:55:42.988-07:00Deep Pink<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">A</span>utumn is bittersweet by its very nature: the season of things ripening then falling asleep or dying away... </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">it is a season we associate with blazing reds and burnished golds, rich maroons and mahogany browns, and eventually the striking orange and black of Halloween. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Autumn is not a season that I typically associate with pink. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But a heightened sense of the preciousness of life in the face of a dear friend's terminal breast cancer, and the onslaught of the annual pervasive hype surrounding October as official 'Breast Cancer Awareness Month' has opened my eyes to the pink that is all around me this fall.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I call it DEEP PINK. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Not because it is a particular shade of pink, but because, for me, it is pink with a new depth of meaning. It is pink that has nothing to do with Barbie dolls or tulle netting, with fashion forward handbags or hot retail spaces. This is the outrageous live-and-in-your-face-constantly-changing pink of October dawn clouds, and the delicate shifting pink of hydrangeas on sunlit fall days. It is the graduated shades of pink of fallen leaves and fading vines, and the impossible-to-capture shade of violet-pink of an October night sky with a bone-colored crescent moon. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6kqHD12iPTfp4vD98PzJkGbsozJfT1LqsVH7W5C3uA7abTnmolcPFTwdJSEMLQqAV-PAnkJPcYWIMdX-jGGuiq8YOloeLDRmmIT8SBhzxu3BJ59SEkek7hjgX_rsiM_RV1aATvAAHmHJv/s1600/pink+sunrise.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6kqHD12iPTfp4vD98PzJkGbsozJfT1LqsVH7W5C3uA7abTnmolcPFTwdJSEMLQqAV-PAnkJPcYWIMdX-jGGuiq8YOloeLDRmmIT8SBhzxu3BJ59SEkek7hjgX_rsiM_RV1aATvAAHmHJv/s320/pink+sunrise.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3FbzbODbMrfdfsx1RKCiwvS11HPvjbp4gBG7VhRTx8TmOsLGV_BikgaUfBK6NQN1RIGqvq__ajmD9_RJHXNTdM-p1OFmkL7m5P4_faSm1co5fWK3zl9v2fQ_3OKyXGzDO1bt_DJVCBkKo/s1600/Picture+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3FbzbODbMrfdfsx1RKCiwvS11HPvjbp4gBG7VhRTx8TmOsLGV_BikgaUfBK6NQN1RIGqvq__ajmD9_RJHXNTdM-p1OFmkL7m5P4_faSm1co5fWK3zl9v2fQ_3OKyXGzDO1bt_DJVCBkKo/s400/Picture+1.png" width="301" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbWv8uzdwTwGXBp-DIxL8ej4EVrY5ukJsXiYM_wMUfIXQpycNueIxY46NG4-SxFeoIiHrbhOuvFb8HukWBBe70fz3oddfultJJ6KORu3Lv6foL0QelyFesqLFGsDMDClBRrha60abE5_63/s1600/hydrangea+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbWv8uzdwTwGXBp-DIxL8ej4EVrY5ukJsXiYM_wMUfIXQpycNueIxY46NG4-SxFeoIiHrbhOuvFb8HukWBBe70fz3oddfultJJ6KORu3Lv6foL0QelyFesqLFGsDMDClBRrha60abE5_63/s320/hydrangea+2.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCC99kQ2mIaY8dhgmrkc85UwJqjI5pxjw6N3Cc5EGpm_4bd8a9ef2YOS2j8TgoShT4SD7V68bqGFTfF1Q24u60ilR5f1Ptp4u-s3xvEtGwzQ4r-59lSZO-HEDWsWVwjxXxTjGyAOmD7H9w/s1600/Picture+4.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCC99kQ2mIaY8dhgmrkc85UwJqjI5pxjw6N3Cc5EGpm_4bd8a9ef2YOS2j8TgoShT4SD7V68bqGFTfF1Q24u60ilR5f1Ptp4u-s3xvEtGwzQ4r-59lSZO-HEDWsWVwjxXxTjGyAOmD7H9w/s400/Picture+4.png" width="298" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5rORrpTg5km44IPE5cgklJjjBIxMAe9HButgp4UAKz7F2sR24eQdDSARdPHo-0UXH-W3dORNJF2e1zhMHd199TUMuvayW2P7vsPzDVByt6yeZifyANZafmti4UhPyU7CfrBALLcUqTmpp/s1600/Picture+6.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5rORrpTg5km44IPE5cgklJjjBIxMAe9HButgp4UAKz7F2sR24eQdDSARdPHo-0UXH-W3dORNJF2e1zhMHd199TUMuvayW2P7vsPzDVByt6yeZifyANZafmti4UhPyU7CfrBALLcUqTmpp/s400/Picture+6.png" width="297" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqFAZ0zTYpsdQNE0qLnDK7lmTmf-AmY5igJh70jOQHxAmJhdww1XOrwezW1CixsDKtsrNdajOolSrHEjNVWes32DALAKlufM-njQNpQrEY78m3I3omqKdKrlfmiqAzDHf0xy6EVWXpMSXI/s1600/violet+crescent+moon.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqFAZ0zTYpsdQNE0qLnDK7lmTmf-AmY5igJh70jOQHxAmJhdww1XOrwezW1CixsDKtsrNdajOolSrHEjNVWes32DALAKlufM-njQNpQrEY78m3I3omqKdKrlfmiqAzDHf0xy6EVWXpMSXI/s400/violet+crescent+moon.JPG" width="298" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Suddenly, my lifelong aversion to pink is transformed and I am drinking in the life-affirming symbolism of this misappropriated color. I am still deeply troubled the lack of any real progress in a cure for breast cancer, and I am very uncomfortable with the marketing of breast cancer as a cause to buy stuff for... but the intuitive logic of the choice of pink for the Code Pink Peace Movement now seems obvious to me.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Pink is the color of life and love. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Pink in every shade. Pink - dappled and speckled and dazzling and subtle. Each pink as unique and dear as the next. Like the women - the mothers, daughters, sisters, cousins, friends and co-workers, the strangers and foreigners - who are lost to their loved ones every day from breast cancer. Each one as dear as the next...</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As I steel myself for the part of my dear friend's journey where we must part, I will hold this image, taken recently, of her communing with my sweet mare. (Somehow they had never met before now - my dear friend isn't a horse-girl.) </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There is a kind of love in this exchange. The open gesture of my friend's hand outstretched in greeting, and the gentle sadness in my mare's eye as though she knows this is a good-bye...</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZAoTO2SksYPYeC9ZkAnHIQhk6iiZ2KQldc70G8gCto7G9dRU_ahNrR4ArCrKaHtr2dgF7O4IJnDiP6cfbXpND1AG3QHYnfZskZnoKkGtEmNNCbDZhd-ocLmA2AEOFDPiXlxZtGuJ6rJfG/s1600/Picture+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZAoTO2SksYPYeC9ZkAnHIQhk6iiZ2KQldc70G8gCto7G9dRU_ahNrR4ArCrKaHtr2dgF7O4IJnDiP6cfbXpND1AG3QHYnfZskZnoKkGtEmNNCbDZhd-ocLmA2AEOFDPiXlxZtGuJ6rJfG/s400/Picture+2.png" width="296" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: black; font-family: Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This picture of such a tender dialogue will live forever </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: black; font-family: Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">in my deep pink heart. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6188939066245499754.post-86777560159668203212010-09-04T14:37:00.000-07:002010-09-04T14:37:21.676-07:00Horse + Boy + School<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Well, I guess I had it coming. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">What was I thinking: trying to raise my son to be free, to think for himself, and feel like he could do anything he put his heart and mind to? Is this what comes of nurturing his self-esteem, supplying him with lots of raw materials and supporting his dreams? </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">When one thinks of teenage rebellion, the picture of a kid demanding to go from unschooling to a public high school probably isn't what pops into most people's head first - or ever. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">It was entirely his idea. And, like most acts of rebellion, it was a big surprise. I sure didn't see it coming. