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Delegating responsibility is a strange thing for me. Today, my wonderful working student is turning horses out and mucking while I try to “rest”. I got rear ended in my truck at a red light yesterday and have to judge a horse show tomorrow… I’m pretty sure I’m okay, just dazed and shaky mostly because it scared the willies out of me. The SUV that hit me was more damaged than my Ford Ranger XLT – what an awesome little truck I have. The hitch and ball arrangement has been bent, I pray that it is an easy fix… will investigate it all next week (yep, needed to add stuff to my plate!).

When I got home with hay yesterday, I noticed that my little ET magnet from Roswell had fallen off – strange, isn’t it, I was unhappy about losing that magnet… even thought about my bumper stickers from Hawaii when the guy hit me. I realize today that there are seemingly small, insignificant things that can mean a lot to us. Where these items came from is my attachment to them.

Now, my trailer hitch ball is bent up under the truck, but the tailgate works & she seemed to drive fine… I know I’m lucky.

I thought about a package of things that were sent to me from Australia and how, even after months of disconnection from the peep who sent them and lots of up and down energies, the things sent are precious to me…. I even put them in the dumpster a while back, then climbed in and dug through a week’s worth of horse poop to retrieve them on the morning the trash truck was coming. It’s not the things, it’s the people and places the things are tied to that give them such value.

I have the bear fetish my Mum got in Sedona on a trip she and I made many years back. I can clearly recall how she reacted when I drove us down into Sedona on the road from Flagstaff; how she gasped at the beauty… how she and I connected on that trip. How precious the memory and the carved bear are to me.

And, how precious the DH Tribe is to me – how a friend can take over and the horses are safe and cared for and I can rest… I can be still for a bit. I can heal.

My dogs gather around me and all put their paws on my body and lie down beside me… loyal little healers… best friends.

And my mare Penny is improving. She tore ligaments in her lower leg. The healing process is very slow. I make medicine for her, tribe members bring medicines for her, we are loving her through this. I do not know if she will be able to carry weight again after she recovers… her favorite thing is to work with tiny children anyway, so whatever the outcome, Penny will be okay here. She is adored.

Making Medicine

So today remains strange for me. I feel a bit sideways, kind of off center, a little dizzy but not in trouble… my neck and shoulders are so stiff that I think Monday will be a soak in hot mineral water day IF I can get the truck checked out early & feel safe driving it up north… and if the day isn’t 100 degrees, which it might be!

I’m realizing just how difficult it is for me to be still. I meditate, but that is my practice, it is actually doing something in my mind. I guess this day will be for practice of being still. To find the stillness again in my soul. The scary part about that is the possibility of “letting my guard down”; of feeling things I’ve been setting aside; of being aware of myself. Hmmm…

The rambling of this day, of these thoughts lets me see again through different eyes and know that I am on the right track with what we are doing with Dharmahorse. To watch my student caring for the horses and feel secure about their good manners in the (now gusty) wind and her good sense in their care and handling, well, I know we are special. We are important, even if it is only to these horses, we are important.

I sat for an hour watching the storms ease in last night. I needed that Earthing time to just stand barefooted in red dirt and breathe the ionized air. So much is happening in life here that I forget to breathe deeply. I can hear my Mum’s voice telling me to do so. She always reminded us to breathe – even when not riding a horse!

People used to not be able to tell our voices apart over the telephone. I wonder if that is weird now for some folks… if I sound that much like my Mum, now that she is in Spirit and no longer on Earth, if it is disconcerting. I watched the storms coming in and thought about the thunder. My sweet Anglo-Arab Dorje’s name meant Thunderbolt and his best friend, Darjeeling’s name meant place of the thunderbolt.

I miss them.

I sleep with a Himalayan Crystal Salt lamp that ionizes the air in my bedroom. It really supports my good health and it feels good to see it glowing beside my bed. The feeling it brings is so similar to the thunderstorm air, the freshness of crackling lightning charged ions lifting my mood and energizing my body.  I also have two large, smooth, quartz river stones that, when rubbed together very quickly will glow in a dark room and create the ozone smell of lightning charged air. I keep them beside my bed, also.

