A THOUSAND YEAR FLOOD.

It has now been 50 days since the rains began that changed the front range landscape of Boulder, Larimer, Jefferson and Weld counties of Colorado.  We survived the “flood of Biblical proportions.”  I have written about it many times, but produced nothing worthy of sharing but serving as a cathartic stress release.  For weeks I suffered from a low level anxiety; trouble sleeping, shortness of breath, and my stomach didn’t feel right.  In fact, I feel like I ate my way through the flood, snacking all day long as I huddled close to my radio listening to what was happening to my physical realm.

At one point I talked with my sister and she could totally relate to how I was feeling. Three years ago she was caught at home ~ alone with one dog, two cats, two horses, and a dozen chickens ~ during an ice storm that left her without electricity for 10 days.  She moved into survival mode, doing what she had to do to take care of everyone, securing water was difficult. She ended up getting sick from attempting to heat a portion of her home with a propane space heater. But everyone on her ten acres lived. The story had a satisfactory ending. For the rest of the winter she, and many of her friends in southern Missouri, had a panic attack every time a storm set up which could bring a layer of ice to their world.

We survive. Katrina, Sandy, massive tornadoes, rampaging forest fires, shifting, sliding, unable to stay the same ...

Slowly it passes.

Below is an excerpt from my friend, my astrologer, and my writing buddy, Jyoti Wind’s astrological newsletter. Her words moved me; she said it better than all of my ramblings and I asked her permission to share it with you here. 

Dear friends, The human and emotional toll of a natural disaster is deep and encompassing.It scars the landscape of one’s thinking so that one returns again and again to that abrasion.  A collective atmosphere of shock and stress grows into a thought form, an energetic, that permeates the area more than the mud and water, and takes a while to recede.  Relief aid, a listening ear, an offer to help are the balm that wipes clear the window onto the future. Possibilities then become visible.

We are in the process of shifting. It doesn’t have a clear demarcation line of when it started, but in the last one and a half years it has felt like there was an escalation. We have another one and a half years to go. And again, there won’t be a stopping line, and end. It may begin to feel that there is more of a flow instead of a push.

Meanwhile the push to change old patterns continues.  Looking at how you have changed over the past one and a half years might be an interesting undertaking. Blessings,Jyoti

For more information and to contact Jyoti Wind:
http://www.writes-of-passage.blogspot.com
http://www.aweeksworthofwomen.blogspot.com
www.jyotiwindastrology.com

3rd Annual Equine Gestalt Coaching Method Summit 2013

This event was held on September 20, 21, 22 in spite of the fact that Boulder County, including Lil Bit North Ranch - home of the Touched By a Horse program - had suffered through a flood of “Biblical proportions” just one week earlier.  Access roads into Boulder County were just beginning to open up, but every one managed to make it in and the event was a HUGE success.  Melisa Pearce and her staff did a superb job and the program ran smoothly and efficiently.

For me, introducing our new anthology, Touched Buy a Horse; Equine Coaching Stories, Edited by Melisa Pearce, was an incredible highlight. As assistant editor, I am fantastically proud of this book which includes stories and poetry by 21 different authors. The theme was to describe what equine gestalt coaching looks like, how it has affected us personally, and what our healing herds of horses are offering as our loyal partners in this venture. This book is going to make a BIG difference in helping people understand what we have to offer in the expanding genre of personal coaching! Trust me, you are going to want to read this book!

Our keynote speaker was Larry Freeborg, a pioneer in the development of equine-guided groups such as EGEA (Equine Guided Education Association) and EAHAE (European Association for Horse Assisted Education) and has followed the development of the Horse Assisted industry for the last decade. I was lucky enough to catch his talk every day; he is highly intelligent, thorough in his history of this fast growing business, and spoke on planning and business development topics for professional coaches that were important to everyone.

Other Speakers included: Kimberly Beer, professional photographer, graphic designer and Platinum Solution Provider for Constant Contact.  Melanie Mulhall, an award winning author, writing coach and served as primary editor on our new anthology. James Fitzpatrick III, CPA, had the dubious honor of speaking to us about financial planning first thing after lunch on Saturday. He rose to the occasion and gave a wonderful presentation. And on our final Sunday, Mark Guynn, of Guynn Training Center, gave a riding demonstration of Melisa’s three year old Gypsy Vanner horse, Rua Prionsa’s ("Pri") debut under saddle. It was a beautiful thing to watch!

