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I just returned home from the Moongate. It is a Cafe’ where I have sat with coffee and enchiladas when life has knocked me down and when joy has filled my well… since the early ’90’s if not even before that. It is a place where I feel safe. And today, I grabbed the booth where the A/C blows on you and the seat is too soft and too low; where I could face the kitchen and stare at the green vinyl upholstery and everyone said hello but no one pryed.

I had just visited my Mum with my brother and, after I took him back to work, I went to the funeral home to arrange things. That was shocking. And sad. And I needed to force myself to eat something since my last meal was lunch yesterday… I feel safe at the Moongate.

Our Mum has not passed over yet – but it will be soon. I’m glad that I learned what I did today, it will cost more than I had planned (even with doing minimal things, we are Buddhist) and there are a lot of details even with simplicity. But, I hold it together pretty well. I know that the body is just a vehicle. Only in moments of strange clarity do I cry, only in moments of being caught off guard do I break down.

The Moongate was the right choice today. Morris told me about his ride in the arroyos with a hot mare. Two men across the room were talking about a strong weather event heading our way (I did not listen, don’t want to know… the Horse Trials is in 2 days!). Leetha got me my mini-combo and I ate a good bit of it. Enchiladas are my comfort food ever since my Mum and I cheated death in a blizzard driving on Highway 40 at night and found a room and a restaurant by some miracle. My Mum… we have had so many adventures together!

I sat down to check emails and facebook and decided to write here. This also feels safe. To chronicle some things of insignificance, really, but of value to me. Horse hugs and a pot of twig tea and now I will relax and practice my didge playing. The strangest thing was that the daughter-in-law of an old friend worked with me at the funeral home (loving, understanding place – really) AND, she plays a didgeridoo!! Go figure.

I should be writing my column for the newspaper… and I will get to it before midnight. Tonight, I’m just feeling the energies change around me. I spent the morning with a couple I adore, in between visits with my Mum. Their horses have the most awesome lives – very adored, very lucky equines, very posh place. I got home and napped after checking on my horses. Sometimes I forget that they are my horses. I think of them as sovereign beings and they have their own relationships with students… I lose touch with that “ownership” thing. But I sure feel the responsibilities tonight! My horses are healthy and safe in less than posh facilities. They don’t seem to care about fancy one bit, bless them. I will get more hay tomorrow and make my truck payment thanks to those horses and my great students. I will teach lessons and host my hoof care specialist with the newspaper doing an article about her – Majic will be her subject for trimming and I sure hope he doesn’t sleep on poop tonight (he’s white)! A friend who is up in Organ where I used to live was telling me about the person who lives in the cottage I rented MANY years ago… I had a twinge of jealousy – there were lots of very good times back then. I thought about the artistic community we were building; about the Zendo and the meditation classes I taught… I started feeling overwhelmed by the life I’m caught in right now and had to turn on the TV for some mindlessness – and watched a show about Tesla. It was centering for sure. The thoughts about artists and free energy and community reminded me that I have another family who would welcome me if I needed to land there on the beautiful farm I had lived on years ago. In my panicky feelings of “what comes next”, I realized that I choose what does. I have people who love me, here at home and in Arizona. I will not ever be homeless again and I’m not sure why my mind would ever go there… except maybe these feelings of stress and uncertainty are so reminiscent of the lost feelings before I was homeless… it was not for long, but it was scary! I also had been thinking, months back, about finding a way to visit Australia. It feels like that will remain a distant dream. So, the sense of “follow your path”, “be true to your dreams” hits me tonight with “What the heck are my dreams?”. I think it is okay to be in limbo sometimes. Uncomfortable for me, but acceptable for the time being. I still feel desire to grow my stable and do more with the esoteric kind of horsemanship I practice (but is it going to be embraced here?)… a close friend told me that this is, by far, the worst time to try to make decisions and that I must just “chill”, Don’t Panic (“read your own words, Katharine,” she said “go read old stuff you wrote”). And I got herbs today to work on a little physical problem I’ve had come up (stress related). In the natural market I asked for a product and was told it is not available there, not considered “safe”, then I pointed out mega dose Zinc lozenges and other things that can be toxic… then (and I’m not proud of this) I told her that I have written for half of the magazines they sell (it is true, too) and I said, “I’m having a rough day, lady, don’t annoy me”. Woooo, that’s not me! Tincture of Time will heal a lot of this stuff. In thinking about the past, I remembered that in less than three years from being homeless, I got my little farm here (mortgage and all) and gathered these good horses… I thought, “The Dude Abides”, I need to just “chill” for sure. Easy to say, hard to do. Maybe I should take up bowling. (wink)

Funny how it has come about – my learning to play the didgeridoo. My friends figure it came with my fascination with Australia, but my brother has played a didge my Mum had bought for him decades ago. I tried back then and had no success, no drive to figure it out, so I gave up. I was trying too hard. That is the reason for failure with a didge – trying too hard.