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">One day we are all merrily sleeping till 10 and staying up till 2 because my husband works nights. My son reading books or drawing, riding horses or exploring outdoors all day. Doing plays (and even a film as an extra), recording lightsaber choreography, making swords or making music all night... working hard, playing harder and learning all the time.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Next thing I know he is commuting across state lines from our rural western Wisconsin home to downtown Saint Paul to a performing arts public charter school. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Whoa.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Did I miss the part where aliens abducted my son and left a changeling in his place? Or did I simply choose to ignore the signs that he is hearing the call to join a larger band of gypsies? He is searching for his tribe out there... he found something that spoke to him in theatre, and now he wants more.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMiGT9MpiIZ8jrw5g4CuZVyIKO4ovd1sCY3SRnP8tDX2BehnwjPbsJmByqSPx2ZXcBlTVnn1d7aGWWxhW-8o_ZHMnVy-YKAMnVpOfBaRlbvgfj13pezRdyddVp1sW32GG4nV4sWoyeIdqO/s1600/landmark.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMiGT9MpiIZ8jrw5g4CuZVyIKO4ovd1sCY3SRnP8tDX2BehnwjPbsJmByqSPx2ZXcBlTVnn1d7aGWWxhW-8o_ZHMnVy-YKAMnVpOfBaRlbvgfj13pezRdyddVp1sW32GG4nV4sWoyeIdqO/s320/landmark.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes, it does look like a fairy tale castle.<br />
But it's still school...</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">In the past ten years we have gone from Waldorf school to homeschool to unschool and now, literally, back to school. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">What have I learned in the last ten years when it comes to schooling? Expect the unexpected. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">And, what have I repeatedly NOT learned in the last ten years regarding schooling? </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">How to "fit in" with other people, and how to navigate remaining true to my self while not being a hypocrite. School always feels as though it's forcing these lessons on me. These are some of the reasons I don't like school. But that's me.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">The only real lesson here? </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">That this is my son's journey, not mine.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><i>(I just realized - I'm sort of out of a job here. Oh well, it didn't pay worth a damn anyway... but I liked the hours and I sure loved the company.)</i></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6188939066245499754.post-16426212369946269032010-08-16T21:39:00.000-07:002010-08-16T21:39:50.590-07:00Horse + Boy.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">My baby just turned fifteen years old... I am in shock. Where on earth did the time go? </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">It seems just yesterday he was in third grade and had started riding lessons on a big ol' cowboy horse named Ice (he had pale blue eyes). On a late November day, Ice went down in the icy mud (ironic?) taking my son down with him. Ice was fine, my son broke his wrist. </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjP9ZvNZiTz5SELQU9H4IIWPDcUp1ZhCFL3fy45jlyQWvq2bBZYZfrvWURRL7wQG4UUrrOhkwtnr0Zjpshz46WFLEk9xFm4M0MO3FF5-8TawSPHI-C5Et9hp_UsIK_7VCRkLl4bHCQ-Rj3/s400/Picture+4.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> A Harry Potter t-shirt, a pirate headscarf, fingerless gloves and a black velvet cape -<br />
sort of Errol Flynn does Zorro.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjP9ZvNZiTz5SELQU9H4IIWPDcUp1ZhCFL3fy45jlyQWvq2bBZYZfrvWURRL7wQG4UUrrOhkwtnr0Zjpshz46WFLEk9xFm4M0MO3FF5-8TawSPHI-C5Et9hp_UsIK_7VCRkLl4bHCQ-Rj3/s1600/Picture+4.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzsRhRr4WenmaTWW7IUWhUh_H15cOnJ_bk4u6TD0WqhNKqHjkfjNBsU5Qxg1qYHz14kdlHv-Oy1eTbNRyVraF_SkjT8-66vAfySl-4R1FkuKOqG0qOrv2udrAoMpaeYA0WqyrIRqbMSETY/s1600/Picture+6.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Then we started homeschooling, and after the winter off from riding, my son got back on a horse. This time he rode a pretty and willful Welsh Pony at our barn named Matilda. The ground was a lot closer from her back.</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">When it came to riding, my son's concern was getting hurt again. Matilda's only concern was getting back to the barn. Fortunately it wasn't long before Matilda got too short for my growing son.</span><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK-tU01sHYh1wVC-3dF08Yuqw7jU2NpXqt4TMQ5inOblDlaEocWpq5ovtPdQOU2m_k_AxuV0rPTB1dJOsRfdUkXvyrSRvNvi_0gyhIaYD6KASYfF-1uZyDk8pdERpw1eAGEK0y6lYy_Eu0/s1600/Picture+6.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK-tU01sHYh1wVC-3dF08Yuqw7jU2NpXqt4TMQ5inOblDlaEocWpq5ovtPdQOU2m_k_AxuV0rPTB1dJOsRfdUkXvyrSRvNvi_0gyhIaYD6KASYfF-1uZyDk8pdERpw1eAGEK0y6lYy_Eu0/s400/Picture+6.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The battle of wills is rather evident in this charming picture.</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">So, my son began riding our 14.2 hand mare, TigerLily. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">TigerLily is a sturdy paint with canon bones like tree trunks. She loves this boy, but that love didn't extend to a good work ethic. In riding lessons with TigerLily, he learned about clarity, respect and consistency. She learned what she could get away with, tolerating the work and loving the attention.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Not too long before TigerLily, too, got too short. My son is a "tall drink of water" for his age - he is six foot two inches tall so far, and his legs hang down so far on her sides that everyone at the barn jokes that he could click his heels together under the girth and and say "there's no place like home..."</span><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxmeZT3Qili99IZUCB7kG3FjlqQoYJ-IhwJkAbQPMdocZ2QrjRXA33jOT8NbbmkRCqVG5AJ1LPvHdCJ2kF2bSgEqXSbk521AG8b27MvCGsj3Um9FUw-3VXCNfWEbyXdDMyBpIRwzESYdPO/s1600/Picture+3.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxmeZT3Qili99IZUCB7kG3FjlqQoYJ-IhwJkAbQPMdocZ2QrjRXA33jOT8NbbmkRCqVG5AJ1LPvHdCJ2kF2bSgEqXSbk521AG8b27MvCGsj3Um9FUw-3VXCNfWEbyXdDMyBpIRwzESYdPO/s400/Picture+3.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">TigerLily loves her boy...</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Then one of our dear neighbors, who board a tall handsome 16 hand Arab gelding at the barn, kindly offered this horse as a lesson mount for my son. These two hit it off immediately. This willing horse comes like a happy dog friend at the sight of my son and the halter, and they seem to understand each other completely. It's a good thing our mare loves this gelding too, (they are contented pasture mates) or jealousy might rear its ugly head - you know mares! </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC_hnI8RirG8t3uCnNKbMFnxPLkcITxPso_02Cm6FKkaX3GKuSJJgWrFtNO3pP1RxTbPWSDvWl6A2n3G7jkQedwhHCST95mw8zj1pnDU3fA1oiVRBl-eY-5qQRugrSvsIPZ4-0K9-9C5_L/s1600/Picture+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC_hnI8RirG8t3uCnNKbMFnxPLkcITxPso_02Cm6FKkaX3GKuSJJgWrFtNO3pP1RxTbPWSDvWl6A2n3G7jkQedwhHCST95mw8zj1pnDU3fA1oiVRBl-eY-5qQRugrSvsIPZ4-0K9-9C5_L/s400/Picture+2.png" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two wonderful boys.