The Old Mare Can Still Bite

We bought a crystal ball in Mexico, I don't remember when. It's very heavy and I'm sure it has a high lead content. Mostly it has sat atop the marble coffee table, but we moved it to a southerly facing window ledge a while back. Yesterday we could smell something burning, so I went outside to see if someone nearby was burning a trash pile or leaves but sensed nothing. The smell was coming from the living room, not unlike the smell you notice when you blow out a candle and the waxy smoke quickly fills the surrounding space. The burning smell was so strong we moved into action. I climbed up into all three attic areas but all was okay. We checked the toaster, electrical wires, went outside again, checked the oven. Neither of us had been burning candles or incense. We narrowed the smell down to the fireplace area, but our fireplace is set up with fake logs and natural gas and we haven't turned it on in ages. Finally I saw the problem--the sun was hitting the crystal ball in such a way that the rays of the sun were focused on a spot on the wooden window ledge adjacent to the fireplace and had burned a hole about the size of a razor blade. It was black and hot and penetrated about an eighth of an inch. We doused it with water and vowed to keep the crystal ball away from the rays of the sun. It wasn't exactly forecasting our future but I can't help but wonder what the future might have held had we not been home.

I visited my sister and family on Thanksgiving day and met the newest member of her family--a beautiful quarter horse. I walked out into the damp field with bridle in hand and walked right up to her, put the bridle on then had my cousin, with several kids in tow, give me a hands boost up onto her back and I rode bareback to the barn where I saddled her up and rode for just long enough to get acquainted with her gentle nature. All the kids wanted to ride so I hoisted them up, one after another and led the mare down a cow path and back. It was great fun and the adults in the group wanted a brief riding lesson so I obliged and then watched as they sat on her back and went absolutely nowhere! I gave several demonstrations but knowing horses and learning to ride is something that takes time and experience and even though I hadn't ridden in a long time it all came back to me instinctively. They are beautiful, empathetic creatures. I kind of fell in love with her and would just as soon bring her home with me! When I returned my nephew home at the end of the holidays the mare found her way to the fence right by my car. I brushed her a while and petted her, but soon the kids were all around and I could tell she was annoyed. Then my sister came up and someone said something that caused her to burst out into an uproarious laughter and in a split second the mare reared her head up and bit the hell out of my sister's right breast. I thought for a moment she was going to pass out, but after about 30 seconds the pain subsided and a big blue, red and purple bruise appeared. It was quite a shock that this should happen, but no doubt my sister needs to learn to be calmer around her horse or she's going to get it right in the...

A 19 year old college student plowed his mother's pick up truck through our wild game fence late on Saturday night recently and totally demolished a section of it, snapping the wires like sewing thread, including the supporting wires attached to the nearby telephone pole. Luckily no one was hurt, but the damage effects about 60 feet of the fence as seven T posts are bent and that much of the high tensile wire must be replaced, requiring the installation of a new bracing post. He left the scene but called the next day and apologised, which I appreciate but he simply didn't understand that he couldn't come out and prop it up on his own. He didn't want his auto insurance to be notified but when I saw the damage I felt I had to file a police report. His mother got involved and said she wanted to pay for the damages out her own pocket rather than pay higher insurance premiums and we agreed. However, things did not go smoothly at all and in the end I had to ask the sheriff to pay her a personal visit and get her automobile insurance information so we could file a claim and get the job completed by the original fence builder. It's interesting, to say the least, to meet someone who bitingly professes to be an authority on something they know absolutely nothing about, and can be downright aggressive when you try to spell out the facts. The enormous expenditure of misguided energy is quite perplexing and stressful.

I'm enjoying about 3 yoga classes a week these days, and am still working with my physical therapist on strengthening a variety of muscles to help heal and protect my shoulders. The hoisting of kids up onto the back of a horse is not something I plan to do again anytime soon!


Happy Holidays to all and be safe--at home, on the rode, and with your bodies.

