Category Archives: moving, breathing, feeling

Mar1

winter farm, winter fences

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This is the farm across the street from us.  It is my favorite place to take pictures.  I love the geometry of the trees, the fences, the buildings, and the arc of Indian Mountain in the background.  When we moved here, it was busy with horses and cars and our friends rescued dogs.  Then the owners abruptly closed it down and now it sits quiet and forlorn except for a couple feral cats that we feed.

One of these, Mamacita, is the mother of Obadiah and Precious, two of her kittens that we managed to catch and adopt.  We caught her too and neutered her, but she is decidedly feral so we released her with a promise to take care of her babies and her as much as she would let us.  I went on Alley Cats and learned how to build a shelter, with fresh water outside and a warm bed inside.  We have never been able to touch her, even though she will come within a couple feet when we bring food out.

There is something about Mamacita and  the beautiful, empty farm that makes me think of the limits of our caring and of boundaries that we cannot cross.  This is not easy for me – I want to press myself into everything and gather everything to me, bring it under my emotional umbrella.  Today, I am aware of those lines that I cannot or should not cross – the places and the people that say “No further than this.”

As I write this though, I am devising ways to dance over those lines, even if just here, in my heart.

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Feb29

still sitting

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Still sitting even in the snow, or maybe especially in the snow.  Sitting requires more rigor and devotion when it is cold and windy.

There are days when I do not want to do the work, when I feel that it will take too much from me, or that I do not have enough to give to it. The work could be anything:  the writing, the riding, the dancing.

I went to the barn early today to ride because a snowstorm was coming.  For me, riding is sitting.  Riding is practice.  Riding is that combination of rigor and devotion.  Today was one of those days when I did not think I had enough to give.  My body felt sore and stiff after several days of riding the big, powerful Friesian, Sanne.

At one point in the ride, I wanted to stop and say, “Wait, this is too hard, I cannot do it, I do not know how.”  In fact, I think I did stop and say something like that.  I could feel how the muscles in my arms were braced, how the pieces of my riding were not flowing together, felt I was coming apart, both mentally and physically.

Here is the thing.  It was less my body than my mind.  It was that old doubting, questioning, fearful part of my noisy mind, the part that has gotten up and left the meditation hall even when my body is still sitting there (in the saddle, holding the reins.)

Somehow I did recover myself.  Here is what I did.  I stopped trying the same old thing, and began to improvise my ride.  A circle here, a softening there, a change of direction:  change, change, change.  I shifted my attention to the stiff, unyielding parts of my body and invited suppleness there.

I think this is what it means to be a spiritual athlete.  Nurturing an athleticism that is not about big muscles or marathon sitting, but the kind of athleticism that is about endurance and steadfastness.  About finding a way in, every day.  Offering the best, every day.

Feb28

through the looking glass

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Only after this was downloaded from my camera into iPhoto could I see the world in her eye.  The photographer, the line of field and sky –  the mirror of her eye holding it all.

I don’t think that we really look, most of the time.  There is a meditation called gazing that I have practiced a number of times.  Two people sit face-to-face and gaze into each others’ eyes for five or so minutes.  There is the first nervousness, the twitchy, uncomfortable feeling of being seen, of being naked in a close-up way.  Self-conscious giggles.  At some point there may be a calm, or maybe not.

I am aware of how much of my life is scanning – a minimal taking-in of what I see.  A surface tour.  Not very often sinking into the depths, or awakening the peripheral.  The visual sense is so predominant, and yet so often (for me at least) lacking in detail.

I think that is one of the reasons that I love the camera.  It takes me in and let’s me stay.  Gazing, rapt, voracious even. Framing, capturing, dancing with it – my landscape partners, my subjects.

How do you see?

Feb28

what he sees

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A lot of times I will just stand with Nelson and look where he is looking.  I want to know more about his point of view, what is interesting to him, and what he sees.

I never really know.  But that is the point.  We cannot know what another sees or feels unless they tell us directly.  We make assumptions (which are fictions) and then pursue a course of action or inaction based on those assumptions.  More fiction.

When I am with Nelson, I don’t pretend to know what is interesting to him, or how he sees the world.  Sometimes he will be very clear in horse language (movement).  A spook generally means something was scary.  Coming close means that he feels safe or he wants a treat or both.

I like that things with Nelson are very basic.  I spend a great deal of time complicating and elaborating in many other parts of my life.  Being with the horses is a chance to step away from all of that, to get clear, and have a conversation in the language of skin, muscle and bone.  And heart, and heart.