Cool.

The Symbolism of the Chariot
Excerpt From the Essenes Book of Jesus
The Sevenfold Peace

And seeing the multitudes, Jesus went up into a mountain...he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

For, lo, I tell thee truly,
The body and the heart and the mind
Are as a chariot, and a horse, and a driver.
The chariot is the body,
Forged in strength to do the will
Of the Heavenly Father
And the Earthly Mother.
The heart is the fiery steed,
Glorious and courageous,
Who carries the chariot bravely,
Whether the road be smooth,
Or whether stones and fallen tress
Lie in its path.
And the driver is the mind,
Holding the reigns of wisdom,
Seeing from above what lieth
on the far horizon,
Charting the course of hoofs and wheels.

Posted by Kimberly at May 30, 2008 | Permalink

I'm getting myself a deck of these. Whoa, Nelly. Talk about archetypes. My early evangelical upbringing has always steered me clear of these types of things. Actually, scared me to death about anything outside those narrow realms. I can hear Pastor R. now, exhorting me to stay away from such things! (Or else You Know Who will send you You Know Where for all eternity. Nice. That's one way to keep the masses in line.)

However, I've been shedding that old garment for a while, and I'm intrigued. The image of the little boy on the white horse is beautiful. What does it mean, I wonder?

Meaning of the Sun Tarot Card. The Fool wakes at dawn from his long, restless night to find that the wild river has, at last, come to an end, quietly floating him into a serene pool. There is a walled garden around this pond dominated by roses, lilies and splendid, nodding sunflowers. Stepping ashore, he watches the Sun rise overhead, bright and golden. The day is clear. A child's laughter attracts his attention and he sees a little boy ride a small white pony into the garden.

"Come!" says the little boy, leaping off the horse and running up to him. "Come see!" And the child proceeds to take the Fool's hand and enthusiastically point out all manner of things, the busy insects in the grass, the seeds and petals on the sunflowers, the way the light sparkles on the pond. He asks questions of the Fool, simple but profound ones, like "Why is the sky blue?" He sings songs, and plays games with the Fool.

At one point the Fool stops, blinking up at the Sun so large and golden overhead, and he finds himself smiling, wider and brighter than he has in a very long time. Since he started on this spiritual journey, he has been tested and tried, confused and scared, dismayed and amazed. But this is the first time that he has been simply and purely happy. His mind feels illuminated, his soul light and bright as a sunbeam. Like the great Sun itself, this child with his simple questions, games and songs, has helped the Fool see the world and himself anew, to wonder at and appreciate both. "Who are you?" the Fool asks the child at last. The child smiles at this and seems to shine. And then he grows brighter and brighter until he turns into pure sunlight. "I'm You," the boy's voice says throughout the garden, "The new you." And as the words fill the Fool with warmth and energy, he comes to realize that this garden, the sun above, the child, all exist within him. He has just met his own inner light.

Posted by Kimberly at May 30, 2008 | Permalink

When you become a role or an archetype instead of simply a person, you become simultaneously both more and less than an ordinary person. More, because you have some special skill, some talent that you’re openly and actively sharing with other people without any expectation of reciprocation. Less, because not everyone necessarily sees the nobility in that simple selfless act of giving. People sneer, people laugh, people make comments of all different sorts. One of my favorite bloggers--Tim Boucher, Why is Juggling Such a Big Deal?

I am riding my neighbor's magnificent Andalusian stallion down the Pojoaque creek on a Saturday afternoon. I've never ridden a stallion before, but Caprichoso (yes, our Caprichosa's sire), is the most docile and the most fiery horse I've ever known.

He simply refuses to walk.

Instead, the Andalusian stallion dances. No. He prances. Caprichoso's neck is so arched I can no longer see the tips of the stallion's ears. Just wave after wave of snow white mane cascading over rippling neck muscles. Frankly, I feel under dressed--in my Wranglers and my worn-out riding boots with a bandana tied around my head--for sitting astride Pegasus on a six-mile, barely earthbound waltz to the Rio Grande.

I am not prepared for the effect we have on the hikers, the four-wheelers, the dog walkers, the waders, the mountain cyclists, and the other horseback riders, whom we pass along the swath of sand.