On The Ride

A small segment of a dream lingers in my thoughts for days afterwards. I was in an elevator, ascending to the top level of a building, and as I ascended the walls of the elevator began closing in on me--like they do in movies whereby the Indiana Jones character must find a quick means of escape or face death. An elevator is perhaps a contemporary of the wheel of fortune symbol, as it turns, one is ascending, descending, and at one point or another at the top or the bottom, but mostly in between. The emotional and physical ups and downs of life will apparently, at least for me, never end so long as I'm On the Ride. Just when we think the walls are closing in on us we find the strength to hold them open. My fortunes decline and then I find the coffers full; my spiritual strength waxes and wanes; my body forces me to a near state of stasis. I remember the meaninglessness of time, or better yet my skewed perspective, and allow the anger and frustation enough expression to diffuse and soften. I read mystery novels to pass the time. They often adhere to a strict formula which affords a sense of security, of predictability, the forces of evil doing battle with the forces of good where the detective ultimately outwits the villain and despite the damages already done, manages to set things right, more or less. I've become a huge fan of The Closer with Kyra Sedgwick as Chief Inspector Brenda Lee, a southern lady transferred to the mean streets of Los Angeles as head of a special branch whose purpose is to solve high profile murders (on DVD).

I miss group asana practice very much. I miss the community of people and the healing and nurturing that is always present. Doing physical therapy exercises with various colored thera-bands, at home, alone, is so boring that I feel I am being again tested to see if I can remember to stop and evaluate, to slow down even more and look at life from a different perspective. Personally, I don't care if my postural integrity is far from perfect, nor do I particularly care that my right lung is smaller than my left, that I have forgotten how to breathe into my upper lungs using my diaphram--I'm labeled an 'over inhaler'--nor that there's imbalance nearly everywhere from the hips up. But when it hurts and pain becomes a constant companion, I do indeed care and am called into a different kind of action. I've been very surprised to learn that quite a few people who practice yoga end up with injuries requiring physical therapy--so my physical therapist tells me. "We have many students of yoga coming through our doors seeking healing" he tells me. I've given up wondering what I might have done wrong. IF anything, it was pushing too hard doing what I love, not paying careful enough attention to pain, and forgetting the age and condition of this body I inhabit. It's not fruitful to think in terms of right and wrong, clearly I did a whole lot of right because it felt delicious and was so enriching. But now I need to compensate for whatever reasons that led to this imbalance that causes, at times, intense pain. Maybe I was over zealous in my pursuit of goodness, and ego got too involved. Doesn't matter anymore, not now.

A beautiful Siamese tom cat has decided he likes us, and we like him very much. He's not quite feral, but petting him is presently out of the question, much less placing him in a carrier and taking him to the vet for shots and evaluation. But it's been quite enjoyable making his acquaintance and doing our best to provide food and water. We call him blue eyes. How original.

I drive Dale to physical therapy this morning, his knee is healing very nicely and he walks far better post operation than before. We are already talking travel and planning our next adventure, perhaps Alaska, perhaps Ireland, who knows. I have a meeting with my physical therapist this week for the usual evaluation and the fine tuning and tweaking of my exercise program. I also see my newest Orthopedic Surgeon for the second time and hope to learn that surgery is not necessarily on the horizon, although I'm no longer resistant to it. One must be very careful in dealing with these surgeons, they often have god complexes and require that one be especially tolerant of their attitudes, as well as proactive in one's own care, but that should always be the case.

Back to The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte, check on Blue Eyes, have breakfast and begin chaffeur duties.

Interview with Karen Armstrong on NPR

The following link should take you to a brilliant interview with Karen Armstrong which aired recently on NPR's Fresh Aire, and I highly recommend setting aside 38 minutes and listening to it.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112968197&ps=cprs

Should the link not work, just go to http://www.npr.org and find the Fresh Aire podcasts. Let the content be a worthy treat to yourself! I hope you find it as inspsiring as I did.

The More We Learn, the More We Love, the More We Love, the More We Enjoy

While sitting in the doctor's office today I was delightfully surprised at the wonderful collection of books and magazines available to peruse--The Impressionists, a book on Australia, another of Africa, a book on Monet, a limited edition book about the Titanic, and much more. I was also impressed with the doctor and left feeling hopeful, uplifted and ready to move into his prescribed action or inaction, whatever the case may be. I feel quite hopeful that he has an understanding of my problem, one that he describes as "black and white with no areas of gray" and one that can be relatively easy to heal so long as I'm willing to do the work and stay proactive in my health care. I like his holistic approach. I like the fact that he seems so confident that he has discovered physical issues that clearly explain my problem--namely, my shoulder pain that continues to worsen no matter what I do. I wanted to jump for joy and scream YES when he told me that I've done nothing wrong, that this has nothing to do with yoga, or with doing asanas incorrectly, but has everything to do with trauma suffered in 1988-89 that has left my upper thoracic spine very much torqued in one direction which then is at a tug of war with my neck. I think the torqued upper thoracic spine spins my torso causing my right shoulder to move forward, my neck struggles to be forward looking, and there is much nerve impingement, plus the fact the the C-5 cervical disk is 60% gone and two other disks protrude slightly, one to the left, one to the right. I will work with him 3 times a week for the next two weeks followed by work with a physical therapist. He doesn't want me washing the car, mowing the grass, or doing any yoga while his treatment is in progress over the next two weeks. This will be a huge challenge. I will greatly miss the physical connection with community and no doubt the disconnect will not be easy, but this will be an opportunity to focus on the *non asana* aspects of yoga, such as, for example, studying my Anusara manuals!! But out of all the doctors and physical therapists I've seen (and more) he is the only one who has taken x-rays of my full spine, allowing him to view the whole spinal column to see what's going on. It's so common for doctors (and many of us) to have tunnel vision, maybe because we can only see that which we know about. In a book in his office I read, "The more we learn, the more we love; the more we love, the more we simply enjoy."

