Monthly Archives: February 2015

Hot water always heals me. Especially mineral filled, super heated water from deep within the earth. After several weeks of fighting a respiratory ailment, I decided to treat myself today (on my birthday) to a long soak at the hot springs just north of here in New Mexico.

The pool in my room of choice was 112 degrees this morning. The steam rising from the water cleared my lungs and the deep heat, after I worked my body all the way into the water, loosened my joints and pulled the pain away from my neck and my fingers. It was the best choice I could have made for this day.

I had been missing all the water in Hawaii. My visit there had re-hydrated my skin and opened my breathing. Back to the desert and I found my skin drying out again and breathing dirt made my lungs more vulnerable…

Today felt so good! I spent 50 full minutes of my hour submerged and slightly spacey from the intense heat. External, cooler air passed continuously through the room by way of several vents and the ceiling fan keep it all in motion (I felt a little strangeness from the strobe effect of the fan and muted lights).

Being underground in the water was like being hugged by the Earth.

The drive north then home was its usual interesting event with the exception of the perpetual music from a Counting Crows CD stuck in the player… this disc has been refusing to eject for weeks… some cruel, weird joke played on me by the Universe (like so many others), I have listened to August & Everything After several hundred times, I’m sure… recently. An “album” I loved, then hated, then loved again, now feel frantic about – yet, even hundreds of times, it’s better than what’s on the radio (this attitude of mine might explain my never hearing back about the job at the radio station).

It felt good to be around the rivers and the lake. It felt great to be in the geothermal waters! I feel so much better tonight.

My brother took me out for a fancy dinner. Tomorrow I get a big load of hay and the special ed kids come to muck horse pens. I am starting “Forbidden Planet” on the TV in the bedroom and trying to get the dogs all calmed down (they were very excited to see me after a long day away, then my leaving again!).

I don’t know what this next decade holds for me. I know that I will appreciate New Mexico more… from White Sands to Hot Springs to forests, lakes, sparkling caverns, vast high desert and deep canyons… from ancient ruins to outer space, I just love this place!

The Heart Sutra is a “story”, a kind of “song” that is chanted by Buddhists of my Soto Zen lineage. I chant it in English and in Japanese (phonetically). My brother and I chanted it as our Mother died in Hospice – me on my knees at the right side of her bed, Billy on his knees at the left side. When in Hawaii last month, I chanted it quietly each night as I sat on my bed, looking out the open, west facing windows at the sea, the night sky and the lights of Kailua, Kona. I wept each time until the last two nights. As Hawaii healed me, I became more aware of parts of that Sutra.

In part of the Heart Sutra near the “end”, we chant about a dharani – “It completely ends all suffering, know this as truth and do not doubt, so set forth this profound wisdom dharani and declare, Gone, Gone Gone, to the other shore, attained the other shore, to beyond the other shore, having never left…”

I have led this chant a thousand times when I ran the Zen Center; I have chanted it thousands more times when I sat Zazen in the city and at the Tubac (AZ) Meditation Center. I know this Sutra.

But I did not know the “other shore” until I sang my mother to the other side then sat on another shore, strangely thinking about even another shore I wish to know…

Admittedly, my mind has been toggled and challenged in ways it has never known – but the cracking of the shell that encases my doubts, fears and comprehension has opened my heart again. I saw the loving couple (family of mine) who hosted my visit to the island and felt the rhythm of their lives spent helping each other (and helping me!) and I realized that a relationship really does have the possibility of working, of being based on compassion. The reasons that I would not fully believe such a thing are the relationships I have experienced myself and the sorrow of my parents’ lives.

Watching a couple who care about each other but do not smother each other gave me hope. And, since it has been years since I entrusted my heart to another (with the exception of the man I loved last year but never touched), I feel no urgent draw to “find love” – no need for a “Valentine” right now!! I just have a settled sense of the world being softer and brighter because I actually know love can happen, last and heal.

I wake up each morning to four precious dogs who adore me (and I them) and I waddle outside, half asleep at daybreak to feed seven loving horses who watch out for me and thank me with big neck hugs and slobbery kisses on the top of my head. I know love.

And I know how to love. One thing about this magical place called “Dharmahorse” is that all life matters. We have literally hundreds of bunnies here. There is a bunny I’ve known for 3 years now with a withered front leg and one with a mangled, but healed, face who I’ve known for 4 years – I sit with them and do Reiki for them.

We have a big bull snake and a younger one, 3 roadrunners, 6 hawks, 2 owls, at least 100 quail, 2 tarantulas, countless doves and prairie dogs, dung beetles, lizards and horned toads by the dozens. We are all safe here.

And the “tribe” of students, friends and even my ex’s (!) are a gathering of loving spirits, respectful of life.