Possibly, that has been a reason for many failures in my life although I much prefer to call them lessons. The first thing you do when you pick up the didge and put it to your lips is just blow. It is not a pretty sound. Neither is the slobbery lip flapping that comes next. But the struggles are necessary to find resonance. All the attempts teach your lips what does not work.

I watched youtube videos to no avail. There was a lot of talk and lip flapping. I had bought a didgeridoo made from a plant tube while my brother’s was of a composite material and sat in storage full of spiders!! I was scared of his. But we brought it out and I use compressed air to de-spider it. Then, he taught me. He did not instantly show me how to play, but he described the quality of the air that needed to be produced.

I stayed exhausted and out of breath trying too hard. Billy hit resonance at first lip touch and could hold the beautiful sweet spot for minutes on one simple breath (and he had a head cold at the time). Obviously, I had to find that place of ease and rapport. So, bravely, I began trying his didge, too. At night, unable to sleep (lots of painful stuff going on here), I would lie naked with the end of the didge on my toes and suddenly, I got the SOUND and it held for minutes! I squealed, the dogs had left the bedroom, I laughed (laughing feels good) and told myself, “if I can do it once, I can do it a thousand times”. PRACTICE!

The thing about the flapping lips is that it gets you vibrating them, then you go from vibrating the top lip to vibrating the bottom lip. When I made this shift, my teeth quit feeling loose from the efforts. Then, that first night, I sort of smiled as I was trying to play and that made my lips stretch a little and the air changed. It wasn’t being forced out, it was just easy, soft, lips oh so subtly vibrating and no exhale from the lungs, just a push from the cheeks. I had it! I then could range and run the sound through in variations. It was an awesome sound when I kept from laughing for joy.

Effortless. That was what it needed to be. That was what I needed to learn. With everything around me requiring such massive effort – to learn to play the didge was a shift of consciousness! And one that was starting to heal me. I am breathing deeper. I am laughing again. I feel a sense of accomplishment (badly needed, I’ve had a couple of demoralizing things happen lately). When I thought playing it was going to loosen my front teeth, Billy said that might make me an even better player if I lost them (the teeth!!), which did not amuse me.

Now my goal is to immediately resonate the moment I start to play, then the magical circular breath that allows no break in the sound as I breathe! Oh, and after I “got it” with Billy’s didge, I could play mine (it is more difficult). Billy gave his to me and I’m painting it to claim it. If I had given up during the slobbering, rattling, ugly attempts, I would never have known that I can play a didgeridoo. And, I can!! All I had to learn was to allow it and not force it. Cool.

Last night I left well after dark to see my Mum who had been moved from hospital to hospice in the city. I’m having a love affair with my Ford Ranger, a 4 wheel drive little truck whose CD player can make my lungs vibrate and has been hauling me from the farm, across the city, through construction and past accidents day in, day out and through many nights. What a great truck I found! Not only that, he is beautiful!

To stay awake, I stopped and got a large coffee and a creme filled doughnut covered with powdered sugar. In the dark, music blaring (also to keep me awake), I negotiated detours through parking lots, onto broken pavement and a dozen bicyclists dressed in black just to keep me on my toes. Tractor trailers on the infamous Hiway 70 seemed to all have particularly bright headlamps and I had the heater on and the window open. Staying awake can be work. Eating the sweet, I did not realize I had covered my truck and myself with white powder. Not that I cared… but this morning, I see how very messy my truck, house, life have all become again.

I look for motivation to clean and care for things and that well is dry… for now. I see the dark blue jeans I wore last night and they are well dusted with white. I wonder what the nurses thought last night… my eyes remain really red these days from bursting into tears at unpredictable times. I remind myself to never again pass fleeting judgement upon someone I see in a similar state – we NEVER know what another is facing!

THAT is my lesson from last night. When a vehicle rushes past me on the road, they could be taking a dog to the Vet, going to the hospital for a loved one, needing to meet the ambulance. When I see someone unable to return a smile – what depth of suffering could they be entrenched within? When someone is silent, perhaps it is too painful to speak, or write or reach out. Compassion must grow again inside my soul. I have simply been trying to stay awake and stay alive these days (and nights). All the lessons I am learning will not be squandered – I just need the time to process them. And then, I will write. Write & write… it’s what I do.

