Winter Solstice is the shortest day of the year. And the sun will be making his return. With Christmas near, I think about birth and rebirth. And I'm also considering one-eyed Norse gods and eight-legged horses. This is why I love myths. So many wonderful images to describe what's happening around us, even as I write this.

The Texas Liberal writes about the above image. The Nordic God Odin had a hand in killing the Frost Giant Ymir. The picture is of Odin riding his horse who was named Sleipnir. Both Odin and Sleipnir seem to be doing well in the picture. Killing a frost giant is also a reminder that with the Winter Solstice now behind us, the days will be getting longer. That is good news. Before you realize, it will be spring and summer.

Sleipnir (Norse, "gliding one") is the legendary eight-legged horse belonging to Odin, the Father-God of the Norse pantheon. Sleipnir carries Odin between the world of the Gods and the world of matter. The eight legs symbolize the directions of the compass, and Sleipnir's ability to travel through land and air.

The eight legs of Sleipnir are probably symbolic of the eight spokes solar wheel, and probably relate to an earlier form of Odin as a sun-god. There is some evidence that Odin himself was at one time anthropomorphized as a horse; Sleipnir's ability to travel instantaneously associates him with sunlight.

Sleipnir is also said by some to be the shamanic horse that can be used to travel to various consciousness levels. The horse was the swiftest on earth, and could bear Odin over sea, through the air, and to and from the land of the dead. According to Sigrdrífumál in the Poetic Edda, Sleipnir has runes carved on his teeth.

In the norse mythology Odin is the god of war, poetry, knowledge, and wisdom. From Wikipedia, Odin is an ambivalent deity. Old Norse (Viking Age) connotations of Odin lie with "poetry, inspiration" as well as with "fury, madness and the wanderer." Odin sacrificed his eye (which eye he sacrificed is unclear) at Mímir's spring in order to gain the Wisdom of Ages. Odin gives to worthy poets the mead of inspiration, made by the dwarfs, from the vessel Óð-rœrir.[1]

Odin and his horse are associated with The Wild Hunt. I'll leave it to you to learn more about that if you wish, but from this image you can imagine how some folks used to (and may still) think about thunder.

Odin also hung himself from Yggdrassil, the World Tree, in his quest for the knowledge of life and death. (Sound familiar to anyone?) He has two pet wolves too. With whom I suppose he kicks some serious butt.

Happy Winter Solstice. I can almost feel the rising sun warming my face.

Posted by Kimberly on December 22, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Bobcat--Lynx Rufus

Constellation of the Month: Lynx. Johannes Hevelius is credited with the creation of this constellation saying that anyone wishing to study the stars in this area would need the eyes of a Lynx.

Wikipedia. The Lynx teaches us that even the smallest can succeed in life, and that the world can unfold itself to those who stop and listen. The lynx is not a guardian of secrets so much as the one who knows them, especially when it comes to those secrets that are either obscured by time and space or are completely lost to the world. A lynx may guide the listener to a secret, whether it be a lost object or a hidden truth that is somehow relevant at the present time.

I've been dreaming about that old bobcat whose eaten all of my chickens, geese, and one very good barn cat. I find myself searching for bobcat tracks in the mud. In the snow. Both in my waking and sleeping. I'd pretty much resigned myself to the idea that it's highly unlikely I'll actually lay eyes on this elusive cat who's been dubbed the keeper of the secrets of the forest by so many since, I don't know, the dawn of time or whenever it actually was we began to tell such stories.

Until I found out that I can see him in the night sky. If I really look.

I've spent so much time thinking about the bobcat, I wonder if there's something he's trying to teach me? Is it a "meaningful coincidence" that a critter embued with such mythological significance has crept out of the wild and into my waking life during a time when I've been stretched nearly to the limit of my often very small capabilities? I'm starting to think so.

With my ex now showing an interest in J.'s equestrian vaulting and her love for horses, I've had to acknowledge what until recently has been a hidden truth, or more factually--one to which I've been highly resistant. That is, that even people I don't like much and who've done unpleasant things to me have a spark of the divine in them too. The concept isn't just limited to people I like, agree with, or get along with. I'm a gnostic, and if you don't know what I mean by all this "spark" business, then my grandma J., who was a Southern Baptist, would have summed it up neatly by drawling, "We're all God's children."

When I made the conscious decision to embrace this idea a while ago and to try and live it, when I began thinking of the divine spark in each and every man, woman, and child, well, that's when the bobcat came strolling out of the forest and into my barnyard.

