Easter

Growing up, I had a very vague idea about Easter. Something about spring, palmferns, daffodils and hyacinths, painting eggs, drinking eggnog (or was that Christmas?) and hanging cute little fuzzy sheep on the branches of cuttings of forsythia, which, if we were lucky, would be in glorious, bright yellow bloom by then. I really wasn't sure why we were painting eggs and hanging sheep, but it was fun family time with Mom.

Our family was not the churchgoing kind. There was no antipathy towards church or religion that I could ever tell, it just wasn't something we did. If I asked my father if he believed in God he would say he didn't know what to believe - the agnostic. If I asked my mother, she had far more interesting answers - the borderline pagan exploring the healing arts. I never asked my brothers, but just to round up my exposition, let's say I suspect they'd fall in the agnostic leaning on atheist range. They may correct me at will.

The funny thing was, while there was little talk of God in our house, there was plenty of God in my heart and I thought about that alot. I was at ease and at home in the thought that God exists and spoke to me whenever I would listen. I didn't need anyone else to tell me about God, I was just curious to see if they knew about him, too. But in the quiet of my little mind, I already knew all I needed to know.

I knew that God was an omnipresent, benevolent, humorous presence. I knew there was no explaining God in human terms - he was a feeling, a message painted in exquisite brushstrokes of emotion that would grace my senses from time to time. I knew God would pull my leg and drop funny coincidences in my lap. I knew I was one hundred percent loved, one hundred percent free, and one hundred percent responsible for myself, that I had a life to live and lessons to learn - but God had my back. And I knew God was way, way bigger, present and so much more fun than most adults realized. I never could figure out how they thought he would fit in a little church.

So I wasn't worried about going to church. I was curious. When I chose to become confirmed in the Protestant faith as a twelve year old it was purely out of curiousity and because that is what everyone did and then the adults threw you a party. Yay! I confess, the process did little to interest me in further churchgoings or religious studies, though I do love old churches, their aura of solemn and sincere worship, and I have a profound respect for religion and what I know it offers my friends of various religious beliefs. But while I found the stories that I saw as metaphors and allegories intriguing, the rest was just confusing to me. It didn't seem to match up with what I knew of God in my being.

 

 
 Thus ended my religious career at the ripe old age of 12. I have since read far and wide on the subject because it interests me from a historical perspective. I have had to relearn and remember much of what I knew so readily as a child, and I have come to realize God and religion means very different things to different people, but most important is what God means to those who believe, and that is for noone to say but they themselves.

Now, when I think of Easter and it's original meaning, I also think it means I can choose again. Not just at Easter, but anytime I can clear my mind of the murderous drudgery, habitual beliefs, fear, societal insistence upon time worn norms and the haze of social media. I can resurrect myself, face my True North and start again, day after day, attempt the impossible and overcome. Overcome my own doubts, the skepticism of others and the fear of ridicule. Overcome, go forth, and be my own Miracle.

Here's a Happy Easter song to All, wherever you may be and however you celebrate, may it be a happy time for you with family and friends. ( And painted eggs and fuzzy sheep.)

PS. See you Monday.

Making Peace

They (the ominous 'they').....they say that breaking up is hard to do - but making peace is sometimes even harder. Sometimes, as in not always.

I recently went through one of those times with a friend where miscommunication, misconceptions and misunderstandings flourished and finally reached a breaking point that all but ended our friendship. Fortunately, we managed to find our way back from the edge upon which we teetered, hand in hand, after a lengthy conversation involving alot of 'but when you said....but I thought....I understood you to mean....why didn't you just tell me?' We made peace, we stayed friends, because we were both loathe to lose the other, and because we were both willing to take a closer look, a second listen and reinterpret the situation. When I put down the phone, I heaved a big sigh and enjoyed one of those moments of complete inner peace, a relief so huge it poured itself as a soothing balm upon any and all worries and left them sound asleep for hours.