Late in the night it began raining so hard that the sound was simply a roar on the roof. I pulled the comforter up to my chin and stared at the ceiling, lit by the orange glow of my salt lamp. The intensity lasted almost an hour! Phoebe was quite shaken by the noise. Skipper was deeply dreaming as I felt her kicking my leg in her sleep. What a night. We don’t get gentle, drizzling rain. We get all out, full tilt roaring expressions of water gone wild.

In a different frame of mind than the one that has ruled me lately, I would have been outside, setting bowls to collect that wild water for house plants and hair rinsing and crystal spraying. But, last night I just stayed put and practiced deep breathing exercises. Phoebe practiced deep panting/drooling exercises next to the bed. This morning, I had to make her stay in the house (she usually helps me feed horses and inspects the perimeter of the farm), we have standing water. And we are on a slope! A lot of dog hair in the house I can cope with – a lot of wet dog hair and mud, I couldn’t face today.

As I prepare to go VOTE and get hay, the sun is burning off cloud cover and sparkling through the leaves, still green so far on the mulberry trees. I will miss the green. I won’t miss the bugs. Autumn brings mixed blessings, I guess. Autumn has brought MUCH needed rain this year. And I am grateful.

I had to get a tooth repaired yesterday, it broke the day before. The Clinic brought me in as an emergency and I think the dentist was annoyed that I wasn’t in a proper amount of pain… it hurt to eat or drink. I found that annoying, but I wasn’t agonizing over it. He should see my life. If I’d had to, I would have pulled the tooth on my own. I just don’t have the time to be like other people. But, I am grateful that he fixed it so well for me. Perhaps my asking if he could avoid using the “toxic materials” (what do you mean, he asked – the mercury, I said); trying to refuse an Xray; telling them that I “oil pull”; mentioning my vegetarianism, no drugs, no vaccinations, etc. etc. might have been more the cause of their annoyance. But, this is my body, these are MY teeth. I wanted his help, but did not want him to take ownership of my choppers. Things were easier in Mexico at my old dentist’s office – but he was shot and killed in his parking lot a few years ago. That was scary…

And now, I could go there, but would need a passport to get back into the States. I need to add a passport the list. Crikey. I would like to get it, wish it cost less… it would be nice to travel. Add that to the list!

My tooth feels great this morning. It is constructed with white ceramic stuff, not the “toxic materials”. I think I can get hay and put it in the leaking hay barn instead of hooking up the horse trailer to get it – the rain has stopped. I found my voter card, horses have full, clean water, alfalfa and some dry spots. Phoebe has relaxed, Skipper wadded up a pillow just right for her second nap.

I’ve had to give up worrying about money, worrying about loved ones, worrying about the weather, the election, mud, dog hair, dirty laundry and Australia. Everything will sort itself out. And today, for sure, there is less worry about the drought.

Weeks ago I found a shirt that I liked for $3.00 at the thrift store. It was pink – I don’t really wear pink, but I decided I could dye it. With denim dye, I submerged the shirt in boiling hot blue water; washed it and dried in the hot dryer. Then, I realized the dangle straps from the hood were ear buds…. that inside the front belly pocket was the connection for an MP3 player and that the lines ran up through the front seam of the shirt. Crikey!

But, to my amazement, the shirt still played music! So I started wearing it as I mucked horse pens and watered and repaired fences. I ripped all the music I liked that I had found recently and played it, a LOT on the shirt (with the shirt?).

As things unfolded with my mother’s deteriorating health, I found that sitting with her at the hospital, I could play my music in the shirt when she was sleeping (and I disturbed no one). When she was awake, I would sit and hold her hand, stroke her head and tell her stories with the music turned off. The shirt was helping me get through the rough times. Strange, now, that I think about it, how the shirt has become important to me… simple things.

My Mum is still holding on, I don’t know what the future holds (in SO many ways!), but I really do just face things day by day, hour by hour and keep the music playing. Billy says I do tend to dance a little without realizing it and it looks odd when no one else is hearing the music. Good. Odd works for me.

I sit now with a jar of wine (can’t find the wine glasses), ready to make herbal ointments for orders from peeps and some extra for myself. It is too windy today to work outside. Two days ago, opening a bale of hay with the knife, I stabbed myself in the hand… I need to make the ointment.

And lately, it will feel like 4 days have passed when only 4 hours have gone by. I have found that it is not easy to sit quietly with someone else’s suffering. Especially one so beloved and cherished and know that there is nothing I can do. I see the miracle of allopathic drugs that take away the pain. I see the “living between worlds” condition in humans that I am intimately aware of in animals, having stood beside dozens, maybe a hundred by now, as they passed over. I see the love of friends and the reality of processes necessary to step someone through illness to recovery or to release.

