Posts Tagged ‘horses’
Horse Visit
One of our first priorities, now that Cyndie is home, was to get out and visit her horse friends in Minnetrista. Cyndie is reading a book about communicating with animals that expands on what she has experienced from her training of the last couple years. It makes total sense to me that the process would require that she move her focus from her head-thoughts, and the distractions of me and other activity, so it is not surprising that little of that level of communication occurs during our brief joint visits. However, yesterday I witnessed two moments when the horses appeared to pause with her and activity seemed to be suspended.
In one, it happened after a horse made a very determined cross of some distance, pushing through two other horses in his path, to take a straight course to where Cyndie stood. Cyndie said the message was that she needs to come back and spend some extended time with them. They have some things to say, and they could tell she was currently distracted.
I take no offense.
Many Connections
Patiently chipping away at tasks this weekend, and attempting to do so mindful of the bigger picture of our dream, to keep the work from becoming burdensome. I’m tired, and I find myself lonesome for Cyndie’s energy for this type of work.
Yesterday morning, I received a surprise call from Cyndie. I had not talked with her much the week prior, as she was burdened with another exceptionally difficult week in Boston, and I expected that she would be out of communication until next Tuesday while she is attending a 4-day Epona Equestrian Services workshop with author Linda Kohanov in Arizona. Cyndie said she found there was a cell signal and couldn’t wait to tell me the wonderful connection she discovered there.
Cyndie was telling Linda about a friend she has in Portugal, a man by the name of Ian. Cyndie reported that Linda’s face suddenly lit up with excitement, “Ian Rowcliffe? You know Ian Rowcliffe!?”
What a treat that discovery must have been. I was lucky to catch Ian online for a brief chat, shortly after my phone call with Cyndie, and passed along the news. Cyndie and I did not know that Ian had been in contact with Linda over the internet.
There appears to be another connection going on for Cyndie. Obviously, with the difficult week she just had in Boston, which in actuality is an extension of the difficult previous months that job is proving to be, that work is the center of her attention as she enters the workshop with horses. These few days in Arizona will be a chance to replenish her energies, but even more pertinent, they may provide knowledge that will be essential to the effort she is putting forth to support Superintendent Carol Johnson in the Boston Public Schools.
It is as if she is trying to do two things at once, train with horses, and work in Boston. Could be that the two things are actually one.
Dream Hesitation
What the heck do I know about owning a horse farm? With the brains of this organization off gallivanting around Boston right now, it is I, your humble correspondent, who am on the front line of decision making. Yesterday, we received the first batch of properties from the realtor we met with a month ago, and I noticed some things about the listings that triggered a little apprehension in me.
“Do we know what we want to spend?” she wrote. Um… no. Well, that’s not true. We would like to spend nothing, but I assume that is not going to bring the results we are hoping for.
Private sewer? This property has a private sewer. Oh, just what I always wanted, a sewer of my own.
One property had a lot of acreage, but within a flood plain. Do I want to open that box?
Then, there are all the improvements we did to our home of 25 years. Looking at this first list of potential properties, I see all the things we’ve already done here, needing to be done all over again. Oy. Siding, insulation, gas fireplace insert, gutters, windows, garage door and floor, new driveway, landscaping, kitchen remodel, bathroom upgrades. Did I mention siding?
And, of course, now we are going to have all the walls and ceilings here repaired, freshly painted, and new carpet installed! How many of you can see John deciding to stay here and rent a stall in a stable nearby for Cyndie to have a horse?
Cyndie is the true dreamer of our team. I’m just a tag-along. I fill in some of the creative blanks, but I also tend to drag in a bit more realism (read “pessimism”) than she wants to hear. I guess we are a good balance, eh?
It doesn’t feel right trying to do this without her around.
But, hey, don’t let me get you down. This is just a normal phase of my processing things. I’ll get over it. Seriously. And, Cyndie visits again in about 3-weeks. In just a few minutes of arriving, she’ll have me back up on our dream cloud and we’ll be designing our little paradise together as if it is what my whole life groomed me to be doing.
Meanwhile, maybe I should sneak out to visit the horses she tends to here, on my own, and just stand near them… see if I can hear what they have to say. I could use a dose of their wisdom.
Inspiring Visit
With Cyndie home for the weekend, and the weather almost summer-like, we let our hearts lead us to the one thing we both felt drawn toward: a visit with the horses. We were doubly rewarded to find kindred spirits present with a similar agenda of wanting to just be with the horses. Inspired conversation blossomed on a variety of topics related to learning, ranging from Cyndie’s current situation in Boston, to the opportunities available beyond the conventional (outside the box) to provide meaningful lessons to the full range of styles of learning and processing information.
