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Returning home to a snow and ice storm this week was certainly a mind bending thing for me – from balmy beaches and warm sea to doors frozen shut and crunchy hoses reminds me of the extremes we face with all embodiments.

This physical extreme of shifts has my body literally cramping (my feet and toes especially – agonizing if I forget and sit on my feet at this desk) and running for the magnesium powder! It takes a hot bath and a pot of hot Kukicha twig tea to warm my core. Last week, I had the A/C going in the Toyota that I was driving all over the big island. I wake up wondering for a moment where I am; then wonder what on earth to wear.

I make absolutely certain all the dogs are inside before I shut the back door for the evening! The horses are wearing their cozy “PJ’s” and I added hot water to their tubs to prevent freezing for an extra hour tonight.

Emotional shifts or “emotional whiplash”, as I call it, can leave me with the equivalent of those foot cramps – but on an even more painful level. To be loved, to be dismissed, to be honored, to be used, we all have these shifts through life. Non-attachment can be my “magnesium powder” for these soul cramps, but it is hard to find locally.

I once said that indifference is the opposite of love (that relationship kind of love) because even hatred is passionate. We go beyond the extremes of that passion spectrum when we allow indifference to flood the emptiness carved out by the roller-coaster-ing of duality. We can drop the anvil we’ve been carrying around; one of perception, perspective and second guessing. Once it falls away (for the next victim to lift and embrace perhaps, especially with relationships), we drift above that attachment and see it for what it was – good or bad, brilliant or overwhelming… we see it as an entity rather than a component of our own being. We are released.

I’m working my way toward non-attachment on some levels. Anything that takes up most of one’s thoughts, time and energy should bring the benefits of satisfaction, joy and positive anticipation. If it is otherwise, find a way to leave it – if it is important in the Universe, there will be another who picks it up and revels in the processes that tormented you!

And some things are there just for the moment. They serve a purpose that is limited or linear and actually no longer exist after the time has passed.

I got a cool bumper sticker in Hawaii, it says, “Quantum physics: the dreams stuff is made of”. I love it!

On another note, I have added two little beings to the Dharmahorse tribe tonight. They needed a home. They are sound asleep in the living room as I write tonight. These little pumpkins fit right into our family merely hours ago. My Phoebe and Skipper have accepted them. We fill our little house with love tonight.

This is worth the effort. This is love. The animals save me just as thoroughly as I save them.

I am home from Hawaii. Having faced several of my big fears (time to admit it all, time to feel good about the doing of it), from heights, flying and volcanoes (seriously, I used to have very scary volcano dreams)… even deep water. I return home quite a different person from the one who left 11 days ago.

Oh, I will still thrust my foot into my mouth, will still tell too much of the stories for the liking of some and will probably find something new to be afraid of – but that will simply provide some other adventure to use in the conquering. Tonight I realize my math was all wrong on the hay needed for the time of my absence – I brought in too much hay for what was needed. Whew. That helps, I will get past the weekend, hopefully, before I have to bring in another load. My bumbling can be beneficial sometimes.

In Hawaii, I was able to see my life through different eyes. I could sleep with the clean air through windows and the soft awareness of the sea… easy to watch from my bedroom windows, to the west, quietly chanting the Heart Sutra each night. I wept through it at first. Billy and I chanted that Sutra beside her as our Mother died. But, by the last night in that now beloved room, not a tear welled for me and I understood a lot about why some things happened.

My falling in love (with a person) back at the start of autumn was about me just staying alive (because there are things I need to do and be). A purpose served, even though I did not understand the extremes of it all. And I kept my body going.

Hawaii was about falling in love with beauty and challenges… the essences of kindness and strength. And I kept my spirit going.

Coming home is about falling in love with my past. What I mean by that is the loving of all I have accomplished in the past few years. It’s hard to see it when you are in the middle of it. The abandoning of routine and responsibility shakes the senses into a sharper awareness when those factors of one’s life return. And I will keep my dream alive.

The Dharmahorse tribe gave me that opportunity by taking impeccable care of the horses and everything here. Tonight, I will weave myself back into this tapestry, but not as it was – my focus is what I want it to be. No longer just what it needs to be to “get through”. We are going to see differently. After I sleep some more… just a bit more sleep…

Yesterday I was at sea on a whale watching ship for hours. Within a few hours of that, I was on the plane crossing the ocean as I returned home. While many fly without a second thought; for me to willingly end up at 38,000 feet, going hundreds of miles per hour with 22 degrees below zero outside is a testimonial to how much I wanted this vacation. For me to walk down through a lava tube, look into sulfuric acid steam lava vents, swim with the fish and turtles in a wet suit, go up the right nerve wracking road to Maunakea, go way out on the ocean on the boat to watch whales and dolphins – these took a deep breath.