</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">This fall, my son wants to try high school... I'll miss being able to simply "go up to the barn" on a whim with him - to ride, to explore the woods or just hang out with the horses. I hope that horses will always be a part of his life, somehow. I guess I did my part, making sure he had the chance to experience for himself the magic, the power, the beauty and the love of horses. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">(Oh, if only he can find a nice horse-girl to love out there, somewhere... )</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6188939066245499754.post-33320577935229202472010-08-11T19:25:00.000-07:002010-08-11T19:25:25.208-07:00Farewell to a Gentleman Mule.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPFQ8vFPxjXd_VbI352q-lhoBfazq-NSOylIS4UrrI2Xar5ru206qxSRov7zomO9ur3GJlSax1I5yCkDxtyK2tdS9gI7d81y1nboFk5j6tnM1N0XVfXHlKNTprEzmkF9FNX3dAQjP8UIER/s1600/Picture+21.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPFQ8vFPxjXd_VbI352q-lhoBfazq-NSOylIS4UrrI2Xar5ru206qxSRov7zomO9ur3GJlSax1I5yCkDxtyK2tdS9gI7d81y1nboFk5j6tnM1N0XVfXHlKNTprEzmkF9FNX3dAQjP8UIER/s640/Picture+21.png" width="475" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Mule Gal and Mule Guy are neighbors, they are friends and they own the barn down the road where our mare is boarded. They are the sort of people who you call when your woods are on fire and they come immediately with tanks of water and shovels... and hugs.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">I know because I did - and they did. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">And, as you can guess from their nicknames, they love their mules. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">They love horses, too. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">But as Mule Guy points out, you can ride a horse to the edge of a cliff and say "jump" and a well-trained horse will. Do the same with a mule and the mule will say "you first". He swears their legendary stubbornness is simply a sign of superior intelligence. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Mule Gal is a reserved rider, a very sensitive, highly intelligent and intuitive woman who had a deep and rich relationship with her mule partner. She's no cowboy. He was no ranch horse. Trust was their theme, and they were a joy to see together. This mule had the demeanor of a gentleman, the patience of a saint, and the deep, dark eyes of an old, wise soul. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">And this mule loved his human. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Mule Gal's mule was struck and killed by lightning last night during a furious storm. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">I witnessed this same storm, from my place just down the road. I captured several pictures of the storm's dramatic lightning. It's entirely possible that one of the pictures I took is the strike that took this gentle mule's life... </span></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjlpV5DWF5P5eDFLDeZkIg-xmF0Z4Sdn38_EisKaTJt72-I6pMJ87yUiqHKKqvKuJEnfjxWlwq3hcmdvNyD9m5crrZ2EujXOVqQxAAXmMyRxWOUcaP1cIka4tG46AhN-dgL7IZ8qnZtjcJ/s1600/Picture+9.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjlpV5DWF5P5eDFLDeZkIg-xmF0Z4Sdn38_EisKaTJt72-I6pMJ87yUiqHKKqvKuJEnfjxWlwq3hcmdvNyD9m5crrZ2EujXOVqQxAAXmMyRxWOUcaP1cIka4tG46AhN-dgL7IZ8qnZtjcJ/s640/Picture+9.png" width="492" /></span></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Lightning is a frighteningly powerful force of nature.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">A precious, beloved life - over in a flash. Literally.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">But the heartache has just begun for Mule Gal.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Fortunately, friendship and healing are powerful forces, too. And Mule Gal has many good memories of her kind mule to help her smile through her tears.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Farewell to a Gentleman Mule. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">You will be sorely missed, but never forgotten.</span></span><br />
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</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>A tale of trains, a railroad bridge, a temple of columns underneath that bridge, and a treasure unearthed on the bank of the small river traversed by that bridge...</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><br />
</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Spent a recent afternoon with my son, exploring a debris-strewn stretch of river in search of frogs and turtles. We came to a small railroad bridge and followed the well-worn path from the tracks down to a secluded spot underneath the bridge, loud with graffiti and littered with shards of broken glass.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I looked across the river, at a solid-looking expanse of green duckweed from which several massive concrete columns rose to support the train bridge overhead. The series of arches and doorways formed by the columns and the long paths of light between them suggested an ancient temple. The effect was enhanced by beautiful and intriguing surface designs drawn and painted on the columns, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">more like hieroglyphics than graffiti.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I stood there and took this all in, transported by the unexpected sacredness of the place, and then took a couple pictures. Something at my feet caught my eye - something burnished and embedded in the compacted soil at the river's edge. I bent to pick up whatever was beckoning here, it was metal - copper I guessed from the warm tone - more or less round and very flat with a tiny eye-shaped hole on its edge. Delighted at the thought of stringing and wearing this small treasure (I am such a jewelry person!), I inspected it more closely. Though perfectly smooth, the surface of both sides bore shadowy images -what were they?</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Then it hit me - this was a penny. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It had been put on the track above, run over by a train and flattened. But it had escaped. As I ran this narrative in my head, I stopped and looked up and sure enough there was blue sky with drifting clouds alternating with track. So, my treasure had fallen through the spaces and languished here on the riverbank for how long? Years? Decades? The patina was aged-looking... and now I could just make out the slightly distorted profile of Lincoln on one side and the series of upright columns (echoing what I was looking at here in front of me) of the Lincoln Memorial on the other side. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Later, at home with my treasure, I resisted the impulse to embellish it - I am a jewelry artisan, after all -and simply added a silver jump ring and a dark patina-ed ball chain. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I slipped it over my head, thinking: LUCKY.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6188939066245499754.post-25051717386289488532010-07-04T15:33:00.000-07:002010-07-04T19:28:49.884-07:00Hair.