I took my yoga mat to Puerto Vallarta intending to do asana on the terrace or go to one of several yoga studios, but I simply didn't do that. I thought that giving my shoulders a rest might help--it did not. After a recent afternoon of swimming, I felt more pain than ever in both my shoulders, so rest seem to be a good idea, although the canopy tour of the jungle, all harnessed up and flying from one tree to another attached to a cable wire was definitely a bit of a strain on my shoulders. So mostly I just chilled, and read, and ate, and walked, and visited with people. Our suite in an old villa was funky and charming, right on the beach, and the staff and other guests were simply delightful. Dale struggled mightily with his knee and his greatly impaired ability to walk, so I suppose I did feel just a tad guilty being gone for over 6 hours on the jungle canopy tour. So I arranged several massages in our rooms, did some cooking in our little kitchen, and we spent a lot of time riding in taxis going out to eat at a new restaurant most evenings, lounging on the beach or by the pool or in the cool shade of our covered terrace. It's good to be home, as always. The pair of resident foxes are bringing their kits right up to the house to drink water. I wonder if they will survive the heat and what they find to eat. The birds and squirrels are all back as the feeders are now being filled daily. The old white haired racoon has learned to arrive early to eat what the birds and squirrels have left over. They are all always in search of food and water. The need for nourishment never ends. We can never learn too much, nor love too much, and there is always something right in front of us to enjoy, to take delight in.

"Home", More than a Film

Home is a spectacular film by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, narrated by Glenn Close, filmed in over 50 countries, with fantastic music, incredible aerial views, spectacular color. It is enlightening, enriching, educational, and a bombardment of the senses. Very Highly recommended. Home being our planet earth, its incomprehensible array of plant and animal species, micro organisms, our planet that is around 4 billion years old. We, as humans, having only appeared on the scene in the last 200,000 years. Only in the last 20,000 years did we settle into agrarian communities. Over one fourth of the people living on the planet today live exactly the way they did 6,000 years ago, and of those, three quarters still till the soil by hand. More people live in the deserts of the world than the whole of the population of Europe. Then we come to the last 50 years, and everything becomes "faster and faster" and what has happened just defies comprehension. We are a species like no other, ever. Please watch this film if you get the chance. It's available for rent, or can be purchased. I aimed the camera at the TV and took the above photos.