I find myself now all of a sudden on Sunday afternoons in the company of my daughter's dad. This is exceedingly weird and uncomfortable, I can tell you. But, I am able to hand him a brush and have him groom the vaulting horse while the kids warm up. I find that I can make small talk about the vaulting horse, about vaulting, about the equipment, about how J. is doing with the vaulting, and I discover, to my utter and compelte amazement, that I can treat this man with whom I've had so much history, so much bad blood, exactly the same way I would treat any parent who shows up for vaulting.

And I'm no longer so afraid.

I see what this means when I look in my daughter's eyes. It must be a terrifying thing for a kid to have parents who are at great odds with each another. Maybe like the bottom of the whole world could fall out from under you at just about any time.

This may not seem like a lot to you or anyone else. I'm not talking about miraculous reconciliations or anything like that. I'm not talking about Christ-like forgiveness, although I'm working on that (but not all that confident it will happen in this lifetime, although I seek to be liberated). What I'm talking of here is mere civility. What I'm talking about is that I can say, "Isn't it cool that your dad showed up to watch you vault?"

What's happened is the old bobcat, the guardian of the secrets, has taken his claws and rended the very fabric of me to expose a little more light. That constellation of stars is almost impossible to see in the pitch black night sky, say the astronomers. Says the part of me that can't see her way in the dark at times. Says the part of me who's constellated some of her thoughts and feelings into a hard lump of cole, a dark star, a black hole.

I stand on the front porch of my ranch house in the middle of the night, searching the sky until I find it where the elusive stars shine outside and inside, thinking that maybe I'm developing the eyes of a Lynx. Just a little. I'm not completely certain.

But I know that old bobcat is more than a chicken eater, that's for sure.

Posted by Kimberly on December 12, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (5)

Bloomberg. Golden Compass' Is Top Weekend Movie at $26 Million

After watching Lyra ride Iorek the polar bear across the sparkling tundra beneath a star strewn sky on the big screen the other night, in what I found to be a thrilling, utterly breathtaking cinematic moment, I wonder if we'll see an increased interest in polar bears from girls? You know, kind of like the girls and horses thing?

Although, given that polar bears are big carnivores with a taste for seals and people (I don't believe I could afford to keep one fed), we probably won't see any rush from well-intentioned parents to go out and actually get one for their little darlings.

That's where my idea kind of falls apart. But I couldn't help thinking as I was watching the film, Lyra clinging to the bear's fur, of the thrill, the absolute joy of a gallop on horseback. In the night. Beneath the stars. I've done it. I bet several of you have too.

My fifth-grade teacher instilled in me a lifelong love of story. Science fiction and fantasy to be exact. I remember the rainy afternoons when he asked us to put our heads on our desks in our dreary, underfunded public school room, and he'd open a book, and we'd be transported to another world. All of us together. You see, story was very democratic. It didn't matter where we came from, what kind of house we lived in, who our parents were, or what we looked like, we shared that common human gift, and we all had access to it with a minimum of effort (especially in gradeschool)--our imaginations.

I've tried to find that teacher. To tell him what his stories have meant to me for a lifetime. But to no avail unfortunately.

I'm a big believer in sacred story too. Art transforms. Lifts our spirits. Just like this scene in this beautiful film did for me the other night. Just as my imagination saved me when I was a little girl.

I am tempted to think that the shrill little man from The Catholic League of America (the one I see on CNN and Fox screeching in outrage at free thought and free will and story that doesn't fit his view of the world) ought to take a ride on the back of a polar bear. It would be damned good for him.

Who are this little man and his ilk? The imagination police? Maybe he'd like to get rid of the greek classical myths as well while he's at it.

Posted by Kimberly on December 10, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (4)

Ever seen a Zuni horse fetish? They are beautiful. I have a small collection, as the Zuni are here in New Mexico. Generally, a fetish fits in the palm of your hand. You can enjoy the smoothness of the stone and the weight of it as you hold it. I like them very much. (The bears are really pretty too.) The Zuni believe that each fetish embodies the spirit of the animal it symbolizes. I love the little turquoise hooves on this horse fetish.

Native-Languages.org. Among the stones, turquoise was widely used in Native American jewelry and was believed to bring good luck to the wearer. It is being used in Indian jewellery for more than 2000 years and the Zuni tribe believed that the blue turquoise representing the sky was male and the green representing the earth was female. Other stones used in Native American jewellery included Coral, sugilite, gaspeite, charoite and garnet.

Call me superstitious, but I have slipped a piece of turquoise into my saddlebags for many a mountain ride.

Posted by Kimberly on October 26, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public squares. Proverbs

Anne over at Smells Horsey writes about her daughter dressing up her horse Buddy in horsey pajamas and all kinds of cute things. And she's relieved her daughter is spending her money on horse clothes rather than on "tight pants for herself that say 'Juicy' across the butt."

I hear that.