All the trees are full of life after last night’s soaking rains. I am so grateful today – even if I am sliding about in some mud and having to rake up wet poop into piles to deal with tomorrow! WATER IS LIFE.

I fixed a cup of Darjeeling tea. Have a quesadilla heating for lunch. I’ll finish some indoor work here while Vega is in turn out, then go rake his poo before he goes back to his “room”. The day is a peaceful one with no outside contact. I’m organizing my mind.

The thunder always vibrates in the ground, the walls and in my chest. I feel the storms before they arrive. So do the horses. If only I could feel other things before they arrive – but then, there would be no surprises! And while horses are not exactly fond of surprises – I am often thrilled when something catches me “off guard” and shifts my perspective. Even the strange things… they keep life interesting.

Now, for that lunch and a bit more ‘puter time.

I keep trying to go to sleep tonight, but the west wind blasting against my bedroom walls has no soothing properties nor sense of “white noise” to it. It is simply noise. And at decibels of not just annoying levels, it feels like a deliberate assault! The wind is usually colder from the east and always more violent. I hope it does not shift – even if that would allow sleep for me (gusts hitting the office walls instead), it would be a meaner wind for the horses.

And today I had a wave of weariness wash over me that left me almost “sleep walking” through the treatments for the horses. I had made a full quart of comfrey root decoction spray that I wandered around the stable yard dispensing to those in need every couple of hours. Penny has just wrenched her tendons low on her cannon and into her fetlock on her left foreleg. I do hours of cold hosing; had poulticed it for 2 days; keep her as quite as possible and used support wraps at first. Now, I drench her leg with the comfrey and use homeopathic arnica gel topically and ruta grav orally.

Majic has tender hind hooves, so I’m soaking his hooves in tubs of apple cider vinegar while I’m mucking and spraying the soles of his hooves with the comfrey as often as possible. Wally played too hard with the “board of directors” (Wally, Sage and Grits – they stand in a circle, heads in the middle as if they are in a meeting) yesterday and he has a puffy fetlock (Arrggghhhh) that I’m spraying as well – with the comfrey.

So, I walk around the stable yard with the spray bottle, treating each horse, every couple of hours. The new horse, Vega, stomps his front feet because of the flies (all 3 of them right now!) and he has his knee a little filled from the concussion – you guessed it, comfrey!

I also have scraped my arm on a hoof while trimming and had to let it bleed a lot to clean it out, then sprayed colloidal silver on it and later, comfrey. Making all my own medicine (including the colloidal silver) means I know exactly what I’m using and can be specific to the needs of the animals and myself!

So, I dropped a cinder block (used to hold down the tarps on the hay in my horribly leaky hay barn) on my toe last week and pulled my boot off immediately to apply the comfrey root remedy which heals bruises especially well. I did not even need to remove my sock – said toe was sticking out through a large hole, making treatment that much easier 🙂

I was watching one of those Retro TV Stations and thought about the way people have changed in just their relationship to a “life style”… In the past (not SO awfully far back ’cause I was alive then!), a family was prosperous if they had shelter, utilities, good food in the pantry and lots of love to share. An automobile was a fun thing to decide upon and it was usually a necessity to have one…. ONE.

A telephone was another necessity, but a television was a luxury. I can see the eyes rolling on kids who have heard it all before and are just as smart, adventurous and savvy as my generation was when we stood up for Peace and challenged the notions that women and people of color were not entitled to the same respect and rights as white men. You see, we sort of blazed a trail for those who came after us and set a foundation to build upon…

To build what…? I kind of wonder now. Of course, we have just, thankfully, seen some of our gains in human and women’s rights preserved – and that is no small achievement! I was a worried American for a while there, but the energy of sane, compassionate principles are holding steady. But, I see a strange style of prioritizing in the lives of my fellow citizens. When a cell phone that costs as much as a mortgage payment is a necessity for an eleven year old child (and the monthly payment for the service to that phone could feed that child for that month!), I am stunned. When planned obsolescence is the rule. When everyone wants to be a millionaire and citizens go hungry; when the lady on the TV complaining about her shabby apartment has a room size flat screen television behind her and a $200 manicure… well, I am just baffled! People are racing along, headlong into the abyss, following the advertisements and fads and fancies designed to suck up their dollars (hard earned or not) and use them, then spit them out as chaff, and these people are participating wholeheartedly!