Resolving that Antsy Feeling

A small remnant of a dream remembered from last night held fast to consciousness this morning, so I've been thinking about it over coffee. Something like this: the large (think super-size) skeleton of an ant fell on the floor after I extracted it from my ear, along with some other debris. I thought it might be the skeleton of a scorpion. With curiosity I touched it, and it was indeed the skeleton of a large ant--dead, decaying, and unraveling. The end of its life cycle. I'm pleased but a little sad, this letting go of something many have told me to do. Let's get to the core. I took yoga teacher training for the purpose of deepening my practice. I never aspired to teaching, and always put that out there and made that clear. Still, others who I very much admire and respect kept telling me that I should teach, that I would be good at it, that it would benefit both myself and others. This kind of positive but instructive feedback was good to hear even though it contradicted my original thinking. I began to question my lack of aspiration to teach. I began to turn it over and over in my mind. Again and again I would come back home to my own thoughts and feelings that teaching yoga is something I GREATLY admire in others, something that has benefited me beyond words. But me teach? Such a new, unexplored arena. So in a way, I gave in to the idea and signed up to be a substitute teacher. I had many doubts--not so much about my ability to teach (but yes, definitely some of those doubts), but more about my desire to teach, and how it would fit into my lifestyle, my time schedule, my commitment to my personal practice, my time constraints. More importantly, is this something I want to do? So I have been doing some teaching, and for a beginner teacher it is challenging, time consuming, and at first pretty scary. But I've done it and while it has dramatically increased my appreciation and admiration for the art and discipline of teaching this sacred practice, I have come round full circle and again have come to the confirmation that it is not something I want to do. And I need to be at peace that this is okay. I need to know that no matter what others tell me (and the vast majority of those who encourage me to teach are teachers themselves), I am ultimately the one who decides what my heart is asking me to do. So I've been a busy ant for a significant portion of my life, then I stopped and was no longer a busy worker ant always with a demanding job in front of me. I will not feel the sting of the scorpion by NOT doing what others tell me, I will not be punished, there will be no consequences to suffer, only that which I impose on myself. So I have given notice to the place where I teach, and this notice was received with total acceptance, understanding, and love. Sometimes my intuition isn't clear, it isn't black and white. Before we truly know what's best for us, we need to get out there and explore, and do it. Go through the fear, move through the action. And then we are far better equipped to move forward in our lives with discernment. And, this may need to be repeated. It is important to listen to what others say, and allow for change and a multitude of possibilities, but ultimately we chose our own paths.

Engagement in the Many Journeys

After yoga Sunday night a small group of us were having sandwiches at The Great Outdoors Cafe: Paul had recently traveled to New Mexico and his roommate has/had a house in Santa Fe, Jim is going to the Bodhi Zen Center in Jemez Springs, his friend is going to meet him for a stay in Santa Fe, Bo was recently there...and all this got me thinking along these lines:

It began with a woman in art therapy giving me a rock that was precious to her. Take it, she said, hold it and feel the magic, let it transport you, it comes from the banks of the Chama River in Northern New Mexico.

Fifteen years ago I had a house in Canones, northern New Mexico, at the end of a four mile long dirt road that began as a forest trail and evolved into a two lane, deeply rutted, narrow, and at times harrowing road to the house and the surrounding four acres. It was a beautiful four mile drive that took thirty minutes to traverse in good weather, in a four wheel drive vehicle or pickup truck. At the crest of a hill to the left was an ancient Anasazi Indian village rarely seen except by the occasional villager and visiting archaeologist. To the right was a tiny Greek Orthodox Monastery that kept me amply supplied with the best locally made bees wax candles in exchange for taking in their cats during short sabbaticals. I had no telephone, no television, and in the winter, no neighbors. Delicious, sweet water flowed through the property from a mountain stream that also brought piped water into the house all year long--a rare commodity for most in this region. Near the corner of a large field behind the house were the remnants of a log cabin from long ago, shaded by an apple tree that was a prolific producer of small, sour apples. Horses loved the apples and with an old fashioned recipe could be made into the best apple pie I've ever tasted. A lone pinon pine towered mightily at the front gate while groves of cottonwoods lined the banks of the icy cold Canones Creek and colored the landscape with brilliant colors in the fall season. Surrounding the house was a root cellar, a tack room, a greenhouse, two large screened porches, one attached and the other some distance from the house as part of a guest room and an old abandoned trailer house that smelled of dead mice. There was a free standing carport adjacent to the small shed that housed the firewood. A giant propane tank stood out like a sore thumb near the entry gate and foretold of long, harsh winters that visited each year with deep snows and subfreezing temperatures. An old fashioned swing hung from the rafters of a small gazebo next to the wooden foot bridge that crossed the creek. The house itself had an exterior covering of split logs made shiny with regular linseed oil applications and was well insulated against the cold. Inside were two bedrooms, a sleeping porch/studio, an open kitchen and living room with fireplace, one bathroom, and a sizable utility room containing the defunct baseboard heating system, washer, dryer, hot water heater, and large freezer. I painted most of the interior walls, applied yet another coat of linseed oil diluted with turpentine to the exterior planks, and painted the trim of the house a colorful Indian red. I gardened, hauled rocks, mowed, chopped firewood, mended fences and gates, cleaned the tall chimney like a chimney sweep, went for long walks in the adjacent state and national forest lands, visited the Anasazi ruins, made friends with the monks and some of the villagers and used tools my hands had never before touched. I added extra panes of glass to the windows of the added-on sleeping porch which was intended for summer use and not well insulated against the blowing winds of winter. I learned to keep it closed off from rest of the house during cold winter nights, then would open it up during sunny days as I sat in front of my easel or took lazy afternoon naps. I added two propane heaters as emergency back-up. I settled in for winter. I was happy and contented. I was doing exactly what I wanted to do, I was following my dream. I had moved to my oasis, my utopia in the remote deserts, forests, mountains and valleys of Northern New Mexico.