 

 

 

My Place of Worship

I wrote this as I drove away from Abiquiu, New Mexico.  It was inspired by a conversation sitting in a beautiful sun room with new friends.

My Place of Worship

The landscape is my cathedral,
this rock shall be my pew

and a dandelion leaf my communion.
The bird and the cricket form my choir
and their tracks in the dirt are my hymnal.
The clouds across the azure sky, my stained glass windows,
even as the night-time sky is an open portal welcoming me in.
The trees are my elders,
this pungent sage, my incense.
My love for you shall be an unending tithe.
I kneel beside my horse, in awe of all that I witness.
Dear God, Goddess, Creator of all that is,
thank you for this sanctuary.
No walls to hold me in, nor others "out".
Bless you for this day.
Amen.
    

MY DEAR TILDE

 

I have always known that I was a tilde ( ~ ) kind of gal.  I just had not put the word, the symbol, and my persona, all together in the same conscious thought stream. But now that I have, I can see that it could never have been any other way.  

I grew up with the hyphen a.k.a. the dash (-); dashes were ordinary.  I flitted in and out of a fascination for ordinary. Elementary school is kind of a blur; all I can remember is my love for reading and recess – rather ordinary.

By junior high I dreamed of looking like most of the other girls = normal = ordinary. I was haunted by my parent’s out-dated sense of a proprietary dress code ~ they were stuck in the middle ages and I was walking the halls with thigh-high skirts and tight sweaters over padded bras. Well, mine was padded.  I lusted after well-shaped bangs and the wonders of caked on mascara. I wanted so badly to be ordinary and look like everyone else.

In high school I read the poetry of e.e.cummings and adored the fact that he had thrown away punctuation entirely.  The rules of punctuation seemed trite … vulgar even. I could a diagram a sentence till the cows came home, but “who cared”. Punctuation after all, was devised to assist a reader in following the thought process of the writer. For me, the use of ellipsis ( …. ) and my dear tilde (~) were much more expressive, and please pardon my fascination for multiple exclamation points ~ I am a highly excitable gal !!!

It was in my junior year of college that I found a book about Edgar Casey in the closet of my new apartment. I dove deep into the ideas of a planet of free will. The unrequited romantic in me continued to write poetry; it allowed me to mess with the rules, follow my true spirit, and meander with the meaning of my muse. Lost my virginity, but not my heart, to a husky Phi Sig junior who wrote me love poems ~ it seemed only fitting.

So imagine my surprise last week when I sat in a real estate appraisal class to prepare us for yet another over-haul of our regulated-to-the-max-no-room-for-free-thinking way of doing business with yet another round of federally-mandated-standards-of-professional-practice. It makes a sane person want to scream and believe me I have ranted till I am sick of hearing it myself. It is the reason so many of my peers, all very good appraisers, have thrown in the towel and ran away from this drowning profession. But I digress.

In the new UAD, Uniform Appraisal Dataset, effective September 1, 2011, the ( ~ ) tilde has now become the symbol of approximation.  As in, "if the year built of the subject property cannot be determined or is unavailable, “a tilde (~) must precede the estimated year built”.

There it was ~ on Page 30 of 58 pages of strict rules and definitions guaranteed to constrict the normal blood flow to arteries and cause inadvertent spasm-ing of various sphincter muscles in older, decrepit appraisers ~  I was actually liberated. My beloved tilde ( ~ ) had come to my rescue.

I will use my guidebook until I have memorized the definitions of C-1 through C-5 and Q-1 through Q-6. I can play their ridiculous game until they tire of this one and some moron gets paid a million dollars to come up with another set of rules that will allow the readers of these reports to become even more brain dead than they obviously already are. Poor dears. I will set in front of my computer, naked if I want, and continue to do my job in the restricted format now dictated, and pray the UPS delivery man doesn’t notice my tilde state of undress.

ZEVON’S GIFT

Recently I was given an incredible and unexpected gift.  It was not a gift the giver was totally ready to give but the circumstance was not to be avoided.