I sound pessimistic and I really am not – I see reason making a comeback and a glimmer of hope for the Earth as planetary citizens see “the BIG Picture” behind the veils of capitalism’s misguided ravings. It will all work out. I can feel it… but I wonder why there isn’t a widespread acknowledgement of the problems (almost all of our problems!) caused by human abuse of this planet and I wonder why anyone would prefer a hamburger and fries shoved through a window over a plate full of veggie pasta, good wine and a salad served on a patio on a moonlit evening!

But, that’s just ME!

What makes a person (a woman especially, methinks) risk their own well being to avoid embarrassing someone else… or to be polite, or to be “liked”? I’ve done it. I have a very potent example from my past that I use to remind myself how absolutely dangerous it is to eat (to consume or accept) something questionable.

Such as warm cheesecake.

I was on a date with a man who was fascinating and attractive, many years my senior and being especially kind and gentle that night. After a nice supper, he took me to a tiny dessert place with incredible coffees and really cool art all over the walls. I chose a big piece of double chocolate cheesecake and decaf. Both were just warm. The latter, I could handle and had no reservations about. The former, I knew was going to be my undoing if I ate it… but I did… I didn’t wish to offend this very special man.

It takes a few hours to kick in – the food poisoning.

We had gone to my house and we were sitting in the grass, looking at stars when the world began spinning. I tried to be brave and got to my ginger root… chewed on it like a ravenous bear… threw up all over the bathroom… burning ginger making it up through my sinuses… gross to the tenth power.

He took me to the emergency room at the local clinic that was open until midnight. They actually had to give me IV fluids and an injection of something to stop the retching (and the violent “spinning”)… the shot worked within an hour… the needle hit a nerve in my hip where I had burning pain for over a month. My date was kind, helped me through the entire night and was still my companion after the “event”.

I have had many similar situations since (not involving food), where I was willing to overlook my own innate good sense or needs or well being or even the advice of close friends, so I could be a “good partner” or maintain a relationship or “not give up” when I believed I had “invested” a lot of myself into something.

Here it comes – nothing is worth the misery of the consequences of eating the metaphorical warm cheesecake! Seriously.

I know this from far past and recent past experiences. If you sacrifice yourself (your well being, your principles, your finances or your heart) for the sake of a relationship or its possibility – you will be vomiting and spinning, figuratively, because a real partnership does not base itself upon the sacrifice or the silence or the suffering of one of the partners. Ever.

While I thought I had learned this pretty thoroughly, I had a little lapse last year into the fantasy of a cheesecake experience that turned out to be warm – I’m kinda speaking in code now and I’m sure you get what I’m saying. Kinda, Oooops!! Yet, this time, I’m coming out okay. No hospitalization (so to speak), no bathroom to clean up (metaphor again), only a slightly rattled spirit and partially shaken heart. It’s a learning experience. A reinforcement of what I know deeply as truth. If something feels one-sided, it is one-sided and you cannot shift it if you are the one on the shitty end of the deal. You can spit it all out and save yourself. If the other was or is genuinely caring about you, they will shift things to balance it all. If they do not, count the lucky stars you see and move along. I know.

My life is unfolding in this brilliant and exciting way with the rescue of another special horse, the expansion of my fur family and the Dharmahorse tribe and a gradual release of the emotions that I have kept tamped down all these months for fear of them possessing me. I’m stronger than I thought!

And when I open a can of veggies and it seems puffy or smells odd – I toss that sucker in the trash! If I’m eating out and a meal seems questionable – I don’t eat it! If I sense that my own well being is in jeopardy, I speak up… I say, “what do you mean?”, “why are you doing (or not doing) this or that?”, “how can we solve this?”.

I am no longer going to just sit there and eat the warm cheesecake.

Every morning when we wake up, we face ourselves. While our thoughts may be of work to be done, plans to be made or people to please; our first awareness each day is of our own embodiment. I have found that if I wake up to chaos – a jumbled bedroom, a messy bathroom, a kitchen in disarray – my awareness is naturally negative. If we begin each morning defeated by circumstances and our own thoughts, how can we expect to grow and accomplish things?