Those "Juicy" pants are right up there with the Britney Spears- and Paris Hilton-inspired Bratz Dolls and their equally annoying Petz, both of which I really dislike. To me, these Bratz are like caricatures of girls. Cartoons of the feminine. And poorly drawn to boot. They are someone else's rather uninspired idea of femininity. Not mine.

And I wonder. Why would any mother allow these kinds of societal ideas--"Juicy" and Bratz--to be visited upon her daughters?

Instead of pants that say "Juicy", how about a t-shirt that says Good at Math. A Wonderful Friend. Barrel Racer. Plays a Mean Chopin. History Fanatic. Absolutely Hilarious. Kind. Insightful. Brave Adventurer. Best Sister in the Universe. Big Spirit Inside.

And if we want to go absolutely for broke on behalf of our daughters, because girls aren't all sweetness and sunshine like some old Mother Goose rhyme claims, they do contain the full gamut of emotions, how about Cranky Sometimes. Ill-Tempered. I am Competitive. Or I Get Mad About Things.

Continue reading "Juicy" »

Posted by Kimberly on October 18, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fabulous Kelpie image from http://www.zardex.com/monsters/index.html.

The water-kelpie may appear either as a horse or a man. In the former case the horse is ready caparisoned; and the wayfarer, weary with his journey, may mount the horse, and, once mounted, the rider can never get off—he is stuck fast to the horse. Even were it only one’s finger, it would stick to the horse, and tales related how people had to cut off finger or hand to save themselves. The horse, having its rider safely mounted, at once gallops off to its lake and plunges in. There is a movement of the waters, a gurgling noise, and shortly after the heart and lungs of the human victim are seen floating at the water’s edge. Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, 1888

The water horse often appears on the shore as an extremely handsome man. And his aim is to woo a fair maiden.

Guileless young women from Oklahoma who wore overalls to high school, spent most of their growing up on the back of a horse, and had most of their god-given instinct stripped out of them by a fundamentalism, the aim of which is producing only good, submissive, obedient, and sanitized women, are particularly vulnerable. Especially if they are lonely and don't have much self-esteem. And are too afraid to cross the moors by themselves.

The water horse. The kelpie. The each uisge.

The creature has several names.

When I first learned of the myth of the water horse a couple of years ago, and in my writing about the dark horses, I was struck by the parallels of the ancient stories to my own life. It was almost uncanny. Although, I am, I tell myself, after all, a part of this vast collective unconscious.

There are stories about the water horse dragging maidens down to their deaths, and one nearly dragged me to my own. You see, I married a kelpie, once upon a time, in a kingdom, a long time ago.

Unsuspecting maidens who marry the water horse in disguise may very well find themselves stuck. When you realize the prince has scales and flippers and teeth instead of the crown he was just showing you, boy are you surprised.

And if there are children as a result of the union, the maiden may even have to resort to cutting part of herself off--sometimes with a resounding chop, it's not a very pretty sight, and bloody--in order to become unstuck and to avoid being eaten by this each uisge to whom she finds herself ... married all these years. After all, the maiden will be no good to her children if she's no longer alive.

What good is only her heart?

Which he's promised her he'll make stop beating, if she doesn't behave exactly as he tells her to.

Her lungs?

Which he'll rip from her chest if she dares to breathe a word of her perilous situation to a soul.

And if the kelpie doesn't do it, she can always count on her mean-spirited god to take care of that.

At the divorce proceedings in a stone castle on a hill with lots of banners flying, she's granted joint custody of her children (that means she has them half the time) by the very civilized and overeducated and modern decision makers in their long robes and pointy wizard hats. They are bedazzled by the glamour, the socialite family, the pedigrees, the letter of recommendation by the wife of a Former Governor Himself who'd boxed the lady's ears so hard she's nearly deaf (and everyone knows it too), and all of that other stuff, that is claimed by the real life monster with seaweed dripping from his hair. They don't care if he is standing in a sopping putrid puddle, right in the middle of their hallowed halls.

But dear reader, don't despair. There's a brilliant ending to this story.

Although she was very nearly drowned by the water horse, and gobbled up to boot, the maiden kicks herself free of the muck at the bottom of the loch, swimming through the deep black waters, until she breaks through into the open air, sputtering, coughing, gasping for breath.

Reborn.

Into the full spectrum of life that scares the living dayights out of the water horse and his ilk.

Posted by Kimberly on October 16, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Crew rescues horse from North Knoxville pool. As far as I can tell, no one was eaten.

A 1,000-pound American saddle-bred horse was freed this afternoon from a backyard swimming pool in North Knoxville.

The heavily sedated horse was lifted from the pool using a specially designed equine sling and a wrecker.