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7rG4FSYX5vBXM4nUVo_KOQx4WerR_AWiF3XphOZ5niBv95dod6nvx-O78lu9Bv-ZLpp_YamsZ8WRP-dBlFS1Fob-u5FOaTdvoq7EyKW0HC8F75Hjzo1nh_6XoZLPgVA1WI1YesFCQ9c6j/s1600/Picture+18.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7rG4FSYX5vBXM4nUVo_KOQx4WerR_AWiF3XphOZ5niBv95dod6nvx-O78lu9Bv-ZLpp_YamsZ8WRP-dBlFS1Fob-u5FOaTdvoq7EyKW0HC8F75Hjzo1nh_6XoZLPgVA1WI1YesFCQ9c6j/s640/Picture+18.png" width="475" /></a></div><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Hair is powerfully symbolic. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Humans spend a lot of time on hair. Our hair - its length, style, and color, or our lack of hair - is a highly visible message to the world about how we see our self and how we wish to be perceived. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Hair is both highly personal and very public. Folklore attributes hair with a variety of magical powers, even Biblical stories relate this ancient belief - remember the tragic story of Samson and Delilah? </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Horses are among the very few animals who have hair that is much like our own hair, and perhaps that is one reason many of us feel so connected to horses. We see a bit of ourselves in them, hair framing their faces much as our hair does...</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">As an artisan jeweler working in the realm of horses, I work with a fair amount of horse hair, both in custom work and in work of my own inspiration. I have washed, sorted, braided, and even hand-dyed horse hair. I make necklaces and bracelets with lengths of braids, and I make tassels and other ornamental objects with tufts of unbraided hair. Most of this work is memorial in nature, adornments designed to honor the memory of horses who have left this world. Occasionally I have the pleasure to make something with hair from a horse who is still here, and even better I have had the lovely opportunity to make something with hair from a horse (or a mule, I'm delighted to add) who is around and who I know personally.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">There is a history of sentimental and memorial adornments made with human hair, too. Examples exist in museum collections of nineteenth and early twentieth century gentlemen's watch fobs, embellished with lovingly woven locks of hair, presumably as a symbol of love and betrothal. Lockets were often filled with wisps of hair from a lover far away to keep them close, or from a baby or child as a memento of a life lost or at least of a childhood gone by.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Hair comes to mind for other reasons, too. In these days of rampant cancers, most of us know someone who has endured chemo or radiation-induced hair loss. It seems a distressingly common thing. One can hardly go out to a large public place without noting women wearing scarfs or other sorts of head coverings over obviously bare heads. Some do it with panache, others are clearly self-conscious. Wigs are even harder to wear convincingly, so bolder souls throw all pretense to the wind and opt for an outrageous color or style. And some venture out with their bald heads for all to see, challenging themselves and everyone else to respond honestly and authentically. A bald head can not be ignored. It will not go quietly away to let us pretend cancer isn't ripping apart the fabric of many, many lives. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Once again, hair, and the lack of it, is highly symbolic. It can be the symbol of hope and recovery, when hair grows back after successful treatment... or its loss can be one of a series of heart-breaking losses that precede the final loss - of a life.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">I have mentioned my dear friend who is living with advanced breast cancer. She is on my mind as I think about hair because she recently endured full-head radiation that has left her with no hair. She was told it won't grow back. Which, damn it, is really a moot point: she has also been told her time is short. In a fit of sorrow and regret, I think maybe I should have made something beautiful with some of her hair before it was gone... something to remember her by. Then I smile a little and think of all the ways she has been a dear friend, all the ways she has filled me with her kindness, compassion, humor and creativity. And I know that hair is not the thing I will carry in my heart in memory of her when she leaves this world. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Hair is very symbolic, but the symbol is not the thing...</span><br />
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</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6188939066245499754.post-22768196081873812122010-06-17T10:46:00.000-07:002010-06-17T10:46:58.667-07:00Grounded<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuqzsfDiMae2ckiuOiBmQ7St-2m05Oecm-LPR0rqjOniPoirVOsy8ACOIMWRbXZQwGq94GHGx6mq4-xASr0SrGrV36Bs0OvslvzNlSz7f1Lm0buzo04RyRqKOBZJX9QEyl7mvkD0cCNRea/s1600/Picture+12.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuqzsfDiMae2ckiuOiBmQ7St-2m05Oecm-LPR0rqjOniPoirVOsy8ACOIMWRbXZQwGq94GHGx6mq4-xASr0SrGrV36Bs0OvslvzNlSz7f1Lm0buzo04RyRqKOBZJX9QEyl7mvkD0cCNRea/s400/Picture+12.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">To feel the earth, solid beneath your feet, and to feel secure that you can stand up to or run away from whatever comes at you, </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">To draw power, sustenance, healing and energy from the storehouse of organic animal and plant material, alive or once-alive, and minerals transformed by time, in the form of grasses and grains that grow on this deep layer of history and biology. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">To feel the rhythmic vibrations of approaching land animals or the shudders of moving storms through the bottoms of your feet. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">To be a Horse must be an amazing thing.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6188939066245499754.post-34846270548044222682010-05-21T20:19:00.000-07:002010-05-21T20:29:50.849-07:00Paint. Horse.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNpUwTgjsYl4IqHF_oZio7dPeUbAcFGsfwWhFOvf-Y1Gy8Dv1qX0LfrWhd89THYhmMEN45HZFVPsjovjTSE9GeeV-hzSxxKZm8M40I3DwsccEmcVxKu3HqOMSWeISX7vGqqG9eUIuzYNVO/s1600/Picture+4.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNpUwTgjsYl4IqHF_oZio7dPeUbAcFGsfwWhFOvf-Y1Gy8Dv1qX0LfrWhd89THYhmMEN45HZFVPsjovjTSE9GeeV-hzSxxKZm8M40I3DwsccEmcVxKu3HqOMSWeISX7vGqqG9eUIuzYNVO/s400/Picture+4.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">P</span>aint Horse. Painting horse. Paint a horse. A painting horse. Oh my.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It sort of started one May 1st, my horse TigerLily's birthday. A couple of years ago I baked a special horsey cake for her - the recipe was from the author of 'Misty of Chincoteague' and I figured any cake good enough for Misty was good enough for TigerLily. The ingredients were supposedly a horse's dream come true: oats, carrots, molasses and apples. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">My son still guffaws at the memory of TigerLily daintily plucking the diminutive cake from my loving hand, and then bobbing her head several times like an iguana doing the primal territorial display before spitting it out directly at me in disgust. The barn dog, Fergie, did a remarkably well-timed fly-by and made off with it. (She came back and asked for more, bless her little omnivorous heart. You can always count on a dog to eat nearly anything). </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Anyway, since baking birthday cakes wasn't going to happen again, I resorted to other methods of celebrating. Being an artist, decorating my horse seemed like a good idea - it was the pink and orange livestock marking paint that wasn't. The dear forgiving man who owns the ranch down the road where TigerLily boards almost had a heart attack when he saw her, thinking that she was grievously wounded. I promised to only use non-gorey colors after that. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">TigerLily is a black and white Tobiano marked horse. What most people call a "paint", so painting designs <i>on</i> a paint horse has some extra linguistic appeal. I have also painted pictures <i>of</i> her.</span><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">(<i>Funny thing - whenever I paint her, TigerLily is some shade of blue</i>). </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And then there are paintings <i>by </i>horses. Often this is a rather gimmicky ordeal, with a handler coaxing a painting-like performance from a dutiful but baffled horse. And just as often the results are a predictable blend of mechanical smears and smudges of unfortunate colors using mediocre raw materials... </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Then there is Cheryl Ward and her painting horses. Holy smokes. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I came across her website (http://paintinghorse.com) and I am completely smitten with her "collaborative interspecies" approach to painting in partnership with horses, and I am dazzled by their results, which truly are art. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I am so inspired: Paint. Horse. <i>And</i> Human. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">(Stay tuned...)</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">D</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">onkeys are the archetypal beast of burden. All around the world they are seen as pack animals put on the earth to carry stuff around for humans... and, in spite of their collective reputation for stubbornness they have carried burdens since long before Mary rode one to Bethlehem, and they continue to do so in countless towns and villages, in the rustic countryside and the mountains. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">The little donkey pictured here, that I hand sewed of wool felt, yarn and embroidery thread, is a different kind of donkey made to carry a different kind of burden.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">A dear friend, the one I have mentioned previously, has been traveling the hard road of breast cancer for a couple of years now, and the path has become increasingly difficult as the cancer finds ways to disguise itself, invading various parts of my friend's body and eluding eradication. Her burdens increase by the day. And her burdens will, her doctors say, become unbearably heavy unbearably soon... </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">This little donkey was created as a humble gift to symbolize the help that a friend can provide: the act of sharing a burden, through words and actions, and through a willingness to accompany a friend along a too-short, too-hard road. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6188939066245499754.post-52827724878758160542010-05-02T20:43:00.000-07:002010-05-02T20:49:38.861-07:00Beast of Burden<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmyKTXogQT9p_aT4xk7V-P5k-92K3vtxLNdS1rdP_hjRcIdh45JgEBr_gg_RuhUIoQJYvqootnpA0wiBXDllWz21fsO3RctK0GikE1Je98oXDbN5-Yb-S0t4vT20NQ8xX4fM3MQAicFofg/s1600/Picture+4.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmyKTXogQT9p_aT4xk7V-P5k-92K3vtxLNdS1rdP_hjRcIdh45JgEBr_gg_RuhUIoQJYvqootnpA0wiBXDllWz21fsO3RctK0GikE1Je98oXDbN5-Yb-S0t4vT20NQ8xX4fM3MQAicFofg/s400/Picture+4.png" width="400" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">A</span> view of my horse from across the back of her friend, a sweet mule... </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This picture I took, on my horse's birthday (and shortly after a long weekend at the Minnesota Horse Expo), made me stop and think about all the ways we humans interact with the equines in our lives, how many things we ask them to be and do, and how grateful I am to have a horse in my life. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I don't really like to admit how much I depend on my horse to be my muse, my confidante and even my shrink. When I am feeling burdened by indecision, anger or sorrow, or when I am grieving or searching for the "why" of something, it is often my horse's company I seek. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sounds crazy, yet I know horse people understand. Do horses have a special understanding of the complexities of human suffering? I don't know. Sometimes they seem to be good mirrors, reflecting back to us the powerful emotions we are projecting, and sometimes they seem patient, non-judgmental listeners to our unspoken hopes and fears...</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">To my horse:</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Here I am again, at your gate (damaged creature that I am) seeking a holy communion older than written history. Here I am, calling your name, your honest eyes see right through me. Yet still you come, willingly, from your temple of hay to greet me as though I was the only thing in the world you wanted. You breathe me in, and in return my senses are flooded with the fragrances of last summer's green grass and sun-warmed fur. Words escape me, and you lower your head and take my lead in the ancient horse-human dance that stops time, if just for a while.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">You carry me on your wide, goddess-shaped back, and you carry my secret sorrows, too. For a little while I am rocked into a wordless bliss in the leather cradle of our old western saddle. But that vulture, Time, circles back around, casting a sorrow-shaped shadow, and the spell is broken: human and horse must part at the gate. The escaped words return and I ineptly express my gratitude, human-style. I leave, carrying my burdens with me as I go. Yet somehow I feel lighter, strengthened by our time together... </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">who, indeed, is the "beast of burden"? </span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6188939066245499754.post-2618224598076371062010-04-19T16:49:00.000-07:002010-04-19T16:51:33.941-07:00A Second Spring<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrOqiCQGv0RRCdTDyOkWbfhJfsB_FW5Hd5Jy477qlxsKo7dBOirIYjZe89qpqmIbx2yReeZHHMRTO_uPvQcrCM2uUGOdGRXn5dADlGv1zlAxBjMjm0CRFE2LqlJ_JUdEpUTQ4MKJxb1g6y/s1600/Picture+26.