Simplicity can free you. I had a riding student whose business was teaching people to un-clutter their lives. When offered a brochure, she would read it and hand it back, making a note if necessary in her own little book. She did not even take on, momentarily, the objects that would become clutter in her life. Her car was clean, neat, simple inside and out. I can only imagine how her home would be! Her life, truly, must have been (and is, she is just no longer my student) filled with clarity.

After knowing her, I took a long look at my own “feng shui”, the energy of my home and stable. I found that I had, once again, accumulated tons of things I did not need, but felt compelled to hang onto… just in case. Now, I must quickly say that you have always been able to walk freely throughout my home and see every wall, window, piece of furniture, etc. But, the clutter was there on the surface and, with the picture of my former student’s probable abode in my head, I decided to find myself under the accumulation.

A roll of trash bags in hand, I started at one end of the house and worked my way through… I only partially filled one large trash can, but I had opened up my world and the morning after, I faced a lovely bit of simple neatness. With 4 wonderful dogs sharing my home, I know it will never be spotless – but organized it must remain so I do not lose myself again under the insulation of clutter.

And insulation it can be. If you want to disappear and be “comfortably numb”, nothing works quite as well as just not caring, not cleaning and being a victim. Slipping quietly into the cocoon of the “setting sun world” where you do not have to shower, shave, dress or be productive. It can happen. Then, when your senses return, you see the sadness of it and look to the “great eastern sun”, the sun rising on your world and shining light into all the corners.

You take a deep breath, then another, clearing the “mind” and “soul” clutter with each exhalation. You begin to see everything around you, the trees, the earth, the horses and dogs and the world you create as sacred. Then you see yourself as a genuine, good human being and you find the joy of a day spent in meditation with a pot of tea and a cheese sandwich and it hits you – life is its own answer.

As I walked about the stable yard this evening, I felt a deeper connection to my past. I was remembering past stables, past horses – but not in a regretful or comparing way – I felt a keen sense of it all being linked. As if the energy of all the things I have done, seen and been were just as real and immediate as what I was doing tonight. I felt more real. more valid, more present than I have felt in years. It reminded of my childhood when I would spin head over heels under water in my grandfather’s pool with a swim mask on; churning thousands of bubbles, then release and let myself float to the surface with those bubbles… watching them… being them. In those moments, I felt connected to all the water on the planet. It was as if all water everywhere was dancing with me.

Tonight, I want you to feel deep connections to the important things in your life. I found the clarity and inspiration of my meditation to be my catalyst. It never hurts to relax. It never hurts to just breathe. It is powerful to take a penetrating look directly at yourself and allow that vision to become something awesome.

A friend told me that she saw a headline about a Las Cruces resident returning from Hawaii and some arrest being made. Turns out, the person had a home security system that alerted them while on vacation to a break-in going on in New Mexico. It had nothing to do with me – but my friend had a moment of “hmmmm…”

And well she should have, to be honest. I have had the police called on me several times. Yep. Never justified, but done nonetheless.

When I was a teenager and had moved to New Mexico from West Virginia, I rode the bus back to visit old friends on several occasions. I stayed with friends, even lived in a friend’s car… was the house guest of two junkies and their sister who was trying to heal them and get them sober (I was known as the granddaughter of a healer).

I boxed up a dry tumbleweed in New Mexico and sent it by bus to my friends who were still at the college I had attended. You can see this one coming, I bet.

I had started college at age 15, so was only 17 years old when I arrived on the bus for a visit. The tumbleweed had preceded me. I had attended a school in Virginia, was staying in West Virginia, all on the border, going back and forth with no clue that one of the administrators of my former school had a warrant out for me in Virginia – believing I was bringing drugs there from Mexico. (I had moved to NEW MEXICO, it’s in the USA)

The tumbleweed was the catalyst. My friends had hung it from a light in their dorm room and the faculty member had broken off pieces to have it analyzed, so I was told. He did not wait for results, he apparently was so freaked out that he became convinced I was a drug runner. Here is a photo of me from that year in my life.