Unsure how long the 27-year-old horse has been in the water, rescuers said the horse was too skittish to walk out of the half-full pool on Black Oak Ridge.

The horse, whose name is Mountain and is owned by Deborah Black, went missing Monday night and was discovered this afternoon in the pool, according to trainer David Cunningham.

An award-winning show horse, Cunningham said Black has owned Mountain about 15 years. Mountain is now just a pleasure horse.

“She just turns them loose like dogs,” Cunningham said.

Posted by Kimberly on October 16, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Maybe I'm just cranky today, but a sickeningly sweet Hollywood movie about The Water Horse?

These water horses dragged you beneath the water, gobbled you up, and generally your survivors found your liver or heart on the loch shore if they found any trace of you at all.

Posted by Kimberly on October 15, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oh. Yeah.

Maybe it's the Celt in me.

Posted by Kimberly on October 15, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm standing in the chicken yard, glad to see that my three geese have their game back on after nearly being eaten by the dogs last week. Peepers, Darwin and Duchess are marching around at me feet, honking loudly, mostly at my knees, which I know if I don't watch, they'll be tempted to nip. Luckily, I'm wearing jeans. I think all this talk has something to do with the fall weather, and the fact that they are feeling itchy. Itchy to be a thousand feet above the earth with the few wild geese that pass our way here.

This is the kind of day that inspires my plump, domesticated geese to lumber as fast as their stout legs and flat feet will carry them while flapping their wings for all they're worth to get a few seconds (and occasionally more) of airborne bliss. Sometimes they are lifted up and carried by the wind and the sheer force of all their enthusiasm just over the fence and into the pasture next door. Then I have to scale railroad ties and barbed wire to go fetch them--honking and carrying on something terrible--back from their delusions of flying south.

And then I see the red tailed hawk.

He is sailing between the pinon trees on his golden wings, silent as an arrow shot from a the crossbow of a serious hunter. And right on his tail glides a magpie, a frankly rather scrawny one.

I am shocked, because this is the first magpie I've seen on our ranch. Maybe he's not too smart, and has managed to get himself lost. That would explain his rather shopworn appearance. We're a good two miles from the river here. And I'm even more surprised to see a magpie and a hawk together. Are they together? I ask myself. What are they doing? I wonder.

Well, if he's trying to run that red tailed hawk off, then the little magpie seems to be no match for the raptor who looks to me as if he came down into my chicken yard straight from the sun. A sun bird I am thinking as the magnificent fellow swoops through the trees and disappears.

Just as quickly, the magpie gives up the chase. Lands on the topmost branch of a pinon. Preens his rumpled but formal suit of feathers and begins to sing like Pavoratti. He'd been working so hard before to keep up with that hawk, I'm surprised he has any breath left in his body. The black and white bird makes chortling, whirring, whistlings, clackety-clack sounds in his throat, beak pointed into the air, as if he's celebrating something.

I walk to the edge of the fence to get a closer look, but that bird could care less about me, and continues his commotion, although I'm pretty sure he knows I'm there. As the magpie proceeds with his raucous, crackling, show-off symphony, I consider all that empty air in between the trees and think about what a strange thing this has been to see. I mull it over as I finish taking care of the hens and the geese, and I begin to entertain the idea that there's something more to this.

So I hunt around, and I find this old story. And I'm thinking it's true what they say. The same ones really are being told again and again and again. Whether you see it at the movies or read it in a book or an ancient myth. Or very possibly are just minding your own business and feeding the hens when the story unfolds right there in front of you, just above the chicken scratch.

Posted by Kimberly on October 13, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Furthermore, we have not even to risk the journey alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world. -- Joseph Campbell

It was cold and dark when I fed my horses this morning, and I was looking at the final hard, bright star that was lingering on the horizon, wondering, in the wake of the recent announcement about the impending layoffs at my husband's job, if I'd even know who I am without all of my stuff--you know, the trappings of my everyday life, the things for which I am grateful and at the same time take very much for granted.

The small ranch we've worked so hard for and which is our respite, private school for the kids, piano lessons ... the horses. I look at them in the darkness. They look back. They're not a very fancy lot, although I love them as if they had lineages a mile long.

Could I find them all good homes where they'd be loved or would they eventually become the sad rescue stories after years of being sold around?

How would I patch up the gaping hole in me if that's how this all shakes out?

Well, I just can't take that one any farther right now.

There are countless others today who are treading this same path with me. And we're all in the labyrinth waiting to see if we'll get done in by the Minotaur or not.

I'm not feeling like much of a hero at the moment.

Posted by Kimberly on October 12, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I committed the cardinal sin over the weekend and went to see a film before reading the book. I enjoyed The Dark is Rising. My 10- and 11-year-olds were mesmerized. While I liked the film, I suspect there's a lot missing from the original intent of the book. There's a lot of talk on the blogosphere of the book being sanitized (interesting article on that here) for public consumption and for the consumer demographics that will bring the neanderthals non-readers out to see it.