They stop and stare at us as if the stallion has wings and will take flight. As if there are rings on my fingers and bells on my toes. As if we've just risen from the dark waters of Pojoaque Creek. As if we are the cosmic forces of primordial chaos. As if we seek The One Ring. As if we can lead these mere, gaping mortals to their inner powers of divinity. As if we've just ridden up from Atlantis, where blue jeans and cowboy boots are de rigueur, although somehow Plato managed to leave that part out.

As if we are born of sun and rain cloud.

Caprichoso munches his apple and his carrot after our ride. Closes his eyes and sighs when I give his back a good scratching and swat a fly that's after him.

Then I head for home to make dinner. Epona no more.

Posted by Kimberly at May 29, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

I crouch down on my hands and knees to watch the forager bees bringing the pollen back home to the hive. I don’t have on one stitch of beekeeping gear, just jeans and a t-shirt and my barn boots, but I’m careful not to be in their flight path. If I don’t watch myself, I may just stay out here all day.

Maybe this isn’t a good idea.

Dennis is saying that maybe I look to the bees like a Big Wooly Bear (I shoot him a big, hey, thanks, look.) Any moment they could decide to run me right off of their turf, he’s smirking. But he and the kids are peering at the beehives right alongside of me. Momma Bear. Daddy Bear (who’s still wearing his bee suit, sans the bee bonnet). And Baby Bears, who haven’t stopped begging me for bee suits since we got the bees home, but I expect we’ll be eschewing those soon.

When we pick up the nucs, the beekeeper tells me that bears actually eat the bees’ brood (babies), not the honey. It’s not so much a sweet tooth, she explains, as a taste for protein. I’m hearing her words, but I’m overwhelmed by the vision of a hundred plastic honey bear bottles lined up on the grocery store shelf.

Bears with blank stares.

Bears on conveyor belts going clickety, clackety.

The foragers are coming home in droves. Each forager bee carries her golden prize in pouches on her hind legs, kind of like the saddlebags we put on the horses for back country rides.

Some of the heavy-laden hover in the air right before the front door of their hive as the guard bees inspect them. If they pass the scent test (What’s the password? the kids are sure they are saying.), they are waved on inside. Others dive in through the front door like The Great Waldo Pepper.

In a daring feat of reckless stunt piloting, one of the bees drops half of her load.

We wait to see if she will retrieve the lonely looking little bundle of gold. But she’s already disappeared inside of Gotham, driven by the mysterious forces of the universe.

And none of the other bees seem to notice.

Seizing the opportunity, gingerly, cautiously, slowly, so as not to disrupt the whirring air traffic flow that would make most of those control tower fellows commit suicide, Dennis picks up the miniscule yellow package with one gloved fingertip. We stare at this priceless object of marvel, wondering what to do.

Taste it, he says.

I stare at it, dumbly, wrestling with the idea of giving it back to its rightful owners and the delectable, buzzing temptation of this forbidden thing, this downright thievery.

Yeah, Mom, taste it, the Baby Bears chime in.

And then I am tasting it, the yellow smear of pollen, feeling guilty because it is after all, the bees’ pollen that they lugged for miles through wind and bee-eating birds and the heat and only god knows what else.

The pollen is sweet on my tongue. But not like candy.

It is gritty.

The color of the yellow cactus bloom at my feet.

This is what the earth tastes like.

Posted by Kimberly at May 28, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Hey, I have neighbors! New Mexico horse bloggers, that is--

My neighbor to the south ... Check out Gentle Natural Horsemanship. A New Mexico physicist with a half-Arab named Goose, a paint named Henry, an Appendix named Sirius, and an old quarter horse named Wishes. Oh, and his girlfriend has a Percheron. That woman must be special.

My neighbor to the north ... Carmon has a beautiful band of mustangs. She blogs about her life with them at Life at Star's Rest. Here's a taste of her writing. I love her post about the New Mexico wind--

There are times when the New Mexico wind seems almost like a living entity, a houseguest who has overstayed their welcome, wearing you thin with a constant dialogue.

Now that's some pretty writing, Carmon!

I keep on telling myself I will compile a blog roll. It's on the list. Somewhere. If you have a horse blog and would like to be on the I Gallop On blog roll (big Whoop EE Doo), shoot me an email, will you please? I have a bunch of you in mind already, but would like as comprehensive of a list as possible. Then I'll have no excuse not to do it.

Posted by Kimberly at May 27, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3)

The Transylvanian Horseman is so adept at making history come alive.

His description of his nomad ancestors and the history of the part of England he and his wife-to-be now call home, makes me think of the rich history of my own homeland.