And I write. Disjointed, emotional, sometimes rambling posts on my blogs and social media, emails and letters… notes to students left pinned to the tackroom door. If I make little sense or have bursts of outrage, my hope is that I am forgiven. I remind myself to apologize when all is done and dusted and my mind settles once again.

Just now a thump at my office bay window excites the dogs and I look to see at least 40 quail dancing on the patio, staring in at me and just plain being happy. They set an example. They remind me to dance, to gather with my tribe. A friend has come today bringing treats and good company, an ear to listen… I give my big dog, Phoebe, her Benadryl as thunder booms in the distance and the air smells of wet chaparral even though no rain has fallen here. The time changed today for us here in the States – from daylight savings time – and I have no idea of the time at this moment. This will instantly change the riding lesson schedules because of early darkness. sigh

All I can do is be. Be here… now. As the world’s ways wash over me and I reluctantly submit (for the moment) just to be able to get through to tomorrow, I hold onto everything that defines and nourishes me. I plan to be clear and whole again soon. Until then, I’ll dance.

Tucumcari, New Mexico was an interesting place to live in the early 1970’s. Interstate 40 ran right through town then. Famous for motels, it had an equal number of bars and drive-ins with car hops and everything. My family lived several miles south of town and I had a riding school on 40 acres; our home sat in the middle of 7 acres.

My father had an obsession with automobiles and I had an old Jaguar and a silver, 1961 Porsche S. We left the keys in our cars and trucks that were in the driveway in front of the house. We lived pretty much in the middle of nowhere.

My bedroom window faced the front yard. One night I was sitting on my bed listening to music when I heard my Porsche start. I looked outside in time to see it bouncing down the driveway to the highway. Crikey, someone was stealing it.

Without thinking, I ran out the front door, jumped into my father’s car (and keys were in it, if you are going to leave keys in cars, it’s good to leave them in every car, I guess), and contrary to its usual nature, it started right away. This was a huge engine in an automatic transmission, power everything Cadillac. I was going to catch my Porsche.

So I zoomed down the road after my little car’s faint, bobbing taillights, crying and cursing and feeling full of adrenalin. Then, the SOB who stole it turned it out into the desert across ruts and mesquite and deep sand; spinning it and finally high centering it just ahead of me as I left a high flying trail of dust of my own. Then I drove up, headlights on my little Porsche’s stuck silver body and realized… the guy was still in it. Hmmm…. I recall the feeling clearly… “Now what?”

I locked the doors on the Cadillac, sat there a few minutes, got scared and backed away slowly. Out on the pavement, I hauled butt back home, ran into the house screaming, “Call the police, someone stole Duddley” (yep, I had named my car) then told my Mum where my sweet car was sitting and drove back out there. In this age of cell phones, the sense of isolation in those days cannot be explained.

My Mother was not thrilled that I just barked out orders and left – she let me know this fact often for awhile after that night. I was so full of rage that I got back to the desert in mere minutes and found Duddley easily because his lights were still on. I left the big car running, its headlights illuminating the Porsche and (what possesses me sometimes!) I walked up to my little car, reached into the open window and turned off the headlamps.

The police and my father arrived after an excruciatingly long period of time. I kept the Cadillac running, headlights on, me sitting in it with doors locked. No one was happy with me, but my father seemed kind of proud of me – his attitude often inspired my less than brilliant actions. He and I pulled the Porsche out of the sand with his truck.

The police did things like question me as if I had done something wrong, refuse to “dust for prints”, act as if I had wrecked the Porsche myself (as I explained that I could not drive 2 cars at the same time)… it was not a pleasant experience. I think the police were overly suspicious because I had chased my stolen car.

I think the guy who stole it was probably the most surprised when I came barreling after him! I hope so. And I hope somehow, he knew or he found out that it was a 19 year old woman who did it. Crikey, I can tell… I would do the same thing again.

By the life skills equivalent to baling wire and duct tape, I am holding this place together. I write, occasionally sell a painting and give daily riding and horsemanship lessons. I trade lessons for part of our hay needs. I trade tack and tools for hoof care when I can’t keep up with it myself. I do my own Vet work as well as the hoof trimming. I am the captain of this ship. My brother says that a lot about me.

I’ve added filling out forms for Medicare and Medicaid, scheduling doctor and hospital appointments, juggling payments to over a dozen medical providers and the making of my own toiletries to my repertoire. I must tell you, after my “used for decades” crystal deodorant became irritating to my underarms, I found that pure zinc oxide not only healed them but is a deodorant as well and adding patchouli oil made it even better.