It began with a phone call at 8:45 in the morning from a dear friend of mine, an accomplished horse woman who has spent her entire life in the company of horses.  There was an edge to her voice that hinted of urgency.  “Zevon is colicky and I can’t get a hold of my vet.  Can you call yours and see how fast he can get over here?”  “Of course,” I replied, already flipping through my day timer.  “Is Richard home this morning”, I continued, wondering if she was dealing with this by herself.  Not that she isn’t competent to deal with the situation; she’s told me dozens of colic stories and helped me out twice with my own horse.  “He’s here.  He’s out riding horses.  He’s not really helping me.”  There was that tone again.  Her housemate Richard knows as much about horses as Molly, but I thought she might need a girl friend.  I told her I would come up for a little while.

On an impulse I threw a tamale in the microwave and took it with me for the short drive to her house.  I prayed between bites as I hurried down the country roads.  I have never seen a full blown colic before and I was as curious as I was worried.

I have known Zevon for several years.  He is a handsome fellow, a tall dark bay gelding with a friendly face and a kind eye.  A few years ago he came to my house to babysit my little mare when I was between house mates and Lakota had lost her herd.  Horses are herd animals, most prefer not to be alone ~ they are too vulnerable.  As Zevon liked the ladies, he took his new assignment in stride.  He was a natural born leader and took control of every herd he was in.  He had been retired by the time I met him so I never saw him under saddle, but I knew that in their twenty-seven years together, he and Molly had covered many, many miles. 

When I pulled into the driveway, Richard, still riding, waved me over to the barn.  Zevon was lying down in his stall with Molly kneeling by his side.  She had finally connected with her vet who was now on her way.  Molly told me how every thing had appeared fine this morning but he had deteriorated quickly.  Zevon would lie still and then kick his legs and swing his head around to look at his stomach.  He would sometimes try to stand and end up sitting with his front legs straight in front of him like a trick pony, but this was not a show any of us wanted to watch. 

Richard joined our vigil and shortly after that the vet arrived; she was marvelous.  She told Molly that she was very concerned with the situation, especially as Zevon was not a young horse.  She left us with medications and a time line to follow.  At one point in the early afternoon it appeared that Zevon had turned the corner.  Richard, Molly and I commented over and over how much better he appeared to be feeling.  We walked with him, stroked his beautiful neck and Molly gave him sponge baths.  But our optimism was short lived and Zevon grew more restless as his pain intensified.

It was time for Molly to make the hardest decision an animal owner ever faces.  With tears in her eyes she looked at Richard.  Through the years I have heard them discuss this very moment.  She always told him, “I am going to have trouble making that call when it’s time.  I need you to be honest with me and tell me the truth.”  Even though the words strangled her, she squeaked out the question.  Richard studied the toe of his boot and nodded yes.  I drifted back and tried to get a grip on my trembling chin; I had no intention of making this harder for my dear friend.  The call was made, the vet was on her way back over and we each paid homage to this outstandingly gorgeous being. 

As I drove home later that day I thought what a precious gift Zevon and Molly had given me. I will never forget this day, which was to be his last, and the memory of their dignity will be with me forever. When it is our time, I pray that Lakota and I will have friends to hold us up, to ease us through the transition, to answer the question that can’t even be asked.  What a marvelous example they had presented me ~ filled with Love and Grief and Grace and Tears and Tenderness. 

Such a gift.

Taking In.

 

It feels like I have been in a receiving mode …. a place of “taking in” …  but I understand … it is also an inability to “put out”.  I am content to read, so many good books, and have read morning, noon and night.  Taking in the words, other people’s lives, even the made-up ones, tranquilized by their life situations. I listen to inspirational CD’s on those nights when I cannot sleep or those dark mornings when I desire a few more hours of respite ... and then wake up later with headphones pressed into my cheek.  I have sat with rented movies and dissolved into their premise letting them flavor my own life.   I have accomplished the “have to’s” and even a few of the “should’s”, but even as I think about writing some little incident, I cannot muster the strength. 

And amazingly enough, I have allowed myself to indulge in this place for weeks with very little recrimination.