I can't tell you how many times I--a woman who can claim to be Scottish and Cherokee--have ridden my white Andalusian horse Caprichosa down the Pojoaque creek, through villages that at one time were the home of the Pueblo Indians, thinking about what the first sight of a conquistador astride his Iberian war horse must have looked like to the locals. After all, hundreds of years later, I'm riding the same path, still hoping that somehow our paths will cross. (Although would he just pull out a sword and wollop me? Mother of two in faded blue jeans found impaled on creek bank by Spanish sword of priceless antiquity? Is there a Black Irish connection? News at 7.)

I've read that the Pueblo Indians at first thought that horse and man were one creature.

That must have been terrifying.

I watch the History Channel, if there's nothing good on Sci Fi. I love my books, prefer them any day. But a white Andalusian horse is my four-legged conduit into a history I can almost smell and taste. It's so close. Just beneath the shimmering off of the hot sand.

I often find myself astride Caprichosa, whose ancestors were great warhorses and from whom she gets all that bravery, thinking about the myriad of invasions over the course of human history. The Spanish over the Pueblo Indian, for example. Especially when the horse is all blown up to what seems like twice her size, with her neck arched, rippling, lifting her hooves in round soft arcs. And there's always another group clambering to be on top.

Occasionally, I try to pull one out of Finney's great time travel book Time and Again, and think if I could only get myself into the right mindset, I could ride that white Andalusian horse right across time, but that's just the romantic in me. (You'd think at my age I'd have given this up by now.) Sometimes magic dissipates into a sense of a flawed and imperfect world as the mare trots through the creek, splashing water. I'm not hoping for any utopias. I'm not looking for cities of gold, although if you ride high enough up into the barrancas, you can see the neon lights of a casino by that name.

Whatever governments or politicians may claim about being able to implement a perfect world, maybe even a Brave New World, I have recently found myself afraid, it's a wild and wooly and beautiful and messed up place we live in. As tangled up as the cottonwoods and the Chinese Elms in the bosque. A pirate's garden. Like a whole mess of Kudzu vines, although that's a different geography from mine.

I don't think anyone has described or captured this feeling about the mingling of the past and present for me as well as Southwestern poet Jimmy Santiago Baca (check out his books here)--

“Invasions”
by Jimmy Santiago Baca

6:00 a.m.
I awake and leave to fish
the Jemez.
Coronado rode
through this light, dark
green brush,
horse foaming saliva,
tongue red and dry
as the red cliffs.
Back then the air
was bright and crisp
with Esteban's death
at the hands of Zuni warriors.
Buffalo God, as he was called,
was dead, dead, dead,
beat the drums
and rattled gourds.
The skin of the Moor
was black
as a buffalo's nose,
hair kinky
as buffalo shag-mane.
No seven cities
of Cibola gold were found.
Horses waded the Jemez,
white frothing currents
banking horse bellies,
beading foot armor,
dripping from sword scabbards.
I wade in
up to my thighs
in jeans,
throw hooked
salmon egg bait
out in shadowy shallows
beneath overhanging cottonwood, and
realize
I am the end result
of Conquistadores,
Black Moors,
American Indians,
and Europeans,
bloods rainbowing
and scintillating in me
like the trout's flurrying
flank scales
shimmering in a fight
as I reel in.
With trout
on my stringer
I walk downstream
toward my truck.
“How'd you do?” I ask
an old man walking past,
“Caught four—biting pretty good
down near that elm.”
I walk south
like Jemez and Pecos Pueblos
during 1690 uprisings,
when Spanish came north
to avenge their dead.
Indians fled
canyon rock shelters,
settling in present day
open plains.
Trout flails like a saber
dangling from scabbard stringer
tied to my belt,
chop-whacking long-haired weeds.
Peace here now. Bones
dissolved, weapons rusted.
I stop, check my sneaker prints
in moist sandy bank.
Good deep marks.
I clamber up an incline,
crouch in bushes
as my ancestors did,
peer at vacation houses
built on rock shelves,
sun decks and travel trailers—
the new invasion.

Posted by Kimberly at May 27, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

We drove up to Dixon, a little south of Taos, on Saturday evening to pick up our two nucs. A nuc is like a mini hive, with a queen, workers, drones, five frames of pollen, honey, and brood. I think each is something like 70,000 bees. But I could be wrong. Any beekeepers out there care to chime in on that?