BUT, as soon as it all started, I found myself enthralled with every moment and every sight. Hawaii healed me.

My Mother had always dreamed of seeing whales and dolphins. I did that part for her.

So, while I still forget to say “crikey” lately instead of cursing, I am seeing a balance (sometimes, you just have to let go with the profanity to really release something, sad, but true). I made gestures toward a continent, ate snow by the telescopes, swallowed more sea water than I meant to and ate much more food than I intended! It just tasted so good.

Now, the massive amounts of coffee I drank, that was intended. Kona coffee has enslaved me, nothing will ever taste as good again – but, for now, the beans that flew back with me will be my dear friends for as long as they last, being savored, never taken for granted. And that will be easy.

So, I am sitting at a desk as the sun sets on the big island in Hawaii. This miracle in my life has me bouncing around, perspective-wise… I’ve come from the desert (where I poured any little bit of left over water from a student’s bottle onto a plant) to a world of water.

I have heard from my brother that his house doors and truck doors were frozen shut this morning… the Dharmahorse tribe is taking impeccable care of the farm… I really am the luckiest woman! And I am grateful beyond measure.

So far, I’ve been swimming with thousands of different colored fish and a big turtle who almost led me too far. I’ve watched surfers, played on beaches and saw the house where the original Reiki Masters practiced! I have much to share after I return home. Life really is its own answer. Keep living bravely.

I’m watching the mountains change color as the sun sets. For just these few moments, the glow is indescribable in its peach, pink, orange, purple palette. And, in the time it took me to type that, shadows swallow the peaks and only the memory remains. I love that mountain. I look to it now and see my Mother’s ashes, the ashes of her three beloved dogs as well. I see my Mum on the beautiful mountain. I love my Mother.

I love my dogs. They have been fed supper, but try to convince me otherwise! I love their cleverness and soft warmth and loyalty. I love my horses. I love their strength and gentleness. I love their ability to adjust and rise to the occasion and I love just how incredibly beautiful they are.

I love a lot of beings. I love a lot of things. And my favorite definition of love is from Eric Fromm: “Love is the active promotion of the well being of the love object”. My mentor in Dressage shared that with me, decades ago, in an article he wrote with personal notes to me attached. His name was/is Charles deKunffy. He taught me how to love Dressage and how to love horses on new levels. I love him, too.

That definition touches my spirit – I really hope that is the way in which I love others… I have been loved in that fashion in mostly platonic relationships… that “active promotion of the well being”. I have loved clients I worked with in equine assisted psychotherapy and loved horses that belonged to other people.

I love rock and roll bands and I love my didgeridoos.

One word has so many interpretations and flavors.

I love the warm weather and I love the stars at night. I tell my furnace that I love it and I say, “thank you” every time I walk by it when it is running (I really do, and I mean it).

And even when love goes awry, tasting bitter after a flavor too sweet, it is something to have savored, not something to regret. No love is wasted. It holds well its own sovereignty and lights its own way even in the hands and minds of those who would manipulate with it or be swayed by it. Love is never wasted. Love is an energy like sunlight, like the breezes that catch our breath or slam upon a beach driving the waves. Love finds its own way through pretense, through sorrow and through the over exuberance of lust. Love prevails. Love is patient and gentle, yet brave and daunting.  My soul is full of love and my heart remains the door through which it comes and goes…

Tonight I saw that glowing mountain, fleeting as the show was, and I felt the love moving through me. I’ll never close that door. I will never block the flow of that very essence of life itself.

I meant to say “crikey”, the 300 times I yelled “f*ck this” during the past two hours. Crikey was my choice about 14 years ago, needing a word to use around parents and clients… it has served me well. Tonight, it doesn’t cut it. The wind has exceeded the predicted 50 mph now and the temperature has dropped from 40something to under 20 degrees. We are expecting freezing rain/ice storms… crikey… nope, F*CK this is appropriate, forgive me, it just is.

What was I doing the past two hours? I was wrestling horse blankets onto patient, grateful steeds, with metal parts whipping across my face, missing my eyes, but hurting like… like crikey. I was gathering flakes of hay into the carrier and leaning into the frosty blast to get to each horse’s feeder with some of the food I started with. Eyes full of dirt and hay specks, I filled water tubs before the hoses froze…

I’m warm inside now, no real worse for wear, but a bit shaky. The theme of my life lately seems to be “struggle against the weather” and I’ve played this part a few times too often. I just thought, “rage against the machine”, and sorta wonder if there is any real difference in the challenges we face – beyond the names and the forms they manifest – struggle is struggle.