Scary chick, eh?

So, I ignorantly was going back and forth each day from VA to WV, visiting friends, visiting the newspaper where my Dad had been production manager and riding dirt bikes on the hill climbing track. A close friend at the newspaper grabbed me one day and told me what was going on. Crikey! He asked me for honest answers about what all I was up to, the tumbleweed and who all I was hanging out with – I was totally honest, nothing to hide, nothing weird going on. He wrote an article about the “witch hunt” and made me even more popular with the faculty and administrators at my old school!

We got me down to Tennessee to catch the bus for home, just in case going through Virginia was gonna be risky, but, as I later learned, the whole thing was dropped. No charges, no more suspicions, no more worries.

Then, decades later, when I was living (alone) in the shack on the side of the mountain, a neighbor called the police at 2:00 AM. She said she had heard my dogs barking and thought there was an intruder – I was asleep in my house with all my dogs on the futons with me – no one had barked.

My house/shack was kinda pitiful and there was no way to lock or block the sliding main door… so, the policeman knocked once then walked right into my house! Then my dogs started barking! He left the door open so three dogs ran out into the open, right past him and he had his gun drawn! I realized how blessed I was that he didn’t shoot any of us.

So, me in only a T-shirt I had grabbed from the laundry basket (I sleep naked), standing with only night lights on the walls and him with a blinding flashlight, I said, “What the f*ck are you doing in here!?” Not my best choice of words… but, WTF, it was an absolute intrusion!

He started the explanation and demanded to see proof that I lived there. Really!?

I turned on some lights. He lowered his weapon. I got my purse and had to show ID, my checkbook with the address, all the while my little dogs were loose outside – in the real middle of nowhere. I told him I had to get my dogs in and just left him there with my purse. After rounding them up and getting everyone safe, satisfying the policeman that I really did live there – sheesh – and finding yoga pants to pull on right in front of him, he finally believed me and left, drove away without even a breath of an apology.

Later many friends pointed out that his ID should have been demanded, recorded and his arse presented to me in a sling through a lawsuit. I don’t know, it was too surreal for me to think about being proactive.

Then, I was in a mobile phone store (won’t say their name!) years back, trying to cancel a contract and even PAY the penalty when I said, “Crikey, it’s just a phone!” And I really did say Crikey. They called in two policemen to wait until I left. Sheeeeesh!

Funny thing is, my grandfather was a WV state trooper and a revenuer; a highly decorated colonel in WWII and had ridden border patrol (he was kinda well known and very well loved, he was a good man). So I have always respected those who serve in the military and as peace officers… granddad was a real peace officer.

On another note, an officer pulled out behind me at night a year or so ago as I was driving home. His left headlight was out. He pulled me over, blinding lights flashing, and came up to the window, “Ma’am, do you know that your license plate light is out?” I looked back at his car… so did he. “Officer, did you know you have a headlight out?” I asked.

“I do now”, he said and he smiled, shook his head and tipped his hat to me. He walked back to his car and drove away. That one time made up for the others. He was just as nice as he could be. 🙂

I spent my morning teaching one nice lesson, then started mucking while watering my trees before the predicted winds. I had hoped to be “before the winds”. I was not.

With my MP3 player clipped to a pocket and the ear bud lines run through my braids, I mucked as long as I could stand the dirt and poop whipping up into my face. My patience was stretched a bit. I’d had 2 and a half hours of sleep last night and no more than 3 hours the night before. The owls have returned.

Now, I love the beautiful owls. Their song is even beautiful… up to a point. WooooHoooo, WooooHoooo, hour after hour from the time I retire to bed until the sky lightens loses its appeal quickly. The owls sing in the big Cypress trees just outside my bedroom window.

And there was carnage – at daybreak, when I fed the horses, I had to scoop up bunny parts (including two heads) into the shovel and transport them to the mass burial site over the fence to the south. So sad. I keep all my little dogs inside after dark. So, the sleep deprivation has me wonkier than usual and the bit of shifting that occurs puts me slightly between worlds. Not necessarily a negative thing, though.

