Uncategorized

If someone’s life is a little bit better because I exist – then my life has meaning.

I was just turning out some horses while the two elderly dogs I took in are sleeping on their cushions, covered up and cozy. I watch the bunnies who hop up to me to say good morning and the quail who bring their babies right to the water while I am close enough to touch them. They all trust me. They trust me because I love them. I genuinely cherish and will care for every being who lives here. Period.

That love is healing. It also creates an environment where the horses are “trained” and developed with so much compassion that they are willing to help us and teach us. They know they are safe. Even if something goes awry, no one is chastised, no one feels diminished.

I have been “standing back” and watching the horse world work its way through “leadership”, “herd mentality”, “chasing”, “forcing” and pretty much confusing a lot of horses – who, by the way, are so deeply capable of loving us that they try to comprehend and comply with all we ask no matter the methodology… Good on you, horses… you so often prove to be the higher life form.

This isn’t negative on people – I love people, too. Most of us cherish horses and are working to do the “right things”. If we can fill all of our “Wells of Experience” with positive “drops” of love based experiences, we will all grow together.

Just as a horse approaching a round pen – where a previous equine was brutalized, chased or frightened – will feel the energies and be reticent to enter that pen; a place filled with and surrounded by love will draw all beings into the “circle” and heal what needs to be healed.

Compassion Not Compulsion

The outside rein is the regulator. The inside rein softens. Bend a horse by stretching his outside not by contracting his inside.

The horse’s nose tilts toward the side that needs more leg aid.

Yield from base position, do not take.

If in doubt, start over.

Some things are real mind benders for me (and I often use a different word than “bender”). My first time to go anywhere in years was the Hawaii trip. I went on that incredible trail ride across mountains of pastures and we rode until the sun set.

I rode with a great family whose daughter had never ridden. Her Mum was an experienced horsewoman and her Dad had ridden, so we all watched out for the girl and the wrangler had her on an awesome horse. I enjoyed that ride so much that I dream about it once a week or more.

We all said our goodbyes in the dark after the ride and exchanged emails.

Days later, my cousin took me to Mauna Kea to see the telescopes, then we stayed in Hilo and went to the volcanoes. I still am in awe of the entire experience. At the volcano, we were walking around the park when I heard, “Katharine!”… this was puzzling for me since I knew no one besides my family on the island. I am used to people seeing me at the market here at home or at a park or a fair (and there are hundreds of students I’ve taught just in the past couple of years). But in Hawaii?

I kind of ignored it, figuring it must be an exclamation for some other Katharine/Catherine.

Nope. It was for me. It was the Mum from the trail ride (what were the chances!). I had the best time being able to visit with that sweet family again. And another example, just like so many thousands of them in my life, of the synchronicity that I live if I just flow and observe and enjoy. I could let myself get very confused by life, but I just choose to love this life fully and hold those I love and try to love in my heart always.

Life is its own answer. I’m feeling a great power in loving people, even if they are not involved in loving me. That isn’t the point of love… it isn’t bartered or divided up. Love is its own answer.

I had a dog who was my soul mate. Namaste’ was a male English Setter who I assisted in his birth – and lived in a shower stall with him for 10 days as he barely survived the horrid disease “Parvo”. I sat with him adjusting IV’s as he expelled blood from his bowels into the drain and I held him, gave him Reiki and gathered the vomit. My human partner at the time brought me meals and spelled me so I could brush my teeth and use the toilet.

Namaste’ lived and after a year of being anorexic, he thrived for years. During the Parvo he received plasma and his mother, who barely survived the whelping of his litter, had to have transfusions and an emergency C-section for her last puppy (I paid on those Vet bills for 2 years). I had to raise her puppies on bottles (feedings every 3 hours around the clock) because she was so ill… with her on a mattress in my room and the tiny puppies in a basket. One night, one of the puppies, eyes not open yet, managed to get from the basket to her to try and nurse. I awoke to find them and I still cry at the memory of the sweetness it expressed.