Dixon, New Mexico is tucked away in a river valley, brimming with water and fruit trees and at the cool, green farm where we finally pulled in after a hundred miles of anticipation--bees.

Everywhere.

We arrived at sunset, when the last of the forager bees were coming home, laden with pollen. We could hear a creek rushing behind all of the beehives where we strolled, with the beekeepers, in the tall grass, among all that buzzing production, with no special protective clothing on. The beekeepers told us bees are for the most part docile, gentle creatures.

We had to transfer 10 frames filled with bees from their hives to ours, which Dennis had strapped ingeniously into the back of the pickup truck. We have two races of bees--Carniolans and Italians.

Our eleven-year-old daughter Jessie had bees on her shirt pocket. One bee inspected Dennis' ear a little too closely for comfort, although he didn't tell anybody about it until the ride home, Mr. Macho. I had one strolling down the arm of my fleece jacket. I thought I'd have to keep on telling myself to breathe in the middle of all of those bees. But surprisingly, I didn't.

It's cold in Dixon in May once the sun slips behind the mountains. We sped home in the cool pitch night, hives of slumbering bees in the truck bed, and then at approximately 10:30 PM, with a drowsy kid leading the way with a Coleman lantern, we placed the hives on their site.

I like the way this is starting out.

Posted by Kimberly at May 27, 2008 | Permalink

Alien in Contact-- "You're an interesting species. An interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you're not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other."

I dream of a woman riding a horse through the malpais country. She and horse are galloping through an arroyo that cuts through the lava flow. Her long black hair, pitch as the volcanic rock, is flying behind her, furious as the horse's mane and tail.

Funny, I've only seen El Malpais National Monument through the windows of a fast traveling automobile. And it's always scared me. A little. That vast expanse of toothy rock. I've read about it in books, too, but that's not the same. I think that's where the image comes from. It's a part of me.

But, apparently, just like the horse archetype, it's a part of everyone--

From The Complete Dictionary of Symbols (I would highly recommend if you are interested in this sort of thing.)--

Volcanoes are symbols of destructive anger or creative force. Prometheus stole fire from the divine smith Hephaistos, whose forge was beneath a volcano. The volcanoe is also linked with passion.

The horse symbol is the least limited, ranging from light to darkness, sky to earth, life to death. Although predominantly linked with elemental or instinctual powers, horses can symbolize the speed of thought.

I am nearly overtaken by the lightning speed of my life this week. A tedious job in a bureaucracy, where the very best of the Archons roam at will. Never-ending rounds of the same old errands. Driving the same highway corridor every morning and every evening. Without fail. Trying to get it all done in what never seems to be enough time. A slave to calendars and schedules, and being all you can be, frying it up in pan, an army of one. And then falling into bed each night exhausted. Occasionally to find that I can't sleep.

But when I do.

I remember.

The other country. The one which in my waking life is more often than not forgotten. And maybe that's the way it has to be. Because you ride the malpais country at your own peril, for our god is a consuming fire, and all that. Besides, you could get lost, they like to tell you, but you go back again and again. Once you've traveled, you know this materia where you find yourself is not home. No. Not by a longshot. Suddenly you're a pilgrim. A sojourner from a distant homeland. A place without fences or borders. A bold, wild country, this sweet heresy, more than anything Lewis and Clark ever imagined.

My citizenship there is what sustains me, when I can call it to mind.

Posted by Kimberly at May 24, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Did anyone else grow up watching the Beverly Hillbillies? The Possum Day Parade. In the conclusion of a two-part story arc, Mr. Drysdale is still trying to convince the city of Beverly Hills -- and its neighboring communities -- to stage a Possum Day parade so that the Clampetts will not return to the Ozarks. Meanwhile, Granny has convinced herself that her principal competition for the coveted title of Possum Queen is none other than Mrs. Drysdale.

I've decided it's all Granny's fault. Varmints. Co Pilots. Why I see them. Although I'm sure hoping I don't run into a Possum Queen. That sounds positively scary. But here in The City Different, Santa Fe, with more ... er ... free spirits per square foot than most small towns in the U.S.A., there's always the possibility.

Remember how this maven of the Clampett family used to cook up a whole mess of possum stew.

I'm not sure about hats. (The above baby possums are rescues, I gather. The fur hat was donated by the Humane Society for a possum pouch.)

Go on, git, ya varmint!