I basked in my inner calm all afternoon and wondered - if making peace feels this good, why don't we do it more?

Because sometimes, it's just not that easy. It takes two, and sometimes it takes more of one than of the other. Sometimes the wound is too deep, too repetitive, the boundaries broken once too many, an inner reserve of forgiveness dried up after lengthy abuse. Sometimes, you have already walked so far and so long you just don't care enough anymore to walk the extra mile, and if peace is to be made, you wait for the other to cross the bridge before you. Sometimes, that ship has simply sailed and you choose to no longer sail with it or chase after it. You choose to make peace on your own, with yourself, as best you can, in the knowledge that you should expect no help from the one who lived the story with you. Sometimes, you have to accept they are not capable of introspection, of offering you anything but glib excuses and hand-me-down lines that leave you alone in your wrongs at every turn.

Everyone gets hurt. Everyone suffers the searing fury of betrayal, the woundedness of abandonment, the unshed tears of rejection, the confusion of boundaries overstepped and a heart taken for granted. The big magic trick is in remembering none of this has to define you. You define you. You decide when you have done enough, said enough, tried enough. You decide when you can forgive and forget, and when you can only forgive but never, ever forget.

 

I know I must forgive, for refusing to forgive is like drinking poison and waiting for the other to die. But I don't have to forget, and I don't have to be enslaved to the idea of making peace when I am not met as an equal by another. Sometimes, it's just a waiting game while you wait for them to catch up to what you already know. That saying sorry won't kill them. In fact, sometimes.......saying 'I'm sorry'  feels almost as good as Making Peace.

I want a Vespa

I want a Vespa. There, I said it. I want a Vespa and by Golly, one day, I shall have one. Why do I want a Vespa? Hmmm......this may be one of those times when if you have to ask why, I can't explain it to you. But I will try.

I want a Vespa because it looks fun to ride. To ride with the wind in my hair and freedom at the tip of my fingers, measured in horsepower released with the flick of a wrist. And come to think of it, because a girl looks cute on a Vespa, as in Italian and cute. A six foot girl does not often get to look or feel cute, that is reserved for the petite among us. I would ride my Vespa in a pretty cotton dress with a long, silken, sheer scarf wrapped around my neck to fly out behind me, fluttering and undulating in exquisite and poetic grace. I would ride my Vespa wherever it would take me, up hills, down valleys, through town and home again. I would ride my Vespa through the Starbucks drive-in (my Vespa would have a cupholder) and after a delicious sip of my hot chocolate and a heartfelt sigh, I would rev that little sucker up and let her rip down some country road.

I've always wanted a Vespa. It's just recently, I've rediscovered the notion. Something I saw or read triggered a memory of a young girl madly in love and riding a scooter in the dark of night, arms wrapped around the object of her affection, giggling madly as he daringly turned off the lights on a long stretch of country road, the better to enjoy and drive by the light of a full moon. Ever since, that young girl has known she had to, one day, have a Vespa. Driver need not be included. I'll drive my own damn Vespa, thank you very much. I guess, technically, the term is ride. The sentiment remains the same.

There is nothing practical about this notion. Riding a Vespa down our half mile long driveway, all rocks and holes and dips and bumps is not necessarily an appealing thought. So I stop short of thinking it. You know I'd find a way. Riding a cute little machine down narrow Texas roads brimming with one tonne trucks with speed limits more suited to a german freeway borders on the suicidal. I am not suicidal - how can anyone with a Vespa be suicidal? That's like an oxymoron of sorts. So I know I would survive somehow. We'd float like a butterfly and sting like a bee, my Vespa and me. Then there are the bugs. From April through November I could count on a mouthful of extra protein for every mile driven. So I won't smile, however much I want to grin from ear to shining ear. I'll look cute AND mysterious. Maybe I'll get some of those huge, bug eyed sunglasses to go with my scarf.