But I live almost between worlds here. My house is small and simple and just this side of actually being outdoors. I am SO grateful for my home and my furnace and the fact that each horse has a roof and wind break (and a waterproof blanket!)… but we all have to face the weather together. I wish I could make things better for us all. We are up on the side of this mountain because the water is safe and clean, the air is safe, there are no agricultural chemicals being sprayed on us… when I remember my reasons, I know it is best… but, CRIKEY, I’m tired of struggling.

So, I’m whining again. I recognize this fact, but seem to return to the process too often. It is a “whine night”. It is also a “wine night”… just to relax enough to sleep later, I’ll have a bit with some very hot soup!

I have a large box fan tied in a tree by our grooming area. In the summer on a rare still day, the fan with the shade makes a wonderful little cool spot for the horses and for us. Tonight, the sound it is making is actually frightening. But, more frightening is the thought of trying to get it down out of the tree in this blast… I could really get hurt, I think.

So, my brother tells me that the entire country, the entire planet is struggling with harsh weather, earthquakes, fires and changes and he reminds me that I have faced worse nights than this one (I have). Yesterday was a beautiful day… strangely different now… it is disconcerting to go so suddenly from one extreme to another. But much of my life lately is a roller coaster of sorts. Some aspects have good enough “up” parts to make the “downs” acceptable. Some aspects remain to be seen… I am in the evaluation stage on a couple of them.

I’ve done the best I can for my horses tonight. I’ll go searching for things like muck buckets and cones when the wind stops in a day or two. I’ll go on vacation soon and I bet the weather here will be lovely (I hope so for those who are taking over for me!). I’ll have a hot bath, soup and wine and try to get some sleep. I am so grateful for propane, electricity, good food and the very sweet wine I love, made by a student’s family! I can handle this.

Saturated ground around my horses’ pens has kept me from dumping their water tubs, scrubbing them clean then filling them with clear, better water. And the frozen hoses, chunks of floating ice with about a 45 minute time frame before my hands seized up, frozen as well, have added to my reluctance; water-tub-wise.

But today turned decently warmish and I thought I would dump Wally’s tub and get him clean water. You see, he dunks his face all the way into his tub and sloshes the water out into puddles; then he paws at the puddles, splashing mud into his water tub. It is rarely of the sparkling clean sort of liquid that I would “drink myself” as my BHSAI teacher in my youth would have insisted upon.

As the sun set and the air chilled, I filled feeders with hay and bran mashes, put Wally’s blanket on and went to dump his water tub. Water is heavy. Water is dynamic, it moves of its own volition at times. Water can overpower me (remember this fact at the ocean, Katharine).

So, I start rocking his tub a bit to get the water moving. I can usually just give a shove after it’s moving and tip out the majority of it before I scrub the inside of the tub. In the winter, no algae is growing so it’s only the mud and hay slobber I’m apt to encounter. Tonight, the still frozen part of the earth by the tub caught it funny and tossed the contents onto my legs. And my shoes of course.

And yes, I did have on dark blue jeans, but they did not bleed… I did. I caught the side of my hand on the edge of the tub trying to stop its momentum and cut myself open (just a little, no sutures required). Lots of lavender oil on it later.

So, the bladder part should be self explanatory. A sleeping hand in warm water might work, but so does approximately 30 gallons of ice water down one’s legs. And, needing to finish cleaning the one tub then fill ALL of them before the sun set and the hoses froze, I had to push on wet and shivering with great sucking sounds coming from my Sloggers (shoes gifted to me by a student) with every step.

This leads to the propane tank. Inside now, I pull off barn clothes, pull on warm, dry Yoga clothes and turn UP that thermostat! I do have a good amount of propane in the tank and tonight, I am using some of it!

All in all, it has been a really good day. I did not play my guitar as well as usual at my lesson, but I forgive myself. I taught a nice riding lesson this morning and my working student dumped last night’s manure and rode two horses (very well). I had money to deposit and my truck has plenty of gas for tomorrow (hay day). Things were rolling along well until I decided to clean Wally’s water, but it worked out okay in the end. He has clean water for now.

A pot of hot tea beside me and the itchy, but worth it, wool socks are helping. I’m excited about my vacation coming up and a new year with new possibilities to unfold. I always swear I won’t complain about the cold when summer is sweltering and that I won’t complain about the heat when my bed is so cold and the frosty air freezes my eyeballs… and sometimes, like earlier tonight, I just swear… loudly.