I barely made it for a year. The winter turned the landscape to infinite shades of dull, depressing gray. The roads became worse. There was always the possibility of the pipes freezing which would result in the loss of water until spring. I fell off a ladder injuring my wrist with no one to hear my screams for assistance. I drove two hours to get groceries and stood outside in the freezing snows and blizzard-like winds making phone calls home, beginning to question my decision to move here in the first place. As winter wore on and isolation set in, I became desperately lonely. Night after night was yet another dark night of the soul. I would retreat to the Benedictine Monastery about 30 miles away for company, all the while worried about leaving my cats alone. I would walk out to the front gate under a brilliant cast of stars the likes of which I had never seen before or since and call out to some god to bring an end to my loneliness, my fear, my isolation. I spent day after day contacting and visiting various bureaucratic agencies in an attempt to get a telephone installed. I was told that a telephone would be simple to install provided I pay about $100,000 for the 3.5 miles of wires and poles that needed to be installed, after obtaining permission from each and every landowner whose property the lines would cross. I would visit friends in Santa Fe who couldn't visit me without having the underbellies of their vehicles torn away. I would visit art galleries and restaurants and get home long past midnight. I missed my partner back in Austin more than I imagined possible. I started therapy in Santa Fe with a wonderful young therapist who was my saving grace. After several months he asked me what prevented me from returning to Austin, from returning home, from returning to my partner? When I realized the answer was NOTHING, I jumped for joy, packed up some clothes and the cats, winterized the cabin, and headed back home. I had spent my time alone in the deserted northern wilds of New Mexico and came to fully understand the deep meaning in the phrase "there's no place like home." Dorothy said it, she was wearing the shoes all the while without knowing their power. A rich, unforgettable experience, a journey of learning and growth, a time of deep searching and longing and introspection, a time to never forget, but finally, the realization that I needed to go home, and that I had a home to go to.

A young, gifted friend tells me he wants to pull up stakes and move to New Mexico, buy some land, have a house and a separate studio for yoga, massage, teaching classes, group meetings and gatherings, and ideally have a scattering of small cabins on the property for guests. Where? I ask. Somewhere in Northern New Mexico, between Santa Fe and Taos, a small town. Why? I ask. To be in touch and harmony with nature, the dramatic, beautiful landscape, experience the intensity of the change of seasons. Like so many of us, he is drawn deeply into the Land of Enchantment. The place where alternative lifestyles are relatively commonplace. A place of indigenous peoples, secluded monasteries, Zen centers, Native American reservations, communities living off the grid. I totally understand this urge that pulls at him. I have felt it and acted on it. It's important to have dreams, goals, to follow our hearts, to move out into the world and take risks--this is what makes us feel alive. As an elder, I have seen this dream acted on over and over again, and while I'd never discourage anyone from following their dreams, I do strongly advise people to go out to New Mexico first and stay for a while, rent a house, become familiar with your surrounds. It's a very harsh life out there. It's one of the most sparsely populated states in the US. It's difficult to earn a living. It can get very lonely. All the people you dream about coming to visit you may not show up. The community you dream of building may not come to pass. The chances of returning to the place from whence you came are pretty high. I've seen this over and over again. The largest town between Santa Fe and Taos is Espanola. Between Espanola and Taos are a few very tiny towns, and although incredibly picturesque, not very many permanent residents. Heading from Espanola towards Abiquiu is also beautiful, but again a very harsh and difficult climate in which to live. People build dream homes along the Chama River and a year or two later put them up for sale. Countless communes have come and gone. Georgia O'Keefe loved this country and lived there for many years, but in the beginning she rented a house on secluded property of Ghost Ranch and frequently returned to New York. Over a period of many years and frequent visits and increasingly longer stays, she decided to take up permanent residence. But she was a highly successful painter and knew the landscape thoroughly, and was one of a rare breed of people who can thrive creatively and otherwise both in a harsh climate and virtual isolation from community for extended periods of time. But who am I to say that this gifted young man will not go out there and find exactly what he wants and needs? I am not one to say that, only present my perspective, my own personal experience, and be at peace with him doing exactly what he wants to do. Blessings to him and to all who venture forth into the unknown, whether alone or with a companion, in search of meaning and happiness.