But I am growing now uncomfortable.  I have flyers to create, I have workshops to fill, I have new people to meet and the ideas that have been percolating are ready for more.  And I have so many ideas!! It is time … to gather up all the little pieces of paper that have accumulated on my table tops … to review my moments of inspiration penned so quickly.   

I am heading home for my mother’s birthday and these ideas need to be birthed so that I will fit better, comfortably, in the seat of my transport.

It was not a cocoon and I don’t feel like a butterfly. I lay in bed this morning as the warm glow promises a pretty day and drank a cup of lovely coffee. I read my story and the many other stories printed in a new book, Red Silk, a Red Tent Anthology. I am thrilled to hold it in my hand, to see the printed words, some of them are mine!  I am inspired.  I am ready. And I do have so many ideas!!

Easter Egg Hunt

Easter Egg Hunt at Kristi’s Lame Dog Ranch. April 23, 2011

I missed the hunt last year and have been looking forward to this year’s event. Imagine my surprise when I woke up Saturday morning and it was snowing. Well in Colorado we like to joke about how fast our weather can turn and I knew that we had a strong chance of sunny skies later in the day. We drive the few miles to my neighbor’s house, unload and saddle up. I can tell immediately that no one is in a big rush, we do indeed have “all the time we need.” So Lakota and I join the group in the large arena and warm up by walking and trotting around and visiting with those folks that I know and meeting some that I do not. The weather is cool but no longer snowing and the sun looks like it might show its face any time now.

Almost an hour after the advertised start time, we are called over to hear the official rules.

1) Horsemanship is paramount and anyone who lacks it will be quickly disqualified.

    You must treat everyone cordially and keep you and your horse safe at all times.

2) You can only bring in one egg at a time. When you find an egg, you must ride back in, dismount, and wait in line to walk your egg into the round pen and drop it in your basket.

3) Only one horse in the round pen at a time.

4) Kristi tells where to hunt as well what areas are off limits.

The rules are simple.  Kristi told us that there are colored plastic eggs with prizes inside, there are also three painted rocks that will win you a special prize, but mostly there are three hundred  4-inch sections of painted PVC pipe that have been scattered around a bunch of pastures totaling about sixty acres !!  Whoooeee!!

Everyone puts their Easter basket in the 60 foot round pen, and for those who forgot there are brown bags you can put your name on. Mine is the plastic orange pumpkin I use for Halloween candy and it is easy to find. We mount up and Kristi does a quick count down and off we go. 

It seems as if a lot of folks are heading towards the many pastures to the south, so we head north. I don’t have to go very far down the lane before I see an orange plastic egg nestled into a large stack of hay. Score! I don’t even have to get off if she will side-pass up to the hay bales and let me pluck it off. She does and back we ride to the round pen. I am the one grinning. There is a big crowd there, many found eggs right off the bat.  I dismount and wait in line. Everyone is having fun and I can tell I am not the only one in touch with my inner child. Did I mention that most of the riders are well over thirty? There are only a handful of young riders, all female ~ they are the ones that are wearing only t-shirts against the cool April morning. 

Lakota and I jog into the round pen, drop our first egg into our basket and jog out so the next person can go in. I guide her over to the fence and climb it to get back into the saddle. It is much easier on her back and my knees to mount in this manner, besides most of the eggs are going to be on the ground, there is going to be enough getting on and off to cost me several Tylenol’s I am sure.

Now here is where it gets really interesting. Lakota and I do not get to ride alone very often out in large wide open pastures. She isn’t too sure of herself and I suddenly realize what a great experience this is for us as a team building exercise. When she is unsure about something I am there to help her understand what I would like for us to accomplish. We dialog ~ it is a communication  ~ more than usual because she is out of her comfort zone. She would much rather hang out with all the other horses just looking pretty. It is just me and her and the dialogs are many. I ask her if she is looking for Easter eggs and she says no. She stops walking, her muscles are tense. She doesn’t understand why we are doing this and asks me over and over if we have to keep going. I remind her that I spend hours and hours working to keep her in good food and comfortable pastures, that we have only been riding for fifteen minutes and I, for one, am still having fun.