I have a pair of jeans on today that I love – they are very dark blue, a little stretchy and skinny legged. My hands got wet while watering the horses and I kept rubbing them down my thighs to dry off the water. Now, with dry hands and damp pants, I realize that my palms are blue. The intensely dark blue dye is obviously transient. And, of course, with such frosty temps, I first thought my blue hands were from lack of circulation… but this is a different shade of blue!

I had a similar experience last year with a comforter from the thrift store. Often, I discover the reason that someone gave away a pair of pants – usually it is a zipper that does not stay up. Comforters, usually they are worn looking and that doesn’t bother me – they become dog beds when too worn. But, I wondered why the very crisply new, dark blue and green plaid cover had been relinquished. After a few nights, I figured it out.

Each morning, in the shower, I would notice a quite disconcerting bluish tinge to my feet. Again, I started thinking poor circulation, but it made no sense. It took a few days to realize that my bare feet rubbing against the comforter were taking on the dye. It was seeing the blue colored water at the drain that brought the realization. Multiple washings and dryings did nothing to fade the potent blueness, I gave up on the comforter… didn’t even give it to the dogs (I have a white dog, don’t want a blue dog).

And… decades ago, while married to the biker (who was almost 20 years my senior), living in the dome, I bought a pair of new Levi’s 501, button fly jeans – the only pants I would wear most of my life. Now, the buttons are a struggle…

Bob told me that the way to make them fit properly was to put them on, get into the stock tank and let them dry on my body. You already know what I’m going to tell you.

The bottom half of my body remained blue for at least a week.

So, today, I feel blue from the depressing weather… have blue hands and feel like I really blew a few important things in my life. It’s just blue all over day for me. But I find my memories much more amusing than I found the situations at the time. Bob was not on my lovingkindness list for a long time. The Levi’s didn’t fit any better than all the previous pairs that went into the wash without a dunking attached to my legs and fanny. And as I sit here now, I am seriously wondering if my thighs are blue! I will peel these jeans off promptly after finishing this post! I am NOT going to Hawaii with blue legs!

I’m back – couldn’t wait, had to get those jeans off quickly! Some blue things in my life are just wonderful. I love my little blue guitar. I love my little blue Ford Ranger truck. I love my blue didgeridoo, used to live near the Blue Ridge Mountains… hmmm. I have a lot of blue in my life!

And, as for the times that I “blew it” this year with relationships, job interviews and remembering where I was supposed to be each day – well, I’ll just take my blue self up the mountain soon and sing my apologies into the wind with a bit of smudge (blue sage?)… that oughta fix everything (wink).

Wally hugs me with his neck tonight and pulls his grass hay out of the feeder, then pees on it. One act is so endearing, the other, exasperating! While pulling tarps from the hay stack to prepare supper, I, for what seems like the hundredth time, hit my injured finger with a cinder block. The blocks are needed to keep tarps in place during the wind. Here, we don’t wonder if it will blow – we assume it will.

So I handle the blocks four times a day and each day re-injure my “flipping off” finger on my left hand. Now, as swollen as it has become, it has become an easy target. But I also work on healing it every night. I’m kinda good at healing things. It’s a good thing – I’m also kinda proficient at self inflicting not only physical injuries but adding mental anguish to my plate as well. I’m human.

Partially shivering from the descending cold winter air that is making its way down the mountain tonight and partially sweating from the wool socks and neck gaiter which need to be removed soon, I listen to the furnace pushing hot air down the ducts to this office floor vent. Last month, I rolled my chair over the vent and it shattered, the chair whipping me backwards and throwing itself sideways like some bronc from my youth intent upon dumping me. It succeeded. I was briefly stuck between a small file cabinet and the opening to the closet. It was just like the time the hay hook let loose while I was heaving a 150 pound bale of hay to the back of the barn and I fell onto a concrete support, hip first. These, I consider my bone density tests – which I keep passing with flying colors (or flying body)…

It is something about being a full time horse person. Also probably similar to doing roller derby. I have a friend who rides in Eventing and does roller derby. She would have the most accurate perspective! I also see the posts of her bruises regularly. They are truly impressive.

What makes us push on with these tasks and passions that bring body blows and joint torking with no “rational” reward? I think we are fighters. Not in so much an aggressive way, but as committed followers of our own spirits.

My Mum always told me to, “Follow your Spirit without hesitation”. And I always have. Consequences be damned if I needed hay for my horses, to get an old truck across the country or felt an energetic draw to an improbable relationship or unwanted equine. So, the self inflicted battering would begin – in one form or another.