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrOqiCQGv0RRCdTDyOkWbfhJfsB_FW5Hd5Jy477qlxsKo7dBOirIYjZe89qpqmIbx2yReeZHHMRTO_uPvQcrCM2uUGOdGRXn5dADlGv1zlAxBjMjm0CRFE2LqlJ_JUdEpUTQ4MKJxb1g6y/s400/Picture+26.png" width="297" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">T</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">he heart of our woods, formerly an idyllic tree-lined hollow, is now something like a lunar landscape due to a small forest fire. But a recent ramble revealed a translucent pale green fern frond, rising from the blackened forest floor, unfolding in a slightly unusual pattern... perhaps the heat of the fire disrupted the pre-programmed spiral form? </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">No matter, it was such a welcome sight. The first herald of the year's second spring for us. A symbol of life pushing back against destruction. Of rebirth and renewal. Or maybe it's not really all that simple, not that "black and white"as the phrase goes? Maybe life and growth partner with death and destruction, the black and the green, in collusion... "in cahoots" as the old folks say with a wink. In cahoots. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I ponder the upcoming 2010 Earth Day as I walk. Recalling the devastation of the earthquake in Haiti last January, and the primeval power of volcanoes at work in Iceland this week. I consider that Earth Day isn't just planting trees, hanging laundry out on the line and recycling. Clearly, the uncontrolled and barely-understood forces of nature on this earth are relentlessly at work in the world, creating and destroying, giving and taking away. Not exactly the gentle Mother. The grand and the minute spirals of life and death, always spinning, from the sub atomic to the galactic. Same laws, different scales. How do you fit a whole planet into a day? And do you just ignore the scary parts? I am thinking that if Earth Day were an ancient holiday, there'd have been plenty of sacrifices made.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I wonder about the fern's altered form. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">(And I bet horses don't worry about this sort of stuff, except possibly the part about green stuff growing). </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6188939066245499754.post-55636169981807036722010-04-10T17:23:00.000-07:002010-04-10T17:55:05.281-07:00Hope is a Horse<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">S</span>ome days you venture out into the world simply because business calls. But when you show up, it is life in all its serendipitous glory that is waiting for you. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Today I had my HORSE-TRIBE booth at an area stable for an open house event. But selling jewelry was just a small part of the journey...</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">I met a little orphaned foal today, the one I wrote about in a recent blog entry. She is healthy-looking and beautiful, all long legs and long ears and wavy tufts of fur... all dusky-colored and a single star on her forehead, she is the very picture of hope and trust. </span></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBN8qRR6dJ5grskVmDOXh-bijVwZY7W6UZkvL8G0Kueh0PnPL3TZmlPIBZZDS47VG_GIMb1uZZ5Og0Hx_s4ozXYsohlQsQAVw2Mp66hZZ6fFzwcCT3-xa-GCdSXC1Hdss_yznuWVbNqDfU/s1600/Picture+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBN8qRR6dJ5grskVmDOXh-bijVwZY7W6UZkvL8G0Kueh0PnPL3TZmlPIBZZDS47VG_GIMb1uZZ5Og0Hx_s4ozXYsohlQsQAVw2Mp66hZZ6fFzwcCT3-xa-GCdSXC1Hdss_yznuWVbNqDfU/s400/Picture+1.png" width="400" /></span></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And I had a casual conversation that took an unexpected and delightful turn - I was given the happy ending to a story that I thought was forever going to haunt me. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A couple years ago a friend called and said she saw a horse loose in an open area next to a big Costco parking lot. She pulled over, but without a halter and rope (doesn't everyone carry one in their vehicle?) she was not able to help. She communed briefly with the horse, saying it was a lovely, gentle being. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">The cops came - without a rope and halter - and they left again saying they'd contacted animal control... and my friend had to leave the horse. She did so with a heavy heart. Many times we have wondered aloud about the fate of this poor creature. Today I met the woman whose kids brought a rope and halter after spotting the horse. And the horse is living happily with their family. The person who dumped the horse was caught and prosecuted. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Some days it seems like hope is a horse.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6188939066245499754.post-21783996707508041652010-04-04T11:07:00.000-07:002010-04-04T18:19:58.907-07:00Rising from the Ashes<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">E</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">aster Sunday. The first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox... </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">a day that is rich with symbolism, both ancient and modern. Easter, as we observe it, is a complicated and strained marriage of pre-historic pagan celebrations and Christian mysticism at its most deep and poignant. The common theme winding its way through all the stories, of course, is one of the spiraling cycles of death and resurrection, and the belief in the eternal nature of the soul. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Fire is often associated with sacred and seasonal celebrations - a wild and barely contained force of nature as in the ancient bonfires, or a carefully controlled servant in ceremonies in the form of candles and fuming censors inside the hallowed walls of churches and temples. Fire is seen as a purifying agent, a powerful elemental agent of release, destruction and new growth. In some cultures, burning is a way to send prayers or spirits to the sacred realms. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">We witnessed the primeval power of fire firsthand this week on our twenty acre haven of woods and fields. It's been unseasonably warm and dry here, and that day there was a strong wind from the southeast, setting the stage for a potential disaster. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Looking back, I recite a list of "things I am grateful for" like a mantra, to protect me from thinking about the list of haunting "what ifs":</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">We were home, we smelled and saw smoke as it was carried fast and furiously on the wild wind. </span></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Our horse lives down the road "a piece", so she was safe. </span></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">It wasn't the dark of night. </span></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Or the dead of winter. </span></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Our neighbors came to investigate on atvs, with shovels and water. </span></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">The volunteer firefighters came fast, worked fast and worked smart. </span></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">The flames were put out before spreading to any homes, barns or pastures.</span></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">And there were no dead bodies, human or animal.