No, there is nothing practical about this notion. It's a dream. Nothing but a dream, but oh, the power of dreams. The power to make us smile, laugh, relax, sigh, fill our eyes with hope and the light of unlimited possibilities sparking in our slumbering brains. The power to flood our blood with joy and glee at the very thought of the possibility that the dream could come true, what it would mean, how it would change us, our life, our purpose. The power of dreams, so potent as to shape us even as we shape them.....a reciprocal exchange of power that in the end, may manifest just about, well,  anything.

Maybe even a Vespa.

Frost

It was cold last night, cold as in we had frost. I know, I know, big deal. But lately, we don't see much frost in Texas, and I, for one, miss it. Ten years ago, we could count on days and even a week (yes, a whole week!) of hard frost, mornings of hacking through inches of ice on the watertroughs so the horses could get a drink. We haven't had to do that in several years now. Every few years we'd have an icestorm and wake to a world dripping diamonds, the light so bright and glinting in every direction as to be positively blinding. I can't remember the last one.

 I miss frost because it helps keep nature in balance, in check. It stabilizes populations of bugs, insects and parasites, fleas, flies and my greatest enemy, the grasshopper, by killing some off in the dark cold of a winter's night when noone is watching, sparing us the sight of the less romantic side of nature's work. Why is the poor little grashopper my number one enemy? Because one or two is cute, but three's company and in the thousands, they are an army bent upon destroying everything in their path, including my hard-fought-for garden. It's a battle that begins in April and does not end untill November or even December.

I miss frost because it provides for spectacular mornings like this one, the slowly rising sun glittering through the fine, crystallized coating of frozen dew covering every blade, branch and the leaves of evergreens. The morning is still and and quiet, not a wind stirs, my breath puffing out before me in plumes of gauzy white against an almost blue landscape. The dog's paws crunch on the grass leaving warm and melting pawprints. They run and set off three white herons sheltering in our pond, three streaks of majestic and pristine white winging their way across a pale rose sky. As I watch, peace pervades the scene and I finally take that deep breath that has been escaping me. It is cold and flinty in my lungs and it wakes me in ways no coffee ever could.

Yes, I miss frost. It's already gone, in the time it took me to write this it has melted before the advancing sun, leaving in it's wake a glittering ocean of dew still clinging to blades of grass. I wonder when it will come again.

Gotta Dance

Sometimes, you just gotta dance. And while Monday mornings in the office are not typically or traditionally thought to be dancehall venues, I beg to differ. I think precisely because it IS Monday morning, a little dancing is in order. Because dancing, like laughing, heals what ails us, be it the Monday morning blahs, a hangover, a cold, a broken heart, a wounded soul........sometimes, even cancer.

When we dance, we forget our sorrows, they slip away and watch from the sidelines as we boogie, two step, swing, sway, waltz and hip the hop. Whatever one's color, creed, race or religious belief, no matter if you've got rhythm or you don't, no hurt or worry can cling to us for long while we give in to the music and inhabit it's strains. No grief will haunt us when we give over to a song that moves us  and creases our face in a smile at our own audacity and rediscovery of our body's capacity for movement when it's out of a chair.

So get up, set your body in motion, dance like noone's watching, defy Monday, rock the building, stomp the floor, walk the moon and yes, let it all hang out.

Need a little inspiration? Here you go. Careful now - you might find a toe wriggling and a foot tapping.

The Wind in our Hearts

The wind is howling around our house this morning, flinging itself at our walls, beating upon the windows with clenched fists. Weather forecast suggests (I say suggests because I never believe in their promises) thunder and lightning. It would be a fine day to stay inside with a cup of hot cocoa and a good book.

But I have horses to work. Which means before much more procrastinating has taken place (can writing a blog be qualified as procrastinating?), I must pull myself together and get out there and see what I can do.