Then for awhile she gets excited and I assume that she thinks that if she picks up the speed we will get done faster and that will be the end of this silly exercise. No, that won’t work you see because I cannot spot the little eggs at 25 miles an hour. So the dialog continues. We ride alone, just the two of us; she heads toward some really boggy ground. I am not sure what the attraction is but we explore it for a while. She sees the mini donkeys on the neighboring farm and we go meet them. Does she think that they are her herd mates even after she looks them over? Do all donkeys smell alike?

I don’t have a care in the world about winning the prize for the most eggs found, in fact we actually quit long before the men and the teenagers, but I am profoundly happy to have this chance to ride with my horse in this hunt for silly colored plastic tubes.

The sun came out in short little teases, and then the cool wind stole away any warmth we had accumulated. It took less than two hours for even the most determined riders to call it quits. We gathered around a picnic table laden with pot luck items and counted up the points and handed out prizes. For our two colored Easter eggs, Lakota and I won a carton of farm fresh eggs ~ the fun green and brown ones, a gift certificate to the local feed store and accumulated 170 points.  A swell day was had by all and the food looks delicious. Life is good.

Bought 'er the farm

I have been known to joke about my sweet horse, Lakota, “Well, I bought her the farm!”

But there is a strong thread of truth to that simple statement. When I was a young girl I told my grandpa that I wanted to marry a farmer and he discouraged me, saying his way of life was not going to be sustainable in the future. I might have been sad for a moment but he probably gave me a popsicle and I was happy again. Then, as an adult, I lusted after my sister’s ten acre farm in Missouri. She could sit on her covered patio, drink her morning coffee and gaze out over lush greenness to her sweet ponies. I wanted that.

I had my horse boarded at Boulder Valley Farms and she was pretty happy there, but I kept dreaming of having my own place. I dreamed of a fellow who would desire the same lifestyle, we would meet and the sun and the moon and the stars would shine down upon us … and we would buy a farm. But he didn’t show up even though my desire to live on the land continued to grow ….. so I started without him.

I bought Lakota a little farm and it has been a wonderful adventure. There have ups and there have been downs. I survived that first winter blizzard, shoveling four feet of snow and climbing over enormous drifts.  All by myself,  I kept all the horses fed and watered for two and half days till the roads cleared.  I have learned about electric fencing. I am absolutely appalled at how clumsy I am with my ten-jobs-in-one fencing tool, but I own one and I am happy about that. I have a whole spindle of wire that I bought that is too thick for me to work with, I cannot bend it and that pisses me off. But I bought a riding lawn mower and finally learned how to start that cold-hearted-whore of a weed-eater. I am extremely happy about that.

And my sweet Lakota has been a good four–legged partner. I have learned many things from my horse. She has taught me that “slow” is often times faster.  I am learning about patience and the importance of baby steps.

She is constantly reminding me that conversation is a two way street and that I am not the world’s best communicator. She, on the other hand, is crystal clear with her signals. Her body language may be subtle, but it is never meant to deceive. She is consistent in a way that I still aspire to. She literally has a heart as big as football and a kind eye that soothes the soul.

But even as I dream about a fellow, Lakota needs constant companions as well. So a few weeks ago, I drove to eastern Colorado and brought her home a herd. Two miniature donkey’s, “jenny’s” as the females are called, that are just about as cute as can be. Hilde and Penny we call them. I had told Lakota that I was bringing her friends and when we unloaded them at my house, she was so curious. She stood with her head thrown over the fence, checking them out with all of her senses. She is the same horse that was scared to death of miniature horses when they walked behind us the Boulder County Fair parade a few years ago. We introduced them slowly but it went so smoothly that we let them all out in the north pasture together. Lakota mothered on them and followed them around the pasture, a respectful distance mind you, for Penny told her in no uncertain terms that she did not need a mother, thank you very much. But Lakota didn’t mind, she just gave them space and radiated love to these small creatures.

Yesterday, even though the wind was blowing coldly, I wanted to spend time with them. I bundled up and grabbed my heavy gloves. I did some poop scooping and walked the fence line and actually discovered a place were the top wire was broken. I walked back to the shed, unplugged the electric fence, collected some mending wire and my handy dandy fencing tool. Every body followed me back to the fence and watched me weave the wires back together. Then I walked the remaining perimeter, and my girls followed me. I whistled a happy tune and their ears swiveled in the wind. I grinned. I am home and the fence is fixed.