And because memory does not fall away as plainly
as we want,
because it breathes, caught in a surge of water, it nets together:
copper dish, lumber yard, green glass jar. Three men caught
too, their hair a big whoop in the air, red as iron rust.
Emma Gorenberg is a lovely horsewoman and a friend of mine from the Vineyard. And today she is the poetry angel, unexpected because I did not know that she is also a brilliant writer.
This is the time of year when I miss this kind of color. Painters see all kinds of colors in the bleak mid-winter. I see brown. Often I feel brown, gray, black. I want to live in Hawaii, or St. Barthelemy or San Miguel de Allende. At least for a few weeks each year would be ideal.
The problem for me with winter is that I tune out of the details. I don’t see them in the bleak wintery dark. No individual little blades of grass, or single petals of a flower, or intricate little spider webs, no delicious bird songs, or soft warm air on my skin. Am I a sensualist? You betcha.
So I have given myself an assignment, to find something different to notice in great detail every day. Today, I savored my ride on the big Friesian, Sanne. I noticed how finely soft I could become with the reins, how sensitive my leg could be, how I could feel his warmth and the texture of his coat even through my boot. I kissed his nose over and over as if it were a bouquet of lilies. The warm fragrance of his breath, the intense softness of the space between his nostrils.
Yesterday I got very detailed about a cup of tea – the specific shape of the lip of the cup on my lips, the feeling of the handle, the temperature, the way I picked it up and put it down, the layers of taste within the tea.
What did you notice today?
Aloha Orion
Every year around this time, our brilliant astrologer, Jane Sezak, sends her reading for the coming year. Transits, progressions, angles, aspects, conjunctions, dates, planets. The whole thing is exhilarating and overwhelming. Last year, there was a six week period when something BIG was supposed to happen. When it didn’t materialize, I was crushed. In the twenty years Jane has been doing our readings, that was a first. Later, I realized that the big thing was not the publisher for my book that I had hoped for, but news that my daughter was pregnant.
It’s not about predicting specific outcomes, but seeing patterns, and big confluences. I like that – makes me feel more connected to the universe in ways I can’t control or understand.
This year, I have a wish list: more dancing, more teaching, more wonderful clients, more travel, more time with my daughters and my new baby grand daughter. More reading, more hanging out by the pool, or the lake or the river or the sea. More excellent meals with friends and my beloved Pam. More delicious rides, more kissing horses noses, dogs heads and petting cats. More slow time, tender time, playtime, breathing time, loving time.
And that’s just a beginning.
Embodied Horsemanship from Paula Josa-Jones on Vimeo.
This is a deeply important part of my work with horses, movement and the body. My goal is to make things better for the horses. Usually, that means helping humans by figuring out where the missing pieces of communication are or where the communication has gone off. That is also what happened for me when I took the workshop with Mark Rashid. He made things better for my horse by helping me. To schedule an appointment or read more about Embodied Horsemanship, CLICK HERE.