Why am I not surprised?

I particularly enjoyed the white horse ridden by The Dark in the film. If you are a horseperson, then you'd see the rider giving cues to the horse to achieve the dramatic effect of the malevolent horseman. Once, I saw the dressage whip in the frame, presumably being wielded by the horse trainer just offscreen, as the horse performed some particularly expressive moves on camera. Do any of you other horsepeople out there watch for this type of thing too? Or am I just weird?

Continue reading "The Dark is Rising" »

Posted by Kimberly on October 9, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

My ten-year-old this Sunday afternoon after I showed him the photos of the Hungarian horseback archery on Transylvanian Horseman. (Julian in Romania, you have inspired us here in New Mexico!) And this video of a horseback-archery competition in "The Valley" with Lajos Kassai and his students. I've found a couple of really interesting looking books on the subject as well. Here's a fascinating paper based on Kassai's techniques here-- How to Train Your Horse for Horseback Archery.

C. practiced the "Mounted Archery Shooting Positions" on page 15 of this paper on the vaulting barrel, and then we moved to the horse. I don't know anything about this sport, except that it is simply gorgeous, but it seems key to me that the rider has the kind of balance and independent seat gained from vaulting. So I felt competent to school the positions (in a very elementary fashion) shown in the paper.

Teyla, the appaloosa of steel, took this in stride. (She's been hunting many many times.) Branded with the Bar N on her left shoulder, she's originally from the Navajo Nation. I wonder if she has ancestral memories of hunters and bows and arrows buried down deep somewhere inside?

Continue reading "The Hunt" »

Posted by Kimberly on October 7, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

"On the 1st of November", flickr photo by xylonets. Check out all of his photos. Exquisite and haunting images.

The Augur (pl: augures) was a priest and official in the classical world, especially ancient Rome. His main role was to interpret the will of the gods by studying the flight of the birds (flying in groups/alone, what noises they make as they fly, direction of flight and what kind of birds they are), known as "taking the auspices." Wikipedia.

The secret cause of all suffering is mortality itself, which is the prime condition of life. It cannot be denied if life is to be affirmed. --Joseph Campbell.

The kids and I arrive home last night to find the heeler dogs out of their kennel and the five geese attacked and terrorized, huddled together in a bloody heap in a corner of the fence. The two old ganders look like they have taken the brunt of it. The young gander and the two female geese seem the least damaged, although blanketed in shock, the final defense of prey.

Upon further inspection, I see that one of the lungs of the largest gander, Hermano, is punctured. “Oh no. Oh no.” I am whispering, touching his broken body softly, so softly, wondering at the frailty of his flesh, bones, feathers, this fragile package that houses spirit. His once sleek back is covered in puncture wounds from those senseless, spoiled dogs, and I hate them for a minute, hate them with every fiber of my being. I detest their waste, because this carnage has nothing to do with hunger.

Continue reading "Taking the auspices" »

Posted by Kimberly on October 2, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nina Akamu's Leonardo da Vinci's Horse
There is to the horse a density of power,
a concentrated capability to invoke dreaming.

I stand in the dirt corral this evening, one arm draped around Toby's withers, head resting on his dusty coat, drinking in the musky warmth of the draft horse, the way the light reflects off of the liquid eye that rests upon me like a goose down comforter in brisk weather, when you are still sleeping with the windows wide open.

The autumn breeze mixes up our souls. We watch the sun burn down below the mesa in companionable silence.

Posted by Kimberly on September 30, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

We had no word for the strange animal we got from the white man—the horse. So we called it šunka waken, “holy dog.” For bringing us the horse we could almost forgive you for bringing us whiskey. Horses make a landscape look more beautiful. --Lakota Holy Man Lame Deer

I love to watch my children and their horses.

It's impossible to tell from this photo, but the coat my daughter is wearing is just about The Rattiest Horse Jacket Around. The fleece is almost bare, the elbows are almost gone, the zipper works sometimes, and it will take a good deal of energy to part her from it. J. gets attached.

The only answer is when the weather gets cooler, this one won't be sufficiently warm, and then I'll switch The Horse Jacket out with a new one from the local tack store. Sneaky mom stuff. But not all that sneaky, because we still have The Horse Jacket prior to this one. A faded red affair with black horses that's hanging in the back of her closet and will most likely do so until she's at least in college.