The reason for this dog’s birthing and health problems was an insidious preservative (Ethoxyquin) that was in the “high quality” dog food we were feeding (decades ago). The legacy of that poison was a family of canines needing extra care throughout their lives.

Namaste’ later got pleuritis and my Vet allowed me to live with him for 3 days and nights in the kennel at the clinic, holding him, monitoring his IV, giving Reiki and echinacea to him around the clock. He healed well.

Whenever I had to take him in to the Veterinarian, I had to carry him. Literally, and he was big. But, he had such PTSD from his past, he was terrified… I couldn’t just be brutal with him. He would always hold his forehead (third eye) against mine. He would hug me with his forelegs. I felt in my heart that he must have been the puppy to get out and find his way to his Mum, although I am not certain of it.

He and his Mum and my little Basil were my family for years. The day that Namaste’ had to be euthanized to stop his suffering (he had nasal cancer and I used a baby’s syringe to suction the blood from his sinuses while giving him herbs and pain killers and asking him each day if he was ready to pass…) he walked calmly into the Vet’s office and lay in my lap through the process. His ashes sit beside me with his Mum’s ashes and Basil’s.

After his passing, one night I awoke from a “dream” where he sang a song to me that was then embedded in my brain… a song I had never heard. “Look at the stars, look how they shine for you… and all the things you do…”

Months later, I fell asleep with the TV on PBS. I awoke to Coldplay (didn’t know them) on Austin City Limits singing the very song that my ghost dog had sung to me in a dream. I did not know the name of the song. I bought CD’s until I finally heard the song… Yellow… YELLOW! I would never have figured it out to be called Yellow. I liked listening to it. My brother advised me never to tell that story to anyone. I kept it to myself.

Now, I don’t care how wonky it might seem. I am surrounded by animals I adore, my life has been filled with animals I adore. I have no problem considering that someone I loved so deeply could connect with me from another realm, even someone of the canine persuasion.

A friend lost his dear dog this week. It brought this flood of feelings to me. So much has happened here in the past year, my heart is both full from the love and aching from the losses. So, I will share, every now and then, the stories of Namaste’ and his siblings (there’s more) and of Basil and her amazing, herbal life.

In the end, it isn’t how the world sees you – it’s how your beloved companions have seen and been touched by you that matters. It’s how you see yourself.

My best aromatherapy is a bag of fresh carrots. As a horse “crazy” child, that bag of carrots meant joy to the horses I visited at Art & Aggie’s Upper Valley Stable in El Paso, Texas. My wise Mum would leave me there all day on Saturday and Sunday every week where she would lease a horse to be “mine” each month through the summer.

Because I was able to ride and learn from so many different horses, it was better (in retrospect) than if she had been able to buy me my own horse. Although, at the time, it just felt like second best with a huge gap between it and first best.

To this day, over 40 years later and hundreds of horses later, I still get the butterfly tummy feeling when buying carrots at the market. Their color and scent have the ability to trigger the best memories from my young childhood – a time of brutal sadness and confusion in almost all other ways. Horses kept me sane. Horses kept me alive.

So, when anyone asks me about the benefit of having kids connect with horses, I can tell them realistically that horses will be the best thing they give their kids. Really.

Beyond the obvious learning of responsibility, resilience, compassion and patience; a horse will require honesty, self control and kindness from a person of any age. Not livestock; not a pet – a horse is a companion of the soul and a sacred vehicle of strength and swiftness capable of transporting one out of the mediocrity or the torture of a less than perfect home life… or a life with a disability… or an experience of horror… horses heal us.

So, I grab a bag of carrots and share them with my horses remembering, as if it were yesterday, the joy of doing so all my childhood. I smell the carrots and chew on some and delight in the process. When friends bring carrots for the Dharma horses, it pleases me to see joy all ’round and to know how healthy the treats are.

Pure and simple happiness.

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.