I was visiting with a friend here, discussing my lack of sleep and talking about coffee. I have one more cup’s worth of Kona beans, for tomorrow morning… then all I have is Yuban organic coffee. Sorry Yuban, you ain’t Kona! But a strange deja vu washed over me at that moment with a friend, in the kitchen and I realized (as I always do, as I believe) that I am in the right place at the moment. Wonky, shifted, dazed and confused – I’m where I’m supposed to be. For now. Yet… some sleep would be nice. (can you tell?)

The owls have made me nervous about my small dogs since the dog yard is also right beside the big Cypress trees… but we have a door to close after dark and if my rugs get peed on, so what. They clean up. Makes me think of The Dude. And the Dude abides. I’m just not going to take chances with my beloved ones. I’ve always been overprotective and proud of it. (It’s called love)

My deja vu was intense a couple of times today (being between worlds will do that). And another weird thing did an OZ number on me. I had loaded my favorites list into the MP3 player. Listening as I worked, all was predictable. Then out of the blue, an Australian band (that is NOT on my list nor ripped into my computer!) came on the player. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t even skip a beat lately with this stuff, but this one made me ponder awhile. I just figure all will be revealed someday. Or not. I can flow with the weirdness.

But I can’t flow with no sleep. I think I will download the “Dreaming with Jeff Bridges” tape – maybe it will help. The bottle of Shiraz I got yesterday might, too. Not the whole bottle (hopefully), just a glass or maybe two.

My brother is back to his house early today. He got hold of a “bad burrito” and has food poisoning. Crikey. I got charcoal and, later, ginger slices in him. Think I’ll just have nice, safe cereal with soymilk for supper… hmmm, that does not sound good with wine…

The wind is still blasting from the west. The tumbleweeds that were stopped by the fence from the east wind last week have left for the fence line down the road. That can be handy.

My bedroom is on the west side of my house. The wind tonight with owl song and some major mind bending thinking to do about relationships will likely prevent sleep. Perhaps this “cowgirl” needs to start sleeping during the day time… whenever I can… pretend I’m on the other side of the world. Whatever it takes to gain peace.

Chiron is a centaur… “the Wounded Healer”. When I did my first Vision Quest, a centaur came to me. Usually, one communes with a more “normal” animal or nature spirit.

The Vision Quest is simply being alone in Nature for a period of time to “cry” for your vision. I sat on a mountain after the death of several animals I cherished. I was feeling as if I needed to join them. I wanted to leave this life. I needed my vision. When, at night with a bright but not full moon, a being of human and equine merging appeared to me, I knew. I saw my vision as a calling to merge our worlds and our spirits – horses and humans. And to heal. To be healed and assist the healing of others.

To talk about it is difficult because it is a supremely personal experience. Yet, what I gleaned from that experience was something to share.

I had always taught gentle horsemanship and classical Dressage (NOT the kind of “Dressage” being practiced these days), but to become the centaur was a new way to see the relationships. First, I felt a need to abandon all the “let him know who’s boss”; “be the leader”; “you have to win” (and the horse loses?) rhetoric. Yet, we could not have horses walking over and through us and galloping off at will… so, I practiced my connection with my horses and taught a more integrated handling system of compassion and gentleness with enough assertive behavior to maintain safety. It worked. While I was aware that the wild Mustang needed to be approached with a kind of “morphed” horse/herd language expressed by the human – the horse who had grown up with us strange beings had a pretty good handle on what human language was all about.

And the healing, well I had been taught by the best. Herbalists and Reiki Masters and Travelers had honored me with their methods and knowledge. Horses would show me what they needed. As I studied modalities from Ayurveda to using Zeolites, I found that no one system applies in every situation. Simple was always best. Flexibility was imperative.

Chiron… I think all healers are wounded. We are wounded by loss. We are wounded by life, even wounded by love. What makes a healer rise from the devastation a wound can inflict is an awareness of things much larger than ourselves. Voices calling us to task from our own heart, singing us across the pain to see through new eyes. We become the merging of life and death, recognizing the bound relationship between the two and the truth that neither need be feared.

I am grateful for the times I was (and will be) guided by forces of Light and Love. It is truly the only way to live a life full of reason and, ultimately, joy.

Onward.