Posted by Kimberly at May 23, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

I am the recipient of my first ever blog award from Anne, over at the very cool Smells Horsey blog. Thanks, Anne, I love your blog too. Always beautifully written.

Here are the Varmint posts Anne referred to in the nice things she said about my writing:

The Big Bad Beaver God The experience that changed my life irrevocably and led me down this sorry varmint path, which, frankly, had my friends and family worried there for a while ...

A Varmint is my Co-Pilot
A Varmint is my Co-Pilot Part II
Early Varmint Hats
Invasion of the Varmints
A Varmint is My Co-Pilot Part III
A Varmint is My Co-Pilot Part IV

Now that Anne has reminded me about The Varmints, which I had actually managed to forget about for a while and steer clear of, even though there's that varmint-wearing dude on the Santa Fe Plaza every day, despite the fact that it's summer, I will probably be seeing more soon.

Posted by Kimberly at May 23, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

We planted red clover for the bees. Underneath each fruit tree, tiny clover are pushing their green heads through the mud. I sit by an apple tree and marvel that anything I planted is actually growing. I imagine my bees buzzing all over. And honey flowing.

My five muddy horses line up along the fence line, opportunistic equines who live on a three-acre dry lot filled with pinon and juniper. Ten hooves do a number on the thin New Mexico topsoil, and any other vegetation that was there once is now long gone. My percheron horse Toby has his head turned sideways, neck stretched as long as a draft horse's will go, and is doing funny things with his licorice lips in my direction. He's hoping I'll pull some of the timothy grass that's sprouted way up above the baby clover (as a result of all that horse manure fertilizer my tree-planting husband used) and give him a sweet snack. The appaloosa mare stares me down. The full force of her white-rimmed gaze will have me handing over the goodies in no time. She thinks.

Hay seed is the reason the National Forest folks want you to bring up cubed alfalfa for your horses instead of bales. Timothy hay is growing all over the place in the Pecos mountains, carried up mainly in horse's bellies, and then plopped down upon the earth one horse apple at a time in the middle of all that wildness.

I imagine the deer and the elk like it.

Looks like my clover does.

Posted by Kimberly at May 23, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

I am the Darkness behind and beneath the shadows.
I am the absence of air that awaits at the bottom of every breath.
I am the Ending before Life begins again,
the Decay that fertilizes the Living.
I am the Bottomless Pit,
the never-ending struggle to reclaim that which is denied.
I am the Key that unlocks every Door.
I am the Glory of Discovery,
for I am that which is hidden, secluded and forbidden.
Come to me at the Dark Moon and see that which can not be seen,
face the terror that is yours alone.
Swim to me through the blackest oceans
to the center of your greatest fears--
the Dark God and I will keep you safe.
Scream to us in terror, and yours will be the Power to Forbear.
Think of me when you feel pleasure, and I will intensify it,
until the time when I may have the greatest pleasure
of meeting you at the Crossroads Between the Worlds.
Dark Goddess Invocation

Posted by Kimberly at May 23, 2008 | Permalink

There are now baby bobcats.

No kidding.

My neighbor, who's lost over 20 chicks these last couple of weeks to the same bobcat who dined on my lovely, plump geese, has seen the whole family each morning around 4AM, he says. He's the breakfast buffet, apparently.

He's seen a little black bear too. Regularly.

We're going to have to do the six strands of electric fence around the bee hives, no doubt. A bear doesn't just open up the top of your hive and scoop up some honey for a little snack. He smashes your hives to smithereens.

I often wonder if my horses are on speaking terms with bobcats and bears? Do bobcats and black bears stroll nonchalantly through the property in the middle of the night?

I suspect they do.

Maybe with the rain yesterday and today, we'll see some tracks.

Posted by Kimberly at May 15, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)

At the crack of dawn my eyes are ratcheted wide open at the crack of thunder rattling the windowpanes in a fury. What’s everyone so mad about? I’m wondering, and I'm not even awake yet. I’ve been dreaming about a sleek black dog with a square blockhead and glittering topaz eyes. I was worried he was going to bite me.

It’s an understatement to say that an early morning thunderstorm in the Pecos valley is an anomaly. Kind of like a tsunami in Oklahoma. Although I spent more than my fair share of my childhood there in tornado cellars, part of growing up on the Great Plains, I guess.

