Monthly Archives: December 2014

Back in 2005, ’06ish, I was working for an Equine Assisted Psychotherapy program and we were setting up facilities at a private home for my four horses and me. I designed a single roof shelter that could cover the 4 horses with individual pens connected to it. We set up a round pen for activities and a friend loaned me a little RV type trailer to live in right beside my precious horses.

When we were loading my horses to move them from the stable where they had been living to the new place, my Arabian colt, Darjeeling kinda panicked in the slant horse trailer and thrust the barrier divider against my body, slamming my head against the wall and breaking 3 of my ribs. He fell out of the back of the trailer and I immediately decided to walk him in-hand to the facility (it was close enough to do so). A friend walked my Dorje’ (older, wise Anglo-Arab) to keep Darj calm. I was in pure agony and Darjeeling probably was, too.

I had a big, angelic gaited mare, Sandalwood and Darjeeling’s cousin, Dharma Gita, another gray Arabian I had raised. Later, Sandy would pass over and Dalai (another gaited mare) would join my herd.

I spent that first night in the little trailer desperately trying to find a position of less pain so I could sleep. The next day a friend who was a surgical assistant helped me support (and confirmed) the broken ribs. Then, with very little ability to even inhale, I started seeing clients and putting up more fence! I had the trailer hooked up to water and electricity. I had a tote thing to haul my black water (sewage) across the few acres to dump it in the septic tank. I pulled it with my Jeep. Everything was agony, everything was miserable while my ribs healed. Everything was my responsibility but my only authority was over my own horses and I covered all of their expenses.

So, I decided that it would become an experience of deep practice for me on all levels. I had no television, no music, very little light… but I read at night and studied things important to me. I devoted all of my waking hours that were not with clients to taking care of and bonding with my horses.

One night I woke up to heavy rainfall battering the roof and… a sopping wet mattress. The roof leaked over the bed. My brother came the next day and helped me get a big tarp tied over the trailer, being careful not to block any vital vents. For heat and for cooking, I hauled 2 propane tanks to the city to fill them and waddled them up into their little shelf for hook up.

Eventually, we got a bigger trailer thing for me. Eventually a nice barn was built and for a while the horses and I were more comfortable. I felt like we were doing such good work (we were). But I did, after almost 4 years in EAP, burn out. My horse, Majic (with me now) worked for 7 and a half years in EAP. He has my utmost respect!! Part of the burn out had to do with none of the facility nor program being my own. I was working hard to create and enhance that program for someone else (who I cared about) and in time, I was unable to keep going.

I saw things that shook my soul during that work. I experienced things that touched and healed my heart. I heard of things that scared me deeply and haunt me to this day. It all required that I be tough and tender and hold myself to task day in, day out. I’m really glad I did it all, it made me a better person… even though I would never do it again!

I was visiting with my brother at lunch today downtown. He told the story of a young man he had worked with many years ago. This man drank at work and hid tiny vodka bottles in the toilet tanks of the bathrooms there. My father did that… at home and at our newspaper… tiny vodka bottles that my Mum gathered one year and threatened to hang (dozens, if not hundreds of them) as Solstice tree decorations!

It got me thinking as I drove home with a truck full of hay – we each choose our “poisons”. Some people eat bologna and white bread; some (like I did) smoke cigarettes; some choose things to inject into veins and others find stuff to inhale, ingest and imbibe to the point of numbness. And we are all simply looking for an escape, a relief or a soothing of some exploding trauma deep inside.

I have to admit, I thought about my emergency cigarettes as I faced the past few months of my life. I smoked half of one and felt no guilt and, remarkably, no desire to continue. I have a glass of wine (and am always cautious, knowing my father’s alcoholism can be genetically in me) some nights now. When caring for my Mum, I couldn’t risk being anything other than totally clear; couldn’t play my music (loudly) in case I wouldn’t hear her; couldn’t burn incense (it bothered her and my elderly dog who passed over earlier)… now, I am finding me again.

I do not regret a single moment of taking care of anyone I loved or love. Now, I will be taking care of me, mostly… for a while. I love me, too, actually.

And I need to be extra aware of my own proclivities and work on controlling potential obsessions. Of course, horses are a given and cannot be categorized as an obsession! But cupcakes can be. With no appetite lately, the french fry and cupcake draw are in the background, but could at any moment leap to the front of my experience. A lifetime as a vegetarian sometimes meant that french fries were the only choice for me eating out. I got to like them… potatoes, really, in any form.

So, tonight I look at what I need to eat for my health and happiness. I’ve been living on apples (a proper choice!) and feeling pretty good, actually.

Thank goodness I love tofu. I remember my Mum trying to eat tofu burgers I made and tofu-chocolate pie and tofu scrambles (like eggs)… she hated tofu!! I used to bake chocolate/tofu pies and shared one with the elderly Mexican man who lived by me on Furnace Street – my landlady tried to explain tofu, then called it a “frijole” chocolate pie. He made such a face!! I laughed till I peed.

I love butternut squash, parsley, celery, tomatoes, beets… it’s a good thing, these are what my body needs. And, on occasion, a cupcake, glass of wine and once a year, half a cigarette.

A really long time back, a group of us, mostly horsewomen would go to the Fountain Theater in Old Mesilla, New Mexico. It is an old, funky and sweet theater where we could buy wine and snacks, even meals while we sat in the rows of seats or at cafe’ tables. One week I saw an ad for the upcoming film: “Joan of Arc de Mongolia”, described as a film about Mongolian horsewomen. CRIKEY! I got everyone to buy tickets and we landed there en masse. I was excited. I had horse friends with even their husbands and boyfriends gathered to watch. And then the film started…..

It was a German film. It lasted over 4 hours (I’m pretty sure that’s right, it seemed like 8 hours). It was mostly, for 2 of those hours, about people on a train…. an eclectic group of characters… on a “train” with a rotating cylinder outside the “window” to create the sense of movement – the same painted trees going by over and over… I was so motion sick! And they actually had an apple I could buy. It saved me.

At one point there was a “scene” outside the window when the “train” was supposed to be in a station – there was a horse walking by. One of my friends groaned and said she hoped that wasn’t the horsewoman scene. I figured it was and tried to figure out how to just disappear.

The movie moved along and somehow the train got to outer Mongolia… women from the train ended up with Mongolian women, outside, riding horses wildly and (UGH!) slaughtering sheep. I shudder for so many reasons when I think of that night. My friends were kind. They just gave me odd looks and hurried to their cars and trucks down the very dark streets at the very late hour. We did not speak of it for a long time.

Tonight, I think of it as a kind of bonding ritual. Those of us who saw it began talking about it and those who had not seen it starting acting as if they had! Soon, it was a badge of courage to have endured and we held each other in great admiration… after enough time had passed and the irony/humour could be savored. I thought of it tonight while thinking about those dear friends.

I asked a friend of mine a while back where she would choose to live if she could choose anywhere in the world – and she has lived all over the world and visited everywhere. Her reply was, “Where my friends are”. AWESOME answer. She lives here. She was one of us who courageously and without complaint sat through the entire film, “Joan of Arc de Mongolia”.