With a band of parents-of-students and caring individuals covering for me when there were 40 hours of tasks to be done in 4 hours – I have seen the best of people. We are a tribe. A love based group supporting each other in ways I could not have predicted.

Every business coach has told me to make a 6 month plan, 5 year plan, 10 year plan… Crikey, I can’t think about 10 days in the future. I am surely not a businesswoman. Yet, a friend told me that my life was chaos, but she said that I handle chaos quite well. Hmmm… a compliment, I think (meant as one I know), but I would like to try handling overwhelming quiet and napping and traveling about the countryside. Probably not to be for captains.

This has been a day of writing (and power outages, with unsaved docs to be rewritten later), a day of reflection and contemplation. I am alone. There are 7 horses and 3 dogs in my life… and a brother whom I see briefly in the evenings before he retires to his house across the stable yard. Students come (today there are no lessons) most days and I talk with some friends now and then. But, I am on my own in the grand scheme of “holding it all together”.

I have a friend who speaks of “cut and run” when someone decides to move and start over… I’ve thought about it. I don’t have that option. I’m the captain. I’ve built this ship from nothing and she sails brilliantly, if modestly, into the world of compassionate horse and human relationships. I have envied those who stand with a partner or a spouse and share the command of their ship – the responsibilities and the authority. But my lot has been as the sole commander through most of my life. And it started at a very young age.

My mother will return to us and her home here in a matter of weeks. I do not know what duties that will include for me again. I know that I will do the best I can. I remind myself of bucket baths when I lived in the shack, of hauling my own sewage across 2 acres when I worked in EAP, of being homeless, of living in a pasture with my horses and pooping in a bucket of leaves… things have been a lot worse! I love my little home and I love my life. The one thing I can be in charge of personally is my own state of mind. I find that music is a huge factor for me. What I listen to day in, day out can influence how I feel and how I relate to this world around me.

I don’t give up. I think there may be an indoor arena or a Jaguar or an incredible life partner in my future – and that’s not crazy because, in actuality – I have had those in my past! I have been the captain of a multi-faceted, ever morphing ship that confuses the willies out of me most days and keeps me believing that everything is possible. Onward…..

You would think I could learn this lesson. I look at hay that costs $3, $4 even $5 less per bale… it looks good, smells sweet (but I catch a wiff of dust…). The bales are heavy and all seems good. With 7 horses to feed, I feel like I need to buy the hay where I get more for my money. At home: I unload and stack it, feeling like I got a bargain. Then I feed it and the bit of dust becomes a small cloud… later, I see clods of dirt in the feeders. I bought dirt. With the hay, I bought dirt. It doesn’t hurt the horses, I feed extra bran and flaxseed meal mashes to keep everything moving (and there go the $$ savings)… Or, I am on the other side of the city, need to keep moving, so I buy some hay from a different feed store. At home, the big bale of Bermuda turns into fluff when I pop the twine. I spend days of feeding it cursing and wadding it onto the rug I carry it with using my hands and my feet. I do have a constant source of alfalfa from my friend who farms it, so the horses have consistency there each day. But, I just seem to leave my senses behind when I have to get grass hay and am pressed for time or money. I have one feed store where the grass hay is always clean, comes off in proper flakes, smells great and costs a chunk more. You know what, we get what we pay for!

Years ago, a student and dear friend was going on a trip to China. She wanted to surprise her husband by being able to eat with chopsticks… So, we would have lunch together at different cafe’s and bring our chopsticks. The first time, as I sat across the table from her and pulled my sticks from my purse, I had a brain fart and could not show her how to hold them. The more you think about something, the less tangible or memorable it becomes, I think.

After just starting to eat and visit with her, I could then stop, hold my chopsticks and show her just what I was doing. These lunches served her well and she became proficient. I found my hand cramping from the effort and soon was back to forks and spoons.

What I gleaned from the experience was how a person can be an accomplished rider but not be able to teach (or even train, maybe) horsemanship. The doing of something and the ability to educate just may not go together naturally. I think the teaching comes from the deep ability to empathize with both the students and the horses. Way beyond the attempt to teach chopstick handling – the education of a rider depends upon the instructor’s full spectrum knowledge and ability to communicate immediately and clearly as if translating between horse and rider.

Sometimes, the best thing we can do within any communication, is to pause and let things unfold naturally so that we can observe what is actually going on and understand how to influence it or decide to just allow it to be, as I had to do with the chopsticks. After my hand recovered, I could use them again quite properly.