As anyone who knows horses will know, that is the big question on a blustery, thundery day. What can we actually do? There is nothing like buffeting winds and rolling, roiling thunder clouds to excite a horse. Depending upon the horse, it is likely a ground work day. Not to be confused with Groundhog Day. Groundwork as in my feet stay on the ground while theirs likely do not  -  as in not riding.

What is it about the wind that so enlivens even the quietest horse? Makes them want to buck, run, play, pretend a monster lurks behind every bush and around every corner?

What is it that makes them - and us - want to stop and face into the oncoming surge of electrified air, let it lift our hair as it sends our spirits soaring? Why do we want to fling our arms open and our head back to let it stream over and around and through us? And why is it so thrilling?

It is the answer of the wind in our hearts, an echo of this force of nature. An echo of some deeper knowing that whispers in quiet nights that we can go further, be more, seek deeper, reach higher. Be greater than the sum of our known parts. It is the wind beneath the wings of the dream from on high that beckons and begs us to take the leap, a chance, try again, risk it all. Have a little faith.

Perhaps that is why horses call to us, for they are the embodiment of the wind and it's closest cousin, and when one is in the company of the other, they seek their own sweet harmony in a tempestuous game of Follow The Leader, the horse forever trying to catch up and outdo the aerial acrobatics of the wind.

All I can really do is step back and enjoy the spectacle. Work it is not. I'll see you later.

 

And God took a handful of southerly wind, blew His breath upon it and created the horse.

~ Bedouin Legend

Speaking Without Words

It's a strange thing about the human species. On one hand, we revere concepts like romantic looks that speak without words, gestures that sweep us off our feet, a glance that speaks volumes, the sparks that fly and the undeniable chemistry between two people that everyone around them can sense, but never capture in their hands or measure in a test tube. You can't study that kind of chemistry in a petrie dish. It's all undefinable, intangible and terribly exciting or touching or sometimes, so funny it breaks you in half.

What's that song? "You say it best when you say nothing at all?" Nice song, but I admit I always wondered if it was really just a nice way for a beleaguered husband with sore ears to shut his wife up.

On the other hand.......we vehemently deny such communication of it's very existence. It's unscientific precisely because we can't measure it. And as everyone knows, science is all-knowing. There is no such thing as telephathy, or any such energy mumbo jumbo, hogwash, bullbutter nonsense. You'll be laughed out of town. Never mind if you then introduce such concepts applied to an inter- species communication. Oh Em Gee!!! Stop the press, you're a lunatic! Certifiable! Ridiculous!

After all, animals don't speak and converse in a language we can understand. So obviously, they don't think, they don't feel and they just don't know stuff the way we, Masters of the Universe, do. Yeah, we know STUFF, man. As French philosopher Descartes so famously said: "I think, therefore I am." For centuries we've been told animals are not self aware, conscious creatures, just dumb machines in flesh and blood, so no worries, do what you will. They don't even know it's happening. They don't think, therefore, they are not. They are so dumb, they don't even know they are suffering.

So isn't it funny how these dumb creatures with no language learn to respond to ALL languages? It doesn't matter if I am danish, english, german, french, spanish or eskimo, I could be mute for all my horse or dog cares. They will still learn to respond to my words or signals, however I choose to communicate, in whatever language known to man. I could teach my dog to sit every time I said Atchoo, it makes no difference to him what I say - it is the intention behind my words and actions that he is interpreting. And half the time, they learn so fast I have to tone down my signals because they read them before I have barely begun. All of the time, they read me much sooner and faster than I ever read them.

Temple Grandin, a famously autistic animal researcher best known for her work and dedication to improving standards for animals in slaughterhouses, as well as her assertion that the brains of animals and autistic people function in similar ways, tells this little story. When she was in college, a professor pompously asserted that animals have no consciousness because they do not think in or have language. Well, thought Ms. Grandin, then I am a dumb beast, also, because I do not think in language, I think in pictures.