We are at a dinner party recently, a thank you party, basically, for the men and women with whom my Stetson-wearing husband a.k.a. Jack Bauer works. I hear the words plutonium and atom and all kinds of scientific terminology bandied about. It’s the kind of stuff I have a hard time keeping up with, but I can go there with ya if you keep it at the 5-mile-up kind of level. My part of that conversation is generally just listening, like a good soldier, and asking for a few points of clarification so you know I’m at least trying. And interested. Which I am. I am struck by all of the brain cells and the synapses firing in that drafty room in that old log lodge on the mesa's edge in what they used to call The Secret City. More than anything, though, I am struck by the patriotism of the men and women assembled there.

One fellow party goer, a wife--of one of the eggheads, she says--with pretty red hair and an engaging smile, and on whom I easily have fifteen years, is telling me a story about the duck and cover drills they used to do in high school, as if that would save you, you know?

I know, I am nodding.

Now the only emergency drills we ever engaged in that involved any ducking and covering when I was in grade school in the sixties were of the tornado variety, when they lined us up and down the hallways against the steel lockers with our skinny arms around our heads, but I don’t say anything. I think that nice young woman has imbibed a little too much of the fine boxed wine, which can lead to exaggeration. I let her have her story.

Sounds like the gods are angry. My husband is shaving, smiling and speaking to me from the well-lit bathroom mirror, while I rub my eyes in wonder at the freight train rolls of thunder, wondering how anyone can be so wide awake or so annoyingly cheerful at this ungodly hour, especially with the house shaking all around us.

I don’t know about the gods, but I sure know about his Arabian mare, Miss Morningstar, who follows me closely all the way to the hay barn, in a big hurry for me to feed her ASAP, with her teacup muzzle tucked to her chest, except for when she’s waving it up and down and up and down at the freezing cold rivulets of water running over her forehead and dripping off of her eyelashes. I can feel her hot breathe steaming at me through the curtains of rain, although she knows better than to nudge me, at least most of the time, and I can only think about Thor, the POA pony we had when the kids were little bitty. My husband, who gets to name just about everything around here, it seems, named that old rascal after the God of Thunder himself. The diminutive horse’s two front legs were white, you see, with lots of feathers, making for an impressive thundering gallop with a child on his back.

On the way to school, the Post Office Dog, who growled at me once because I was silly enough to try and pet the unsocialized creature when we first moved here, has taken up her post near the front door. Her yellow fur is sopping wet and nearly curling right before our eyes in the unexpected damp. As my ten-year-old son Cole opens the car door and steps out, with the mail in hand—bills to be paid, NetFlix movies, a birthday card—the Post Office Dog waddles over. And I don’t like the attitude of her wooly shoulders. Or the look in her coffee-colored eyes. If you mixed a little cream in there, they’d damn near be amber.

Topaz, maybe.

I step out of the car, and walk around, strategically placing myself in between Post Office Dog and boy. Cole skedaddles it to the drop box.

Jaws cracked open in a yawn, the Post Office Dog sits back on her haunches, and we have ourselves an old-fashioned stare down.

The thunder roars.

Posted by Kimberly at May 14, 2008 | Permalink

Anyone else out there live with a man who's dead serious about his Stetson cowboy hat?

I have been told on more than a few occasions--like if I toss my coat on top of the precious Stetson cowboy hat that I had no idea he'd put in the back seat of his crew cab pickup truck we're driving to town because we're feeling rich that day, or pick the cowboy hat up the wrong way, or God forbid bend the wire that holds the straw brim in shape just so, or if Toby the Percheron horse tries to take a bite out of that simply irresistible Stetson because I thought it was funny to teach him to steal a baseball cap from my head, or place it on the table flat, etc.--that you don't mess with a man's hat.

Never. Never. Never.

Oh yeah, and I've also been advised that a cowboy hat with any kind of foofy accessories is not A. Real. Cowboy. Hat. (Tell that to the posers in Santa Fe.)

And that those taco hats, the ones with the brims flipped straight up like something you'd fill up with jalapenos and spicy beef and wash down with a cold beer, worn mostly by the hordes of illegals who seem to be overtaking the town, especially the Wal-Mart, are not real cowboy hats either. (I tend to agree. Those are just plain silly.)

Email exchange between me and my husband about the delivery of his long-awaited new Stetson cowboy hat from hatcountry.com to my office this morning:

To: Kimberly. SUBJECT: Your hat arrived! Good news about the hat - I really needed a new one. Dennis

To Dennis. SUBJECT: Confused.Did you order the one with the feather and turquoise hat band??????? xo Kimberly

To Kimberly. SUBJECT: Clarification.No - I got the one with the 24 karat gold chain with diamond studs and a whole slew of purplish green flowing peacock feathers.