</span></i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">The fire spread alarmingly fast, but was contained and subdued in a matter of hours. The fire's path of charred trees and blackened ground originated in what we consider the 'heart' of our woods, a vortex marked by a huge flattened boulder that is a resting place during rambles, and the offering place for treasures found along those journeys - feathers and fragments of bird eggs, gnarled twigs or wildflower blossoms, delicate bones or fallen nests. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">The sense of violation is potent, the evidence of interlopers was clear - someone was burning something in an old bullet-pocked metal bowl on top of the heart-boulder. My intuition is that it was an accident, probably just kids. I can't even consider that the fire was intentionally set. I'd like to think that a lovesick teenager, sensing the inherent sacredness of this spot, came to burn love notes in the quiet embrace of the surrounding pine trees... </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">admittedly, I am a hopeless romantic.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">The next day dawned sooty grey, and got darker as the morning progressed, culminating in a lovely soaking rain. The burned woods, cleansed. In between outbursts of birdsong, you can almost hear new green shoots pushing their way up through the ashes. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">(Spring is bitter/sweet). </span></i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-style: italic;">Postscript:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It seems 'Spring is Ironic' in a cosmic sort of way as well... a tattered Mourning Cloak butterfly was the only sign of life I saw today, three days after the fire, as I walked the untouched margins of the woods. In fact, its presence was impossible to miss, as it buzzed me repeatedly and so closely that I could hear the rush of its beating wings. </span></i></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6188939066245499754.post-51148460020116620702010-04-01T08:08:00.000-07:002010-04-02T09:45:42.815-07:00Spring is Bitter/Sweet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmuIrhVXiMNjVdEqMjld1_GzkC_txAqOfcH1LpBTLb1XlEJzFvOC-rWmwDl9JyFviXJUBJ8xpAWatgs6XnzPiZJyF-EQHiQoZJRzdBnslX7iHwFOY2j1VlQE-YAsg_D4OknsiEvtXFIRVr/s1600/collage+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmuIrhVXiMNjVdEqMjld1_GzkC_txAqOfcH1LpBTLb1XlEJzFvOC-rWmwDl9JyFviXJUBJ8xpAWatgs6XnzPiZJyF-EQHiQoZJRzdBnslX7iHwFOY2j1VlQE-YAsg_D4OknsiEvtXFIRVr/s320/collage+2.png" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">T</span>he moon of spring waxes full, and round-bellied mares, feeling the lengthening daylight hours and the pull of the tides, bring forth their foals.</span></span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-style: italic;">But spring is bitter/sweet.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">At a friend's barn, a mare gives birth to a beautiful, healthy foal, gives her the precious colostrum-laden first milk, and then the mare falls to the ground, dead. Meanwhile, just a few miles away at the barn of a friend of this friend, a mare loses its newborn foal. Humans intervene to try to bring this mare and the orphaned foal together. If all goes well, these strangers will help each other to move forward in a patchwork of loss and need, of longing and fulfillment.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Spring, if you buy into the perennial hype of retailers and marketeers, is an orgy of joy and newness, of all things green and growing. All for your purchasing pleasure. But spring has its own price. There must be a balance, and the shadow of spring is sacrifice and surrender. Mother Nature invented recycling.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><i>But spring is bitter/sweet. </i></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">The full moon of spring brings an abundance of roadkill and tree frog songs. I get a phone call. A dear friend's cancer has returned with a vengeance. Though spring's promise of renewal feels hollow, hope for a miracle could take root in the fertile, dark earth of this, the bitter/sweet season... </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">I want to go to see my horse and breathe in her sweet, warm living fragrance. </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6188939066245499754.post-88005145232180983602010-03-20T17:30:00.000-07:002010-06-23T09:55:31.702-07:00I Have a Boot Thing...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
</span></span></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQLA3wf9WpGFMy9mkU4rPbMKCKzUwIXIj-1D2XNg1Oz8WSZeIWln2TaEqtWotAXwuHiphlEKYd1c9RABX2IzcYHxTzbVXItIu49chSznm85AvJhiEznUbVTic2Jpvgu_APupX6eiRO-8cX/s1600-h/Picture+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQLA3wf9WpGFMy9mkU4rPbMKCKzUwIXIj-1D2XNg1Oz8WSZeIWln2TaEqtWotAXwuHiphlEKYd1c9RABX2IzcYHxTzbVXItIu49chSznm85AvJhiEznUbVTic2Jpvgu_APupX6eiRO-8cX/s400/Picture+1.png" width="287" /></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">T</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">he Vernal Equinox and the first day of Spring.... what a long journey it's been since the last time the daylight and night time hours stood in delicate balance. </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Spring means shedding, which horses do prodigiously - that's a lot of square footage of winter fur that has to go! Every year I forget and wear something warm and fleece-y to the barn, and every year I swear I won't make the same stupid mistake again. Fleece is never the same once horse hair has insinuated itself into that welcoming fuzzy surface. When it comes to all the mud and muck, I fare a bit better. Tall rubber boots are standard issue for March and April. I've always been good with boots. </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In fact, I sort of have a boot thing. </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It started when I was a kid. I was the only girl, and also the only one of three kids in our family who wanted to go "up north" to a family friend's cabin on summer weekends with my sweet 'Papa'. The same wonderful ritual preceded each "up north" season - a trip to the Holiday sporting goods department for boots. Back then there weren't a lot of boots to choose from, and nothing for girls. Which was fine by me. From the time I was allowed to dress myself, I fancied a uniform inspired by the Beats, even though Hippies were the next big thing. I wore black boys jeans (I was tall and rail-thin, and boy's pants were the only pants that fit me) and plain black long-sleeved turtleneck shirts. Johnny Cash had nothin' on me. Every year I would pick out the same black engineer boots, in a size bigger. I was smitten with their classic style, sturdy construction with the cool strap across the front and the even cooler silver buckles on the sides. I'd clomp across neighbor's yards and over their split-rail fences, pretending I was a horse. </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">(Draft breed I'm thinking, in those big ol' boots...)