SIMPLIFY

nature can endure without art

but art cannot endure without nature

There are a lot of ways to feed, care for and heal each other, ourselves and our animals. After decades of study and application, I find that the simplest ways are so often the most effective. In "The Well-Being of Pets and Companions", I explore the modalities that are most accessible to us, most logical, affordable and powerful when applied over a period of time. You know, allopathy provides chemical compounds that work upon symptoms and can have an immediate effect. This can be good when pain is unbearable, etc., but eventually the causes of those symptoms must be addressed or they will just return (doing their job to alert us to the condition). Holistic modalities based upon nature and phytotherapies based upon plants must be used over a period of weeks, even months to become catalysts of balance and harmony. It usually has taken time to get out of balance, it could take an equal amount of time to return. Simple herbal supplementation, use of flower essences, essential oils, clean water, fresh air, movement, meditation, whole fresh foods... these are the supreme healers. Find balance through a synergy of energetic, loving methods that do no harm. Namaste'

Confusion

I received an Email from a young girl and cannot get my reply to send, which frustrated me, but then I realized that I'm probably supposed to put the information out to a broader audience. She has a young horse that she is re-training and her concern for his wellbeing and awareness of his confusion really touched me. Confusion is a big factor with horses. When it happens, no progress is made, we even go backwards, undoing the good stuff we thought was confirmed! And it happens more often with the youngster and when we are exploring an assortment of schooling philosophies. The only answer really is to "start over" by finding one thing that makes sense to the horse and returning to it each time he becomes confused. It will be the foundation that you use to start, restart and establish communication. It can be to groom him, or to lead him over poles on the ground, or massage his neck, etc. Just find one thing and stick to it. I had a student whose horse freaked out every time she went out her gait and she really wanted to trail ride. We started walking serpentines around cones in her pasture. Then I put the cones just outside her gait, she walked serpentines throught them, slowly I moved one cone at a time further out until we had her riding down the road. BE CREATIVE.

Not quite empty

The artist across the courtyard from me drives a new Jeep. I drive an older Jeep. I have been running on the "bottom" of my gas tank, putting in what gas I can whenever the low fuel light comes on. She runs on the "top" of her tank, filling up every couple of days. We are spending the same amount of money on gas...she is secure in knowing that she has a full tank. I have been really nervous a couple of times coming down the mountain, hoping to get to the Mercado in time. I have finally realized that this is a reflection of a much bigger picture. For some reason (perhaps the price of the gas), I got into the habit of waiting until the "last minute" or believing in the limitation of circumstances. This stuff will reflect into my whole life! I have to change now. It is all a matter of perception and I let the idea of being ripped off at the pump infiltrate my way of life. I know better than this! But stuff like this can come at you in unexpected ways, and, caught off guard, you can be influenced without realizing it...with just this sort of thing, running on the bottom of your tank. I am going to fill my gas tank (I may need to sell another painting to do it!) as a statement to the Universe and start thinking like my neighbor.

Choices

Dharma Horse is all about seeing our animals and ourselves as mobile aspects of this Earth, this planet that sustains us. When we can understand the consequences of poisoning our earth and ourselves with chemical pesticides, stripping the surface of the planet to feed short-term, short sighted goals, manipulating the very foundations of matter by re-combining DNA (!!!!) in our foods and vaccines (!!!!!) - (a questionable practice even without genetic modifications), maybe we can change the systems that started this insanity in the first place. HOW you live your life sends an energetic pulse into the Universe that adds momentum to the sanity or the insanity of the systems that you support with your choices.

DHARMA HORSE

Storms

We have received giant, rolling storms full of rain every afternoon and into the night since early July. The mountains that surround our home look like Hawaii and the pastures are so tall that the horses' heads disappear as they graze. The lightning that we see to the north leaves one's vision blurred and strikes every 3 to 5 seconds. If that isn't passion, I don't know what is. The energy held in those clouds and released upon us is true DRALA - energy without aggression. The storm has no judgement, no anger, even though it seems overwhelming to little humans. The storm just IS. The passion in it is the energy in it. Just like "love" and hate are opposite ends of the spectrum of passion in human terms, the blessing of water and the "curse" of hail and lightning are the ends of the passion of storms. Passion has no opinion, no agenda. Energy just flows. If it cannot flow, it dies. Blocked, static/stagnant energy (chi, Ki, lifeforce, etc.) will cease to be energy. What we attach to it defines it for us (negative, detrimental; possitive, edifying) but energy moves dynamically in any direction that opens to it. Remain open and let passion charge your soul with possibilities. Then direct it for the good of all. Namaste

Holding the Form

This appears to be a strange time for us all. I do not watch or read "the news" but have heard some things from friends and family that alert me to the conditions the world is facing. I've been having my own difficulties that are certainly working to teach me some profound lesson(s). I hope I can learn quickly enough to preserve my own situation and create the life of service and growth I envisioned for this Arizona experience. I tell the story in my book of how "horses are only frightened by 2 things... things that move and things that don't move". WE are looking at things that are frightening if we LET them be scary - limitation/lack/dis-ease/disaster - we can hold that form of wicked belief in the smallness of who we are. OR, we can see the illusion of our belief in the "power" of that form and meditate upon the heart of our strength. That is the heart and mind of our deepest knowing, it is who we are in the joyful, healthy, passionate times that we CAN call into form by seeing through the same eyes we saw through in that time and space. I'm working on it. I was scattered in my vision and my effort by fearful belief in limitation. When it slaps you in the face, sometimes you are not prepared to turn and face it. But if you DO face it and you see it for what it is - "the things that move and things that don't move" of our collective belief in mastery of limitation - you and I can then shift our focus and hold the new form of our limitless possibilities. I am going to build a healing place for people and horses based up 5,000 year old methods of classical horsemanship that do not rely upon gimmicks, personalities or catch phrases. What are you going to do? Find passion for something wonderful.

Connections

As a child I believed that water all over the Earth was connected. If I floated with my eyes closed in my Grandfather's pool, I felt as if I was also in the ocean. I floated in rivers, creeks, puddles... all over the planet. Now that I have spent decades less aware of water and disconnected from the perceptions of youth, I find myself needing that perspective to heal my thought processes and help to heal the planet. My Mother taught us that "water is life" and we had to respect it. She always said and still says that we should have built massive pipelines to take flood waters to the desert. Of course, piping oil was a priority in the past. Moving flood water would not have put huge sums of money into hungry corporate guts. But now a new life force is awakening on this Earth and touching the hearts of everyone. The old patterns are falling away like old dead leaves to make space for the new life preparing to emerge. Now I find that floating around in any pool of water connects me to that swimming pool at Grandfather Hodel's in my past and I know for certain that I am also connected to all the bodies of water on Earth - including all the human and animal bodies that are made up of mostly water! We are all connected, energetic, pulsing water holding a human form and everything that we do, we do for or to all of the life forms on Earth. Namaste'