To Dennis. SUBJECT: Returning defective Stetson.OH. I wondered about that turquoise. Guess I'll have to pack it up and return it then and specify what exactly it was you ordered. ;-)

Resounding silence.

Posted by Kimberly at May 13, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (4)

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men

I ask my longe-line student if she'd like to try a canter on the horse.

The forty-something-year-old woman is so relaxed at the trot now, sitting it nicely, surprisingly so for just her second-only longe-line lesson on Andalusian horse Caprichosa, who is really like riding in a Lexus, or floating on a fluffly cloud, not to mention an old pro at this twenty meter circle thing, but so full of beans before we start that I have to warm her up for twenty minutes before I can put my student on her back. And of course the whole while my student is watching with a healthy amount of trepidation as Cap and I methodically work the buggers out.

"Do you think you can control her?" my student asks, as one of Caprichosa's flea-bitten ears swivels back to her and then over to me.

"You have nothing to worry about," I tell her, confident in the now mellow state of the mare after all of this well-behaved trotting with student. "I think my daughter's first long-line lesson on this horse was when she was about three years old."

My student seems to do the math, calculating that Jessie is somewhere around eleven-ish now, and must arrive at the conclusion that the odds are in her favor, because she grasps the handles of the vaulting surcingle and takes in a deep breath. "OK", she says, gazing out over Cap's ears, resolute, looking way ahead like I told her, and I wonder what she sees. This woman's only other experience with horses has been a few of those nose-to-tail trail rides, so she has no idea what's ahead of her.

"Now listen," I say as I'm lifting the longe whip from in front of Cap's nose where she's been at a very docile and solid halt, to her credit, good good mare, swinging it around the back of my head, until it is poised just above my right shoulder, "Cap may not get directly into this canter, because she's not some big deal dressage horse and she's a little out of practice. You may get a few strides of the trot beforehand, and it could be a little choppy?"

My student is nodding her head in what I take as consent, and that's when I allow the whip to flick near Cap's hock, lightly, lightly, and ask for "Caaaaaanter!" but we get four, five, six strides at the trot, with my student hanging onto the surcingle handles like she's prepared to meet her death, until the Andalusian leaps forward into the canter departure, and the woman is right there with her, face betraying her surprise at the power of the hindquarters, at the rocking, rhythmic waves of motion, at three beats repeating over and over again, at all that muscle undulating beneath her seat bones, buttocks, thighs, calves, ankles. Then I think she forgets her fear, because she's all smiles like a little girl for a good three strides, until she seems to remember herself, and is suddenly all afluster OK OK, that's enough, we can stop for now, we can stop, she's announcing, and I ask Cap to halt, which she does, good, good mare.

Cap is blowing through her nostrils, annoyed at me for the stop when she was obviously just getting warmed up. And I am surprised that my student is wiping tears from her cheeks.

She is crying.

"I'm not crying because I'm scared," she tells me, embarrased, rubbing her eyes, although there's no reason to be, and I tell her "it's OK, it's OK, if you haven't done this before, this is big deal territory, in my estimation, this cantering on a horse when you haven't done anything like this before." And I am surprised to hear it coming out of my mouth, just like I know what I am doing, or just like I feel it's necessary to fill up the empty space in between now and what happens next -- "You just go ahead and bawl if you want to."

I don't know a lot about her, but I do know that my longe-line student is a survivor. Of one of the worst kinds of agony I can imagine. I know that something touched her deeply. And I don't need to know what it is that happened in between the trot and the canter. It's none of my business. But as I'm patting the horse's neck and bragging on my student, telling her how well she's doing, I am just wondering at the whole thing.

At how deeply a horse can move us. And at where our shadows rise up to meet us.

I imagine Cap might have something to say about that.

Posted by Kimberly at May 12, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (7)

Well. I did it.

Traded my beautiful, elegant, shiny, gas guzzling hawg of a Chevy Tahoe for a brand new Honda Civic that will get 40+ miles per gallon if I tone down my driving habits. At 17 MPG, putting 100+ miles a day on an SUV to get to work and back plus run a few errands would just about make anyone with a lick of sense who isn't a gozillionaire weep. Profusely.

I feel like an era has passed.