</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">My elegant mom, a high heels, gloves and hat kind of dame, just didn't get it. Me being the only daughter, she had such high girly hopes for me. Her sister had been Mrs. Minnesota and ran a charm school. And then there was me with my boots. She refused to let me wear the beloved boots to school. As far as she was concerned, their only merit was that I could tuck my pants into the tops of them and outwit the wood ticks. </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Mom sent me to the local department store's annual 'Glamorama' teen fashion training camp when I was in sixth grade, in a vain attempt to glamor the tomboy right out of me. All that happened was that I still, to this day, merrily sport black engineer boots. The pair I've worn for the last twelve-plus years happens to be from Harley Davidson. I swear they will last forever. They are the most comfortable footwear I have ever worn, hands down. Or, feets down, I guess. I don't ride motorcycles anymore since my husband traded in the Electra Glide for a Hayabusa. I said "NOT A CHANCE IN HELL AM I GETTING ON THAT!" regarding this Japanese monster that can do 200 mph. </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But I do ride my</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">horse, real easy like, in these great boots.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Meanwhile. engineer boots have actually come to be an acceptable footwear choice, worn by just about everyone, and without a tsk-tsk or a second glance from most mavens. And when the mud dries up at the barn, and I put away the rubber boots till next spring, the black engineer boots will be my first choice for footwear. Unless I'm in the mood for one of my many pairs of old cowboy boots. Or my english style field boots. Or...</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Like I said, I have sort of a boot thing.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNu3J8B2uj0JweDpq_APUckWc-EBeZtY9lmsg8R1HAeo-EXjhn4YfabkPrmxwYyNaAbUlutGaCkOiBei27PsT2ghsVhirM47nvGzUbU0BBL4yk9a_kBrZ2UXQ4ZrSBltJdM2y59CsAbrvI/s1600/Picture+4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNu3J8B2uj0JweDpq_APUckWc-EBeZtY9lmsg8R1HAeo-EXjhn4YfabkPrmxwYyNaAbUlutGaCkOiBei27PsT2ghsVhirM47nvGzUbU0BBL4yk9a_kBrZ2UXQ4ZrSBltJdM2y59CsAbrvI/s320/Picture+4.png" /></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6188939066245499754.post-33924709443452994632010-03-17T20:48:00.000-07:002010-04-02T09:49:49.011-07:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifpxg8wNMAGWAxs8U75KOf2lY7bcpX1t7LPb-FNQ1VfZHmbTY-RPUDquzoBRtfo0z0mo2an1aSimYy-E1i2rq52Uwzd1IPTyCnYsAqUFF-sfzn-q4rkl0iBFAPlgg2xt4qNYTTTL3nOZC_/s1600-h/Picture+8.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5449821450144855938" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifpxg8wNMAGWAxs8U75KOf2lY7bcpX1t7LPb-FNQ1VfZHmbTY-RPUDquzoBRtfo0z0mo2an1aSimYy-E1i2rq52Uwzd1IPTyCnYsAqUFF-sfzn-q4rkl0iBFAPlgg2xt4qNYTTTL3nOZC_/s400/Picture+8.png" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 357px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I</span>n the spirit of Saint Patrick's Day </span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;">and all things Irish, I'd like to say something about LUCK.</span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;">As an artisan creating equine-inspired jewelry, horse shoes often appear in my work. Folks consider them lucky - at least when they are "pointing up". But they never fail to tell me they are "bad luck" if they are pointing down. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;">Now, my understanding is that the luck conferred by horse shoes has to do with the fact that traditionally they are made of iron, and according to folklore in many cultures, iron is protective against ill-intentioned magical powers.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;">So - let me offer a less dramatic, but much more balanced and holistic view of this charming ancient symbol:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;">I say that horse shoes are good luck pointing up OR down. Because when they point up, they represent a vessel catching any good fortune that might rain down upon us. When they point down, they again represent a vessel, this time overturned to share any good fortune within.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;">So you see, it can be seen as a flow of positive energy, from receiving to giving, in a never-ending cycle.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;"><br />
</span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6188939066245499754.post-19732062845400422462010-03-14T16:54:00.000-07:002010-04-02T09:50:57.555-07:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2MYYSLX-Jin0svx2jDyaZtCm6C9GiIvJkWHsQ8L2ybVEBHO-wqSnsa9Eqio3LTcX5H5uVZiKr5BKWTQDL3jWqZyGaeKeEwPOfRzLgbX4XHhUrCkYXEM4c-qL8_oW1B6qsdB_lNOlJDCDk/s1600-h/Picture+5.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448651844667147106" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2MYYSLX-Jin0svx2jDyaZtCm6C9GiIvJkWHsQ8L2ybVEBHO-wqSnsa9Eqio3LTcX5H5uVZiKr5BKWTQDL3jWqZyGaeKeEwPOfRzLgbX4XHhUrCkYXEM4c-qL8_oW1B6qsdB_lNOlJDCDk/s400/Picture+5.png" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 297px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">S</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">pending time in the field with the horses is what I did today, an intoxicatingly warm sunny early spring day. I also brought TigerLily, my equine partner, into the barn for a good brushing and to visit with a friend's gelding.</span></span></div><div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Spring is definitely here in the north - within minutes they were nuzzling and nipping each other over the gate with heavy-lidded eyes, ear-splitting squeals and a few kicks for show. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300; font-size: medium;">Horse-love is tender and terrible, and mercifully short-lived. And, if TigerLily is representative of all Equines in these matters, horse-love is also cured by treats...</span></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6188939066245499754.post-581956581052011002010-03-13T14:05:00.000-08:002010-04-02T09:52:17.504-07:00<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">A</span>nd so it begins. </span></span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Actually, it began before I can consciously remember. All I know is that as far back as I can remember, <i>I wanted to be a horse. </i></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">As a child, this seemed a reasonable request. Perhaps, as some people grow up to be astronauts or movie stars, I would simply grow up to be a horse? The closest I could figure, as a kid, was that I would bide my time as an artist until then. It goes without saying that I'm still an artist. It's not, after all, such a bad second choice. </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #663300;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Now it must be said that there is a fundamental difference between '<i>wanting a horse</i>' and '<i>wanting to be a horse</i>'. The former is a common phenomena, particularly with girls of all ages. The latter is, if publicly announced, likely to land a girl in the looney bin. And yet the latter sentiment may go a long way in explaining why I struggle with riding: it doesn't quite make sense to me. I am, however, perfectly content to while away an entire afternoon, out in the field in the company of horses... </span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1