Don't we all, to some degree? At some point, or a hundred or a thousand times a day, switch from thinking in words to thinking in pictures - because they are worth a thousand words. And what accompanies those pictures, those words? Emotion. And it is not the words or the pictures that inform us, it's the emotion they invoke in us. So with all due respect to Monsieur Descartes - I feel, therefore I am.

So isn't it funny how science is now discovering animals have all the brain centers for feeling, too?

But enough about all this mumbo-jumbo nonsense. Tell me - what do you think is being said without words between these two people?

 

Donkey Days

Sometimes, it's just a Donkey Day.

The last few days my heart has weighed heavily in my chest with the gruesome news that 86 elephants were gunned down in Chad. Eighty - six. Just like that. 4 family groups, 33 pregnant females, countless babies, juveniles, young adults and all. Mothers, sisters, daughters, nieces, aunts, cousins. All gone. Elephants are extraordinarily sensitive, feeling and intelligent animals that live in tight family groups. In fact, I suspect they are related to Italians.

Just like that, wiped off the face of the earth. For ivory to feed the insatiable appetite of Asia for trinkets carved from the wondrous white gold? Or that and something even worse? Why gun down babies with no tusks? It's not the first time this has happened. Elsewhere in Africa, entire families have been gunned down from helicopters. Could it be, that just as we now hear rumors of speculators and kingpin poachers stockpiling rhino horns and betting on the extinction of the rhino to drive up the black market price, the same is happening to elephants? Already their extinction, should current conditions remain or deteriorate, is predicted in the next decade. By 2020 even! That is 7 years from now! If nothing changes, babies born today will grow up to think of elephants as relics of the past, ancient history.

So it's a Donkey Day. They are good listeners.

 

Which means, I need to go spend a few in the company of Tortilla, Taco and Salsa, our little donkey herd. Because they never fail to make me smile and laugh, their big inquisitive brown eyes and long fuzzy ears, their thick eyelashes and funny little noses a photographer's dream.

They have their very own way of looking at things. They are wise, quirky and sensitive, but tough as nails. You look in their eyes, and you know - they are looking right back at you and wondering what's up with you today?

They are bright, naughty, greedy little goobers (as my friend Billy would say), with a great sense of humor, always nosing a pocket and pulling on a sleeve. They want their ears stroked and their foreheads scratched and Tortilla, whose tactile lips remind me of an elephant's incredibly nimble trunk, wants her nose kissed.

 

Yep, it's a Donkey Day. Gotta go hang with Da Donkeys. So what do you do when you are sad?

Got Donkeys?

The Journey to Midway

 

One of my (many) jobs on The Katika Nuru Project is the whole Social Media thing. That is just the way the cookie crumbles when you are one of just a few people working on a big dream, a vision that you share among you and intend to bring to the world. While you are building your foundation, brick by brick, and falling over your own feet and looking for tools you never knew you needed and have no clue how to use.....you find yourself wearing alot of hats (and looking for alot of clues, so a Sherlock Holmes hat is a must for aspiring visionaries). So I went to Kenya to write a series of articles about the ubercoolness of horseback safaris......and came back a changed woman. The articles became a book about that change and my personal awakening to a much bigger horizon and inspired a project and now I am Social Media Director for Katika Nuru. Huunh? How does that make sense? Well, it just does. I don't even want to think about how. Too early!

 

So I am up before dawn to do my research, because it's the only way I can do everything else I do in a day - train and enjoy my horses (and two for my husband and one for a friend) and wear all my other Katika Nuru hats ( writer, interviewer, photographer, visionary, Director of Communications, fundraiser, BLOGGER! etc etc. I think I need a bigger hat rack) - as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted -  up to do my research both for my own ongoing education on all things conservation, in particular as relates to the African Elephant, and to see what I should share on Facebook and Twitter today. It takes much longer than one would think, and some days it is hard to choose - and some days it is hard to bear - and some days it is hard to find.

