Category Archives: the body

Sep19

the heart of the Deo matter

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Photo:  Pam White

This was taken when Deo first arrived from Spain.  I was in love.  I still am.  That is the heart of it.

The world of the women who like him is oddly quiet.  We are all waiting.  I am waiting to be moved in either direction.  I am waiting for the foggy part of my heart to clear, and for what is best for him to ring me like a bell.  And that is what it is about.  What is best for him.  It is best for him to connect, to have fun, to be loved.  He loves to be ridden well and playfully – that is the part I am less good at.

Deo is not waiting.  He is being.  Today when I went to the barn he bopped me again and again with his nose as I stood talking to my friend Melvin.  “Hey!” he was saying.  “Hey!  Here I am!” I didn’t ride him because I pulled my back out rehearsing a new dance I am calling “Beast.”

So I let my patient Friesian, Sanne, carry me around the ring, to see if my hips would rock back into alignment.  At one point I closed my eyes and let Sanne carry me without “riding.”  Eyes closed, I could feel all the details of my hips, his back, and I could feel his mind taking over, protecting me.  I wept. Something sad, something thankful, something unknown.

 

 

 

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Sep14

the Deo diaries – part 2

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This is what life with Deo often feels like.  Chaos and connection.  The chaos is less now than eight years ago when these photos were taken.  The connection is there, but it is different, a little dented and scarred by history and time.  Both of us are older.  I am not sure that either of us are wiser.  Amadeo is why I became a Tellington Practitioner.  So that is a gift – I had to figure out how to be with him not just in the saddle, but on the ground.

A little story about why that was so important.  About six years ago  we left Martha’s Vineyard for the mainland.  Amadeo had just arrived at a new barn – a lovely place in Millbrook, NY – a dream barn with big green pastures and excellent horse care.  I was happy, excited.  So I took him out of the barn in just a halter, to walk around the barn.  On either side of the barn doors were statues of horse heads – a nice touch, I had thought.  As we aproached the door, I could feel him go “on the muscle”.  What that means in horse-speak is that he became one big 1200-pound muscle – fully alert, head up, tail flagged – a bomb at the end of a rope.  My heart was pounding, and I spoke softly, trying to ease him back inside.  Suddenly without warning, he spun and shot out his hind leg – fully extended – and slammed his shod hoof into my leg.  Everything went black and sparkly for a moment, and I somehow staggered into the barn and melted down the side of the wall as someone took him from me.

I was in bed for about three days – could not walk at all, and had a hoofprint with a nice little egg of scar tissue in the middle for about 2 years.  I felt betrayed, angry, scared.  That’s part of what I mean about scars and dents.  Both the ones inside and the ones you can see.

Linda Tellington-Jones helped me with a lot of that.  I am a pretty confident horse handler now.  I read them better, I don’t project terror, and I have some skills.  And I am careful.

Today I am going to ride Deo again, to see if yesterday’s good ride was some kind of weird anomaly or the beginning of something new – a breakthrough of sorts.  On Monday, the nice women who are interested in him will come.  We will see, we will see.

(to be continued)

Aug24

I want to graze

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I have not had much time to graze lately.  Now it is the end of summer, the cicadas are louder each day, the birches are salted with yellow, the beetlebung has little sprouts of burgundy at the tips of its branches and the gardens are looking fallish.  I want to graze.  I want to stretch out in the sun and let the earth soak me in and let myself be soothed.

It is time to return to some creative projects that have been waiting, dusty and patient, for me to return.  I have in mind some new offerings, including a horse dancing teleseminar, a short ebook on horse dancing for non-horse folks, and a workshop called Move! Write! Move! that I am planning with the wonderful word coach and performer, Carol Burnes.

Stay tuned!

 

 

Aug22

on not commuting to the dance

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I love this story of how dancer and choreographer  Remy Charlip discovered the secret of dancing every part of his day.  It’s in the first three minutes.  Check it out.

What I love is how he makes dancing an inevitable, inextricable, essential part of every day.  I want that.  In her blog,  Pam White asked what you would do no matter what.  My first and most real answer would be move, to dance, to play in the garden of my body – let it bloom/explode/ooze out in strange and wonderful ways in shape, gesture,  story, time and space.

Jenna Wogenrich asks us to write down what we want.  I want to always hold the spirit and the impulse for dance in my hand, my heart, my mind, so that a moment’s notice, I can take flight, I can bloom into movement, be swept up in a current of unexpected wildness.  I want to always feel like moving,  to open to what is arising in my body.  I want to do this out loud, quiet and soft, here and there, with you watching, with no one watching.  Everywhere.  All the time.

I want to dance every part of my day.  What about you?