Last night, J. did some vaulting on Caprichosa. This is very informal stuff. We use a halter and longe line, no side reins, and the very lightweight vaulting surcingle (that's all I've got at home right now) because of Cap's sensible and generous nature and the fact that she usually seems to enjoy it very much. Typical of her breed, she's highly intelligent, and seems to funnel the antics on her back through a refined sense of equine curiosity and a bit of bemusement. I don't believe the horse would tolerate it if we decided to get really serious about it with her, however. We just kind of hang loose, and keep it fun, and then she's thoroughly engaged in the process. It makes for good practice.

I wonder what my daughter--the one who gets attached, the one who keeps a clipping from Caprichosa's mane in a little medicine bag in her armoire--will remember about the Andalusian horse when she looks back on her across the years from the perspective of a mature woman? The horse who now carries her way up into the mountains through the sunshine and the hail to deep, high country lakes and lets her stand on her back while she walks quietly and carefully in circles, keeping all of that Andalusian power in check.

Will she think of the glimmer in the mare's eye, that hint of the big spirit?

Posted by Kimberly on September 18, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I step out into the brisk pre-dawn, fill my lungs with the 55-degree mountain air, which is all of a sudden buzzing and rippling in emerald and amethyst waves out of the corner of my left eye. Not quite awake, because the coffee pot has just started inside, I turn in a bit of a sleepwalker's daze and find myself staring right into the pupil of a hummingbird's eye, mesmerized by its hard light burning like a hot white star in the still darkness of the day that's yet to come creeping over the horizon. I can almost feel the incessant beating of the hummer's wings as he hangs in mid-air next to me, like the breath of the morning itself on my cheek, like a thousand tiny kisses.

When I was a kid, I thought hummingbirds didn't have any legs at all--because I'd never actually seen one land anywhere--and the tiny fellows were doomed to forever flap their incandescent wings or else.

I'm relieved that I know better now.

And then there's a ruckus down at the hen house, and the hummer buzzes off. The squawking and cackling of the Rhode Island Reds fills the air, so loud that I think I might have gotten a rooster in the run I bought down at The Feed Bin this summer after all.

Posted by Kimberly on September 4, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been thinking about the dark horses recently as I work on my book. The shadows. The ones that taught me something about myself that I wasn't quite ready to know. This memory of one of my dark horses is from an autumn 30 years ago. An autumn afternoon very much like this one. We were looking for a move up for me from my little quarterhorse gelding, and one of my dad's friends had a racehorse he wanted to sell to us greenhorns.

Doodles Donovan gazes over his shoulder at me with one white-rimmed eye as I pick up the reins. Under the western saddle that previously belonged to my chunky quarter horse—a veteran babysitter with one bad eye and an equally bad attitude—the lanky thoroughbred looks like a prepubescent boy in a size 42 suit. He is named Doodles, Mr. Fix, his owner, explains to us, because the only non-midnight-black part of the gelding is the white mark on his forehead. A backwards question mark, Mr. Fix says. The young horse lets me trace it softly with my index finger when we meet.

A frisson of excitement unfurls down the gelding's spine as I grab the saddle horn and find the stirrup with my foot, careful not to poke the unschooled youngster in the ribs and send him careening off across the ocean of grass that’s lapping up against us in emerald waves, reaching nearly to his belly. Doodles presses his lips together tight. He is not tempted to sneak one bite.

The edge of a jet nostril flicks in my direction. Doodles holds his head aloft, so high I think he might actually tip over off of those long stilts that are his legs. He’s sniffing for clues about this sixteen-year-old girl who seems to think she’s going to take him for a ride out here in this 60-acre pasture beneath all this autumn sky, exactly the kind of day that tempts most young horses to gallop for miles just for the sheer joy of it.

The fact that the full breadth of Doodle’s experience has been on an Ohio racetrack doesn’t escape me, even though I'm almost as green as he is, as I've owned one horse so far in my lifetime. And the knowledge that the horse's brief racing career was a failure doesn’t give me much comfort either as I exhale and swing into the saddle, gently.

Gently.

Doodles freezes.

Posted by Kimberly on September 3, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Flickr photo by anthonut, part of a series entitled Spending time at the Ranch.

The magpie builds a material fortress for itself and its offspring, and then decorates it with baubles and bright objects to remind itself that the home is not just a place of safety and security, but a place of growth and beauty. The magpie comes into our lives to tell us to focus on our homes, is our home protected? Do we have the luxury of material security? Magpie brings these aspects into focus. —Magpie, the Cunning Prophet, Wildspeak.com

As we drive up the steep hill to Rowe Mesa this morning, we are surprised by four magpies flitting across the road on black and white wings and a whole bunch of magpie attitude.

“Look!” I say. “Magpies!”

“What are they doing way up here?” Dennis is peering in disblief through the cracked windshield at the perpetually formally-dressed birds over the steering wheel of our GMC 454. The battered truck is humming upward, light as a feather with no horse trailer in tow.