As I stood back, observing the verbal explorations, I witnessed the horses reaction to the changing dynamics of the conversation. When I pulled out the camera in attempt to capture what I was seeing, the animals reacted and the scene was altered, but for some time, there were two horses, in particular, that stood at the fence with ears forward, fully absorbing the vocal exchanges.
It was beautiful to witness the similar interest to be in each other’s company. The people wanted to be with the horses, and the horses wanted to be with the people.
Out of the conversations of the afternoon, one enticing tidbit for me was the idea of learning equine body language and, more importantly, how human body language is interpreted by horses. The teachings of Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling was referenced. After we got home, I watched a video of Klaus dancing with a horse and immediately recognized this as appearing strikingly similar to how Ian Rowcliffe, in Portugal, looks when he interacts with his horses.
It is inspiring, to say the least.
Glorious Day
I had a grand time yesterday, together with my wife again! Since I took the day off work, it felt like a holiday for me. We picked up this week’s Birdsong Soup, went out for breakfast at The Original Pancake House in Eden Prairie, then had a nice walk in a local park. We did a couple of shopping errands, had soup for lunch, and then went out to visit the horses. After that, we enjoyed a couples massage appointment, followed by take-out Chinese dinner from Dragon Jade restaurant in Glen Lake. We ordered the movie, “Tower Heist” on demand from cable TV and laughed our way through it. Finished off the day watching Foo Fighters: Back and Forth documentary online at Hulu. The day was so nice, I felt pangs of regret that it would make me feel reeeally lonely on Monday after she heads back to Boston again. Knowing that I should be living in the moment, I quickly dashed the thought and got back to enjoying the heck out of a totally glorious day!
Equine Energy
I am not as attuned to the messages offered as Cyndie is, so I don’t know what he was conveying when this picture was captured, but I think the image depicts the exciting energy available in a visit with horses.
Favors Exchanged
There is no question about the mutual benefits available in horse-human relationships. I’m one-person removed from the actual activity, and I experience great energy when I accompany Cyndie on her visits to the horses. Here are a couple of shots I took while Cyndie spent a few minutes pulling burrs out of the mane of this appreciative fellow.
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After a while, he demonstrated an urge to do some grooming of his own, and reached out to return the favor.
Horse Fix
I’d been waiting over a week since Cyndie got home to have her take me out to visit the horses of her friend. We finally found a chance on Saturday. It was a real treat to witness her interact with the animals again, and very special to see how the horses responded to her presence.
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It was a relatively sunny day for the period of our visit, and, unfortunately, I was forced to shoot into the sun for most of my photos of the horses. I caught one shot of Cyndie in the sunlight, just entering the paddock to see if the horses would cross the distance for some attention.
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Ever so slowly, the horses began to make their way over toward us.
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At about this moment, I realized that the horses, after very methodically making their way across the field, moving with guarded purpose, now were politely lined up to take turns interacting with Cyndie. It was really sweet.
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Last Days
I must admit, I can be oblivious to a lot of things, but last night when I was helping Cyndie load some things into the pod to be shipped to Boston, I saw stuff I didn’t recognize ever seeing in our house before. Where have I been for the last 20+ years that we’ve lived here? At least I don’t have any reason to worry that I might miss the stuff she is taking.
It is pretty much common knowledge that moving from one house to another is a great way to assess your level of clutterness, and a really effective incentive for uncluttering. We have been in one place long enough to have allowed a lot of unnecessary stuff to accumulate. It wasn’t that long ago that we ordered a dumpster to unload boxes and boxes of paperwork that Cyndie had been storing from her college years. In addition to having become pretty outdated, some of that was beginning to show signs of unhealthy growth.
Today, you can’t even tell where all those boxes came from. There is no big open area in our crawl space where the boxes had been. New accumulation has somehow migrated into that spot such that we could probably do with another dumpster about now.
Since Cyndie is officially starting her new position on Monday, I think it is safe to announce the job she has accepted. It has been a drawn out process, and I was waiting for the possibility of an official announcement from the Boston school district. She has signed a contract for the position of Chief Academic Officer of Boston Public Schools. I reckon she will be one busy worker bee out there, and our separate residences will end up being a non-issue. It’s not like she will be lounging around her apartment all day, every day, feeling lonely. More likely, especially based on her usual mode of operation, she will be working 18-hour days and barely pausing long enough to get a too-short night’s sleep.
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- photo by Cyndie Hays
On an unrelated horse note… we learned yesterday that one of the horses Cyndie has been spending time with, one which told Cyndie he was going to die soon, did just that yesterday. Goliath had told Cyndie that he needed her to tell the owner this news, to give her warning of what was to come. Cyndie wasn’t quite sure about this, but he was insistent that she tell. Cyndie was seated in her wheel chair at the time, and snapped this photo of him as he was giving her a look of urgency that this was the time to break the news.
Relative Something 