And here is why I “pass” those bone density tests and hop up after being dumped by an office chair bronc – I keep working, keep pushing, keep the body moving. If we over-protect ourselves, the surprise event, slip or crash will actually cause a deeper injury. The body that struggles is the body that prevails… something like that.

So, when I really do not want to muck pens, tighten fences, drag railroad ties around or load hay, I remind myself that my strength and my good health depend upon those very things. I hop up and do them… gratefully.

New Mexico is all frozen today. Lots of time for retrospection, especially since it is New Year’s Eve here! I spent a couple of hours this morning at the Moongate Cafe’ drinking hot tea and eating bean tacos as the frosty mountains were enveloped in fog… watching from the Cafe’ window, bitter wind slamming the walls.

I met two friends there who are ex’s of mine – two nice men who are friends with each other (were not before me) and remain friends with me. I never have thought of this as odd, at least not until some peeps made odd faces about it. I believe that when you know good people, they are still good people even if a planned relationship fails in one respect. I like having someone to visit with over hot drinks on a mind numbing, cold day. I go to the Moongate alone, too. I do most things in my life alone.

So, I was thinking about family. Another friend had mentioned families the other day and I realized that mine is huge in one respect (and very small if measured by “blood”) – my “online” family and my “tribe” of clients and friends here at Dharmahorse. I do not think I could have made it through the year without my beloved friends, my family of friends. With social media, I could keep those who care about me informed as to my situations. Then, their words of comfort and things as simple as posting a heart or a smile would let me know they knew that I existed… they cared that I existed.

This morning, I posted a few lines on Facebook about struggling to feed horses and breaking ice on the water tubs. Friends have commented about their own struggles with brutal weather, which helped me feel less lonely. Friends also comment about beautiful weather which helps me know that seasons change and hope lingers.

As I lost beloved, elderly pets; tried to save a starved beyond recovery horse; worked to care for my Mum until she passed over, friends all over the world “held my hand” and “held my heart” and helped me feel strong. And, when I see that a friend is hurting, whether I have “met” them or not, I can hold them in love and light and tell them so!

I have said that my life is an “open book” – and it is thanks to the internet. There are mixed blessings in this fact. But, I have nothing to hide or apologize for in any large way, so I’m comfortable with it all… most of the time. I am so glad to be able to sit here today in my office and read what others have to say. I can express myself in multiple fashions and share myself with those who want to know me. And I listen to those who wish to share. For many of us, I suspect this is a way to feel less isolated when the weather forces us indoors and inside our own minds and feelings.

I walk a line – on a line, one of balancing priorities as an instructor, caretaker, trainer, healer and artist. I keep so many plates spinning that I do not know how to let them wind down and me relax. So, I have people I can communicate with day in and day out who are in the same energy and some who know the way to relax. I pay attention. I also offer up all that I learn along the way.

I am grateful today as 2014 winds down (goodbye to it! I’m glad to see it end) and possibilities are opening up for us all. 2015 just must be a better year. I can feel it! But, my love goes out to everyone who touched my life this past year. We were all in it together, you know! We got through together. We have each other! Love fills my well of experiences. If I hurt anyone, I sincerely apologize. If I helped anyone, I was useful and am so glad to have been.

I won’t stop caring and I won’t stop sharing. We are always “breaking the ice” with each other – smash through the hard stuff, decimate the static and unyielding! Uncover the flowing, soft and gentle underneath parts of life and of ourselves to become the vulnerable, genuinely good human beings we are. Smile.

That’s the question I’m asking myself today as I work outside in the cold, take breaks indoors with hot tea then return to muck and work the horses. When I was in my 20’s, I would think nothing of tacking up a horse and riding out on our 40 acres, even going through the gate and heading out across country between Tucumcari mountain and Saddleback mountain – in a snow storm.

As a teenager, I let my hair freeze on my head after a shower, in too much of a hurry to get to my friends or my classes or the horses. In my late 20’s, I rode a Harley as my only transportation (besides a giant horse van) in Boulder Colorado in the winter… I know that “there’s no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing”, but, Crikey, I don’t think I’m as tough as I used to be.

Or, perhaps, I’ve gained some wisdom and am more protective of my own body and well being. Yet, I never got sick, never got frostbite, never got lost (horses know the way back home) and never regretted any of my adventures. Of course, my upcoming awesome adventure is to somewhere WARM! Hawaii… a sign of wisdom, n’est-ce pas?

I will choose to think I’m just wiser now (wink), although, in other ways, I certainly do not appear to be! Life is strange. Life is wonderful.