“Attained the other shore, to beyond the other shore, having never left…”  I get it. I think about a man on the other side of the world, at “another shore” and I have a place in my heart that belongs to him forever. And I think about Hawaii and my gratitude for how the Big Island welcomed me, wrapped me in love and healed a very broken person (me), my heart holds that other shore deep inside forever.

So, bulbs are pushing up through the earth here, trees budding, bunnies dancing a mating tango and horses shedding copious wads of hair (too early, I fear, but they likely know better than I do) – all signs point to a very welcomed spring! The warm sun feels good on my face. My backpack stills smells like Hawaii! I look through photos and remember every moment. And now it is time to make some good, new memories… to reboot this life and get riding again.

I have a little plan held deep inside my soul, a plan to travel more. There are other shores I need to sit upon. But, I will live every moment here fully as well. If I feel an overwhelming need to feel sand between my toes – I know where to go close by!

^ White Sands, New Mexico ^

My new little male dog, Kique, is becoming so attached to me that he “screams” from the dog yard when I’m out of sight working with the horses. This sounds as if something truly horrible is happening to him and the first time he did it, I ran, panicked, heart pounding to find him jumping for joy to see me…

He scared my neighbor today as she heard his screams and she came running out of her house to my quick explanation. She and I both have that “danger Will Robinson” reaction. Right after she was startled by Kique, my brother returned home and, to my perception, he kept honking the truck’s horn. This would be so out of character that it scared me and I ran to the driveway, totally out of breath from the bronchitis I’m fighting.

Billy’s truck has something wonky going on with a sensor or a connection and when he turns the steering wheel, there is one little spot where it makes the horn honk. Crikey. We’ll get it fixed this weekend, even if we have to disconnect things and run the horn to a toggle on the dash…

Back in the 1970’s when we lived in Tucumcari, New Mexico, my Mum and I went to visit a friend in hospital there (a very small facility surrounded by “QUIET” signs). Just as I shut off the ignition to her Cadillac, the horn started blowing – constantly, loudly! I popped the hood (the bonnet) and pulled a wire from the square horn where the sound was – the tone changed… I saw another square “horn” thing, pulled the line to it… the tone changed… there were FIVE separate horns on that engine!

My “danger Will Robinson” reactions come from a lifetime of “other shoes” falling. I learned, from growing up with an alcoholic father, that I could never let my guard down. I also learned how to wire and strap a driveshaft up level again after the pillow block disintegrated so I could drive the 3 ton tilt cab truck home… how to use my jackets and a blanket to drive a car up out of deep mud… how to put a roll of paper towels under the accelerator when my horse van lost the spring that controlled that gas pedal… how to get a drunk father out of a dangerous bar with the owner threatening me… how to later care for my Mother (for a total of decades) physically and emotionally to make her life worth living after it had seemed destroyed by said father/husband.

I have an infinitely long list of experiences with that “other shoe” and yet, day by day, I do not go around looking for drama or emergencies. I just face them if they rise up in front of me and solve them… most of the time. It was good training for a horsewoman. Life with horses is full of split second decisions; life and death situations; needing to set aside all personal needs, comfort and safety to tend to the needs, comfort and safety of a horse…

Why? Because horses cannot take care of themselves. Not in these “modern” times. Not confined by the lifestyles we must inflict upon them. Horses are “at our mercy”. So are our dogs and other animals… and the people we care about and care for.

So I used to sleep lightly in case my brother would intercom me that my mother was in trouble at their house across my farm yard. Now, after her passing, I am able to sleep better, if a bit guilty about it… better nonetheless. I also sleep better after taking up playing my didgeridoos – the different way of breathing has improved my overall breathing! And, after being told by a man in Australia that it is bad luck there for a woman to play a didge – I am more committed to the playing! A friend in the UK told me it’s good luck there! I’m thinking I likely resonate better with England than OZ… time will tell.

I had a friend here ask me some advice about relationships online – yeah, since I’ve had such great success with the one I tried! NOT! But, I tried. I was open to the possibility of finding something special (which, actually, I did, it was just short lived) and, while I will never do that again, I was brave and honest. It was worth the try.

Here is what I believe, what I have learned that makes life bearable for me, in all of its complexities – just be honest. About every single thing. Be honest with oneself, be honest with the world, be honest with each other. Being honest makes everything easy… even when things get scary.

I don’t shrink from situations. That never would have worked in my life. I’ve told a lot of stories here and they just scratch the surface of the strange life I have lived – and I’m not done. I have an awesome life ahead of me still. But, if I had planned on a simple, quiet career and a peaceful retirement, I would not have been happy… not me, my soul would have been screaming.

I accept the strangeness I attract and embrace and resolve day by day. I don’t sit around waiting for the other shoe to drop… but I’m fully aware that it will… and I’ll deal with it when it happens.

Onward.