There is an Arabian stallion I love and respect whose off spring I have trained and loved as well. His name is Kobiyashi and I trained him in Dressage to show him for the owner/breeder many years ago. I was working to pay for my own young stallion, Darjeeling. I owned Dharma Gita, a son of Koby and wanted a filly, Dream Cat, who is his daughter that I was schooling at the same time.

I now own the sweet Dream Cat who turns 20 years old this year! She is an old friend, a maternal, loving spirit who always nuzzles my cheek. Tonight (it is very cold, wet and windy) she hugged me with her neck after I put her blanket on…

When I was training Koby in the Dressage, I schooled him in a 4 acre pasture. We entered him in Training and First level tests and I was worrying because he had never seen a Dressage Court! My good friend and student across town had a wonderful facility where I had helped her start her Holstiener and we set up for me to spend a day there with Koby.

I hauled him over early in the morning and her geldings were secured in the barn so I could turn the stallion out on their pasture to let off steam before I rode him. My Mum’s best friend came to watch, also (a horsewoman, she was there to help, too, if I needed it).

Koby did his great Arab stallion, tail flagged, snorting, squealing gallop around, then I let him loose in the arena with the Dressage court… not thinking about the pony sized stone statue of a horse outside the court by E.

The stallion Kobiyashi had stood stud in Arizona where they collected his semen (for artificial insemination) with an artificial vagina and a “dummy mare” which is a life sized, padded horse like object for him to mount… running loose, he spotted the stone horse and jumped onto it, quite excited! Yikes! I ran to him with the halter and lead and had to shout him down, getting my elbow struck by a front hoof before I could get him off of the statue! Now, he respected me enough to pull himself together and lead back to the horse trailer where I slowly groomed and tacked him up.

We had had an audience of the farm owner, her handyman, my Mum’s friend and 2 neighbors who could not believe I was now going to ride this horse. But, he and I knew each other. We respected each other. If I would not ride him here and now, the show would be an impossibility.

It was actually thrilling to ride him in the real court with his energy up (and his elevation of stride and lightness!) – although each time we approached “E” and the stone pony, he would nicker low, deep and sexy at it, dancing a bit more and almost growling! I had to vibrate the inside rein, prrrr my tongue and keep an outside leg active.

At the Amigos de Dressage show (a big area competition), he was a very good horse! There were no fake horses – lots of mares, though, whose riders would cut right in front of us in the warm up until I moved way back away from the arena until our ride times! You can only expect so much from a breeding stallion…

At one point, the judge sent a runner to ask me to stay up in the entry area of the arena before my rides – I told him that I was on a stallion. The judge sent him back with permission for me to warm up wherever I wished.

We did well for a first show, scoring 60+’s and one 70%, winning our 1st level class, which pleased the owner. There is so much more about that show to be told, but tonight I just want to share how special my little Dream Cat’s father was 🙂

I was honored to school and compete him.

I thought I had jet lag or something yesterday and the day before. As I woke up one morning to ice and snow and the past two days have been near 70 degrees with sunshine, I realize that I’m just feeling the shifting temperatures. How the horses handle it amazes me. They doze in the sun with their hair coats all held down close to the skin. When the cold returns, their hair stands up on end to hold body heat.

I layer clothes then peel them off, back and forth throughout the day. At night, I throw the comforter off of myself then later search for it on the floor. Most nights, I get a didgeridoo and play a while to get centered before returning to sleep. That is one thing I’m glad I chose to do, to learn to play the didge. I think the breath one uses is a help for sound sleeping.

I have two new doggies in the family. Little ones who needed a home quickly. We love them, my other dogs and me!

As I get back into the rhythms of my life after my vacation (and after a particularly brutal year), I find myself smiling more. I’ve cleared out some stuff, faced some hard decisions, felt a lot of grief and found some deep, profoundly joyful memories to hold onto.

Everything ends. My vacation was so sweet I can still “taste” it – but it ended. My feelings about some plans I had made became conflicted, so some dreams ended. My life will end. But the very process of living it is its own reward. It is an adventure every day if I allow it to be. I see my world here through new eyes since my return. No jet lag – I am feeling the shifting of perspectives.