The kids are craning their heads out the windows, holding the collars of the heeler dogs so they don’t jump out and give chase to these interlopers in our dry and dusty part of the wilderness. The ten- and eleven-year-old point at the birds like they are some kind of angels skimming across the red dirt tracks in front of us, disappearing over the pinon trees and juniper into the ponderosa.

I’ve had magpies in my life since I lived in the Pojoaque Valley many years ago. The Pojoaque creek attracted them in droves. They nested in my cottonwoods and Chinese elms. They built their dense stick houses in my Russian Olive trees. Treasure troves of stolen goodies that our black barn cat used to try and plunder until they kicked his ass. They perched on the apple trees in the orchard that had been planted with such hope.

I was used to looking out the kitchen window nearly every morning to see a posh black and white bird perched on the rump of my dozing Andalusian mare Caprichosa. Horse and magpie as compatible with each other as if they were some kind of dual soul. One creature intermingled with the other. Black and white wings way too small for that round, Rubinesque body and those bell-shaped hooves. What the white mare couldn’t see beyond the confines of her corral, the magpie flew out and back and told her. I swear. Like a shaman.

When I opened the gates of the acequia above my Pojoaque property a lifetime ago, the magpies teased the geese and the hens marching about the ice-cold water suddenly flowing across the buffalo grass and goats’ heads. Smug and superior about having wings for flight over these land-bound domesticated birds, the magpies dive-bombed them without mercy while Caprichosa watched over the gate, swishing her thick white tail.

And I stood there, next to my crumbling adobe house, land-bound as a Rhode-Island Red too. With no flight feathers to catch hold of the air and lift me up.

This morning on Rowe Mesa, as they visit us a good two miles from their home on the nearby Pecos River, they sail straight into the heart of me. And the hearts of my family too.

Four of them. Four of us.

Jesus said, "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty." The Gospel of Thomas

Posted by Kimberly on August 27, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

So the truth about my recent ride up to the trailrider's wall is that I didn't really want to go, lest I give the impression that I'm some kind of backwoods adventure woman, which I'm not. At least not all on my own.

Fankly, I thought we were riding up to Lake Baldy (3 hours), having a lovely picnic and a nap in the tall grass and then returning home. But when we arrived at Baldy, my trickster husband Dennis informed me with that spark in his eye (the one that means there's no changing his mind) that we were going to ride up The Wall. "I'm so close, and I might not get to do it again," is pretty much what he said. I wonder if it's because I read him this quote from The Sheltering Sky not that long ago? I rolled my eyes and dug in my heels, whining about how the horses weren't in shape for that and blah blah blah and every other matter of excuse possible. And so my Trickster talked me into it. And I could have just ridden down to Jack's Creek on my own and waited for him there if he didn't. Because he was on his way.

I love the Trickster. Both of mine (Dennis and my young Percheron horse Toby, who is a major four-legged version of the archetype), and just generally speaking. Trickster pushes us out of ourselves and helps us become something more. Trickster transcends the mundane. Trickster laughs and plays and sees what's just beyond the horizon. Tells you to get back up on that horse because we're going to ride The Wall, baby!

If you follow the Trickster, you will most likely be amazed.

Consulting Wikipedia.org about the Trickster-- Many native traditions held clowns and tricksters as essential to any contact with the sacred. People could not pray until they had laughed, because laughter opens and frees from rigid preconception. Humans had to have tricksters within the most sacred ceremonies for fear that they forget the sacred comes through upset, reversal, surprise. The trickster in most native traditions is essential to creation, to birth.

There's wisdom in the trickster/fool archetype. From mythandmagic.com--

The complex role of the trickster. The trickster provides truth, balance, play, recreation, destruction, creation, change. He is the destroyer of our well-ordered world and the creator of the new through play. It is by change that we are made new. We are all Phoenixes, capable of rising out of the ashes, if only the destroyer will bring us change. Let the trickster lead the way.

Posted by Kimberly on August 20, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've seen some pretty good flamenco dancing here in Santa Fe. Heck, I've even considered signing up for lessons. (Ole!) But I've got to tell you, I think this Andalusian horse flamenco is the prettiest I've seen. What marvelous heart the Spanish have!

International Andalusian and Lusitano Horse Association. Xenophon, considered by most as the founder of classical equitation, wrote of the Iberian horses that they had the ability to gather the hind legs under the fore, falling back on their hocks and raising the forehand, so that the belly can be seen from the front. This ability, which we now call collection, was impressive in that it allowed warhorses to be swift and agile and to stop and turn quickly in any direction. The Iberian horses and their riders undoubtedly gave Xenophon his first glimpse of classical riding.