 

But today, thanks to my brother who rarely posts anything at all....it was an easy, straightforward pick for what goes up today. This speaks to the heart of all the challenges we face globally today, why I came back a changed person from Kenya, why we jumped madly but blithely into creating The Katika Nuru Project and all the challenges that we face every day to make a go of it  - and how and why we must face them.

 

To Chris Jordan who is at the heart of The Journey to Midway:

 

The Love in Me Salutes the Love in You.

Thank you.

 

http://www.midwayfilm.com/

 

 

 

P.S. The only version I could figure out how to upload has spanish subtitles. Which is really cool in case some spanish, non english speaking person stumbles upon my blog! Even if it puts me in the danger zone of being terribly politically correct. And so early in the day. Who knows what other wonders might occur after such an auspicious beginning?

Revelation # 2 aka Got Spring?

So I just had another revelation, thanks to a friend of mine who pointed out that a good blogger posts something often, like ...every day. You should have seen the look on my face. Actually, I am glad you didn't. Shocked and appalled is not my best look.

But once I recovered and reattached my jaw to my face and popped my eyes back in, I decided to man up and get on with it. It may not be every day, but we will see. I may surprise myself.

I think the topic today will be spring. Short but sweet and with a few photos from my photosafari through my garden this morning. Yes, some of you are going to hate me because you are still buried in snow and ice and here I am bragging about spring. Move to North Texas then. You will be trading off on excruciatingly long and hot summers, but you'll have spring in March. Worth it? Jury is still out. Ask me in September. Actually, wait till October and I am less likely to be rude.

So spring. Yes, it's here. My daffodils and hyacinth are already waning and shriveling, my Bradford pear has bloomed and sprouted bright green, tender baby leaves and the Redbud is in full and profuse bloom. Don't believe me? Check it out. And don't hate me because I got spring. If you ain't got my summers, you ain't got nuthin' on me.

 

To Blog or not to Blog...

OK. So after procrastinating for, well, the better part of an unspecified number of years... I now have a blog, and it recently hit me, that after creating a blog, one has to also write a blog. Revelatory moment. You should have been there.

See, the problem is, I usually am unusually brilliant when I am far from the PC (Personal Computer. Not to be confused with Politically Correct. I endeavour at all times to avoid this horrendously boring and faux state). Like when I am cleaning stalls I think deep and profound thoughts that I know in my heart would enlighten the world endlessly. When I am astride one of my beloved horses, I compose poetry that would melt stone and songs that would heal a deaf man's ears. As I fill water buckets or groom horses or scratch a fuzzy ear I think up ingenious topics for essays that would positively change the inner life of the reader. And in my sleep I tame polar bears but I cannot remember how in the morning.

All in all, by the time I get to my PC, it all has vanished like dew before the morning sun. Nonetheless, bold adventurer that I am, I shall persevere and go forth and be brave and write a blog. God Help Us All. (But especially me.)

So this is my very first blog. Blogging is to be an exercise in concise and ..what's the opposite of verbose? Sparse?...language, not my forte. After all, as a friend of mine once said, somewhat unkindly, in fact, rather irritably: "My God, Susannah, you can turn a sentence into a paragraph!" Well, yes. But wasn't it pretty? So - blogging. A worthy exercise undoubtedly.

What shall I blog about? Anything that pops into my head, I guess, which on any given day may be any and all things nature, the pitfalls and hardships of getting up extra early to practice photography, (so I might share a pic), elephants, poaching, horses, lions, penguins, blood ivory, horseback safaris, The Katika Nuru Project, the wonders of inter species relations and the possibilty of an alien invasion. So yeah -  anything.

But I promise to keep it pithy and to the point and oh here I go again. Short. It will be short. Because life is too short to write long blogs. That is what books are for. And since I just wrote one of those and it needs editing, I better get on with it.

In the meantime - Blog on, people, blog on!