Category Archives: horses, dogs & more

Jan17

ride!

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IMG_1996Sanne and Brandi Rivera – photo by Pam White

Had a wonderful ride yesterday on the magnificent Sanne with the brilliant trainer Brandi Rivera.  Pam White and I had a conversation this morning and the phrase “dissolving into wholeness” came through.  That is what happens with the horses – thinking stops, being starts; all the disparate parts of me and of my life seem to open out and float into a wholeness that feels both homogenous and richly differentiated.

Many years ago, composer Pauline Oliveros taught my dancers and me the “unique strategy.”  What that means is to experience each moment, each movement, each breath as distinct, utterly new.  When I ride, I am practicing the unique strategy.  I am not riding the accumulation of my habits or expectations, but this exact moment in all its richness and possibility.

How do you practice the unique strategy?

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Jan6

transitions

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You enter a new segment anytime your intentions change: If you are washing dishes and the telephone rings, you enter a new segment. When you get into your vehicle, you enter a new segment. When another person walks into the room, you enter a new segment.

If you take the time to get your thought of expectation started even before you are inside your new segment, you will be able to set the tone of the segment more specifically than if you walk into the segment and begin to observe it as it already is.

Esther and Jerry Hicks, Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires

Last year I gave an e-course called Breaking into Blossom.  It was about moving into an improvisational life, becoming more playful and intuitive in our daily lives, our work (play) and relationships. I loved the Abrahamic strategy called “segment intending” and wove it into the course.

Today I was riding and used it to focus myself during each phase of the ride.  The ride felt like it made more sense, and as if each part of the work was clearer between us.  I also could feel that I was not dragging anything that didn’t go so well with me into the next segment.  At the same time, there was a cumulative sense of harmony and attunement.

Why think about this?  Looking at your day this way is a way to create a conscious shift from one state to another. Think about it as an opportunity to re-boot, to create a mindful shift at many points during the day. It is also a way to feel yourself entering and exiting, beginning and ending. Even if you just get up from your desk or your practice to make a cup of tea, you are leaving one segment and entering another. An interruption of a work cycle by a telephone call is another segment. Another opportunity. What I like is nourishing mindfulness about each of those changing states.

You can buy the eBook, Breaking into Blossom, here

 

Jan4

year of the horse

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1M0B9153bwdgDancer:  Paola Styron with Capprichio ridden by Brandi Rivera in FLIGHT; Photo:  Jeff Anderson

What I love about this photograph is the way that Polly, Capprichio and Brandi are lifting off together, keeping up with each other, syncing up.  I spend a lot of time with horses.  A lot of that time is spent looking for that kind of attunement.  What I find is that what is often missing is the loft and thrust of this picture.  Maybe too much earth and flesh, and not enough air and wing.

My prayer for myself in this year of the horse is that I keep lifting, keep flying, catching the air, winging and hoofing as I move through my days.  I believe that horses love that exuberant dance when we allow them to be fully themselves.  When we are riding, if we want to experience that kind of expressivity, I believe we have to discover it in ourselves first.  What does it mean to be an expressive rider?  Here is the beginning of a list:  breathing, playful, light, smiling, opening, balanced, enthusiastic.

The year of the horse feels like a huge portal, a great opportunity to channel and relish all the gifts of horse magic and love.  Where will you find it?

Jan1

for the new year

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Picture 3

This is my favorite poem. It is like nothing else. For those of you who have not read it, or those who never tire of reading it, this is my wish for the New Year: to break into blossom every day, to open and then open more – to the moment, to each other, to possibility and delight. Happy New Year!

A Blessing

by James Wright

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

“A Blessing,” by James Wright, from Above the River: The Complete Poems and Selected Prose. ©Wesleyan University Press, 1990. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)