Posted by Kimberly on November 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Arias anyone? And, tell me, is anyone even paying any attention to the poor earthbound creatures in this performance?

No doubt this will have me singing opera as I'm riding down the logging road.

I like to let our andalusian Caprichosa canter down the road by the railroad tracks with no reins and my arms extended out at my sides like an eagle, eyes closed. That brilliant brave gal never misses a beat.

Now that's freedom.

Posted by Kimberly on November 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I used to ride Caprichosa's sire, Caprichoso a.k.a. Junior, from time to time. He's the only stallion I've ever ridden, and he would kneel for you to mount (if you knew the appropriate words in Spanish). I remember riding on his strong back down the Pojoaque creek while he promenaded with grace and flair. He loved to stand in the middle of the frigid rushing water and splash with a foreleg (and he passed this trait down to his daughter), until he got us both drenched. I could have asked him to stop, and he would have complied, but it gave him such joy. On a Saturday, hikers would literally stop in their tracks and stare at him in awe, like they'd seen Pegasus himself in Northern New Mexico. I felt like a queen, some type of royal personage, but at the same time humbled to be carried across the stone and sand by such a mythical, kind and soulful creature.

Posted by Kimberly on November 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hold onto your seats, folks. This is exquisite. Looking at this big, buff fellow makes me realize that our darling Caprichosa is rather fat (and out of shape due to her injury). Back to the diet, girlfriend!

The International Andalusian and Lusitano Horse Association. The Andalusian is one of the great, ancient breeds of horse. It originated in the Iberian Peninsula and is named for the region of Spain called Andalucia though the breed actually was more widespread. The Andalusian horse has been documented throughout European history and was praised as the finest horse of war by the Romans and Greeks in ancient times. It’s history as a equine type goes back even further, documented by cave paintings believed to be 20,000 years old. It has been known by many names throughout history but has always been spoken of with respect for its uncanny agility, courage, presence, tractability and beauty.

Posted by Kimberly on November 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

But in black, of course, maybe with gold trim. Possibly with a Robertson clan crest. Toby and I'd be the talk of the neighborhood ...

Check it out.

Posted by Kimberly on November 1, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

You are The Lovers

Motive, power, and action, arising from Inspiration and Impulse.

The Lovers represents intuition and inspiration. Very often a choice needs to be made.

Hat tip: OmegaMom. Originally, this card was called just LOVE. And that's actually more apt than "Lovers." Love follows in this sequence of growth and maturity. And, coming after the Emperor, who is about control, it is a radical change in perspective. LOVE is a force that makes you choose and decide for reasons you often can't understand; it makes you surrender control to a higher power. And that is what this card is all about. Finding something or someone who is so much a part of yourself, so perfectly attuned to you and you to them, that you cannot, dare not resist. This card indicates that the you have or will come across a person, career, challenge or thing that you will fall in love with. You will know instinctively that you must have this, even if it means diverging from your chosen path. No matter the difficulties, without it you will never be complete.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Posted by Kimberly on October 29, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I think these tribal Celtic tattoos are gorgeous.

Maybe after a couple of glasses of really good red wine on my 45th birthday next month ... After all, you know, my people fought the Romans. I imagine they were a fairly decorative bunch.

Would you ever? Do you? (I don't!)

UPDATE: Just noticed this. Are those tenacious heeler dogs on my ancestral Robertson family crest? How fitting.

Posted by Kimberly on October 20, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)

I keep this photo in my office because it just makes me smile.

2001. Utah. Winter. I am admiring the buffalo across the barbed wire when this handsome fellow saunters over. (He was so friendly, I think he must have been some kid's 4-H project.)

I have a friend who says that he would have made a beautiful sofa to go in her living room. Now that's just not nice.

Wish I could have brought him home with me.

Posted by Kimberly on September 12, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Have you had your coffee this morning?

Time seems to pass with lightning speed. I sense it careening by.

One more cup ought to wake me up.

Drive-in movie ad from The Internet Archive.

Posted by Kimberly on August 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Check out Michael Hinsdale's exquisite photos on Flickr.

We are hungry. Hungry for nobility, chivalry, sacrifice, honour. We are hungry for meaning, of any kind. Where is the meaning to be found? Charisophia.

After the Galisteo Rodeo and the regrettable missing of the mutton busting, my son C., whose ninth birthday is this weekend, has been asking me if he can please please have some steer roping lessons. Now this is a kid who doesn’t ask for much, and, after all, he tells me, working it pretty hard, he does have a big old quarter horse out in the barn. I mean, you gotta start somewhere, mom. Right?

Right ...

Continue reading "Steer roping and the hero's journey" »

Posted by Kimberly on August 9, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)