Is anyone else feeling like this too? (And please don't send me preachy comments about the environment and global warming. I need to do this pitiful bout of wailing right now and I do have a DELETE button, you know.)

The era of driving around in super stupendous luxury, being taller than everyone else on the road, bigger than everyone else on the road, being able to drive wherever the hell I liked, etc., in whatever kind of weather. Not to mention just looking fabulous, absolutely fabulous in that stunning super loaded SUV. I admit, I had the cushy soccer mom thing going on, and I enjoyed the living daylights out of it. Call me shallow, but that Tahoe meant a lot to me, kind of my weak spot, OK?, and I'd waited a long time for my big, fancy car. When I tell this to my dad, he replies that Detroit makes most of its money off of our egos.

Ouch.

Words of wisdom from a man with a big Mercedes Benz and an SUV. But then again he's retired and not commuting.

We still have the trucks. Heck, they are paid for. And we've got to be able to haul hay and horses.

My husband the cowboy just bought himself a Mini Cooper. Cute as button little thing that actually looks like its going to make driving fun, especially when at ~40 MPG you haven't spent every single dime you've got on gas. It's still in Germany (isn't that where they make those BMWs? Bavaria?). Destined to arrive in three weeks. I'm wondering where he's going to put his Stetson. I will have to resist dubbing him the MINI COWBOY.

Even in this state, where I just heard on the radio this afternoon that 70% of us New Mexicans still own our trucks and are loathe to part with them, more than any other Americans, apparently, I still had a hard time getting a little less than the blue book value for the Tahoe until the good folks at Honda Albuquerque made me an offer I couldn't refuse. With the price of a barrel of oil still spiraling up into the clouds, we managed that still palatable deal by the skin of our teeth.

I kept looking at my beloved Tahoe as I was setting my mind to do this awful, unspeakable thing, wondering if I couldn't put solar panels on her somewhere. You know? Or some kind of masts and sails setup to harness the wind and get me going. If I had one more draft horse, I'd just harness them up and pull my gal to Santa Fe. But it's too late. My beautiful baby is gone. I should not admit this, but I hugged her goodbye in the Honda dealership parking lot. I think the salesman was embarrassed. My little girl Jessie hugged her too. (Possibly I have not been teaching my daughter a good thing about being so darned materialistic about an SUV. But then again, you could never accuse me of being uber PC.) And you know what? I don't care. And yeah yeah yeah, the little tiny itt-bitty short Civic is fully loaded and has a sunroof, etc., even a jack for my MP3 player, heck, it's actually very pretty, but I don't want to hear that. I need a little time on this one. You see --

I. Am. In. Mourning.

Sniff. This end of an era thing sucks.

On the bright side, maybe one of these days I'll be riding my draft horse to the office.

Posted by Kimberly at May 9, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (7)

When I teach my nine-year-old niece to ride, the daughter of my now ex's sister, a whole other lifetime ago, I hang back what seems like a quarter of a mile on my neighbor's aging Morgan gelding, the 25-year-old who's still too spry and full of himself to put a kid on, and I turn her loose.

My appaloosa mare Lacey trots down the sandy Pojoaque creek bed, her new shoes catching the sunshine, making me shade my eyes with one hand. My niece's blonde ponytail is bobbing beneath the white riding helmet that's been handed down almost one too many times, but not quite. The mare's salt and pepper tail is held aloft as she carries the little girl further away from me with each step. I know just how fast that spotted, raw-boned horse can run if she's of a mind to. But I also know she won't, not with that precious cargo holding the reins (and her own) just like I taught her to.

The girl has learned well.

Framed by the blood red barrancas, both niece and horse look very small to me, and I fight the temptation to ride up beside them, until they disappear around a bend of swaying cottonwood trees that are all heavy and summer heat stroked, nearly faint in their velvet greenery, way overdressed for the high desert afternoon, until I can't stand it any more.

I let the Morgan gentleman who's been dancing and chomping on the bit like a three-year-old render his always surprisingly big energy forward. (Ebony was A Very Big Dressage Deal in his younger days, and he will never let you forget it, not for a single minute.) The Morgan and I are sluicing down the creek bed like the frigid river water he's splashing up in style with his hooves, until we are both drenched, and the New Mexico sun is upon us like a pack of wolves.

We ride the current towards horse and girl, but we never quite catch up.

I haven't seen her in over a decade.

Posted by Kimberly at May 9, 2008 | Permalink