It’s all in the release

There are times when I waver, split between the joy of life in all it's totality and fear of walking life's paths alone. Every fleeting thought is ripe with potential for both fear and joy. When the scales tip toward joy, which they do more often than not, life is astounding, glorious and rich. When the scales tip the other way toward the negative, fear rises up and overwhelms. No matter which way those scales tip, it is all symbiotic. When I remember the symbiosis, I remember that I am never alone. This I learned from my horse.

Odin never ceases to amaze me. I have never met a horse so expressive, interactive and communicative. I’m sure that has more to do with the years we’ve spent together than anything else, with those years spent growing and learning and growing some more.

To point at anything specific that has shaped our relationship is riddled with many of the terms that rile horse people on either side of the spectrum from traditional to the so-called natural horsemanship fad of the day. All the way up and down that spectrum are things of value, things to learn and things to incorporate into a relationship with a horse. So, my first bit of advice is to be an extremist in a different way – take it all in.

I have great neighbors!

The blue pickup pulled out of the driveway and headed slowly toward me. The truck pulled into my driveway, the window rolled down and he said, “You’ll be over tomorrow, right? I’m cooking out again, and I want you over there.” His usual, big smile on his face, he insisted. “If you don’t, I’ll send Jason and Jennifer over to drag you over.”

That’s my neighbor, Larry. He’s taken to inviting me over every Sunday to “socialize,” as he calls it, insisting that he’s going to teach me Southern ways if it kills him. He’s persistent, that’s for sure, and for the first time in my life, I have great neighbors that have become a large part of why I call this place “home.”

BP working to contain oil and profits only

I’m not a scientist, not by any means. As much as I’ve been following the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, I am not satisfied that I’ve learned enough to know what’s really going on. Those reporting the news of the disaster are no more learned than I am, so the result is a dumbed-down version of the important points.

What we know is that, under the ownership and direction of British Petroleum, the Deepwater Horizon drill rig didn’t follow the rules which resulted in the April explosion and sinking of the rig, taking 11 lives in the process. Now, oil and natural gas are streaming into the Gulf from the hole in the ocean’s floor, and several attempts to stem that flow did not work. First, a huge containment dome, then a ‘top kill’ attempt to push the oil back into the ground with heavy drill water and junk, and now a top hat is in place. The top hat has one pipe up to the Discover Enterprise and several vents, which allows it to capture 6,000 gallons of escaping oil a day so far; a mere third of the oil spewing from the hole.

We are all the same

As human beings, we are all the same; there is no need to build some kind of artificial barrier between us. With this attitude, there is nothing to hide, and no need to say things in a way that is not straightforward. So this gives me a kind of space in my mind, with the result that I do not have to be suspicious of others all the time. And this really gives me inner satisfaction, and inner peace. ~ Dalai Lama

It is the simplest, the purest of things, that can divide or bring us together. It’s not that these things are opposites. Instead, the simplest and purest of things diminish the possibility of the opposite’s existence.

As human beings, we are all the same. What muddies the water from the start is the seemingly inherent inability to distinguish belief from knowing. All it takes is to simply sit down and think it through, to come to understand, to find the place within where believing it to be true and knowing it to be true reside. In so doing, the walls between us disintegrate. We are all the same. We eat, drink, breath, excrete and reproduce. We all live on the same planet within the same closed atmosphere. Nothing that you do goes without reaction, and it is the same for everyone.

As human beings, we are all the same. We are all born with the potential to be anything that we choose. All of us has the potential to be an artist, musician, physician, athlete, leader, physicist, mathematician, actor, dancer, orator, writer, architect or philosopher. All the potential is there in each and every one of us, and the possibilities are endless. Which potential we choose as our focus is the beginning of the wonderful variations that allow us to grow while contributing diversity to the whole. We cannot survive alone, we cannot exist outside of the whole that is humanity. And, humanity cannot exist without it’s myriad of endless diversity. We are all the same, each of us one piece of the whole pie.

Yes, we are all the same; every single one of us.

This and that for now

There are so many amazing things, those stop-and-smell-the-roses moments that are uplifting and affirming in stark contrast to all the negatives floating around.

Almost an exact year ago, I took photos of these same flowers. They are unique in that there are only two of them growing close together on my whole property. They bloom, last about a week, then disappear. The pretty color is highly visible and pronounced amongst all the other colors still struggling to change from brown to green. I’ll mark my calendar for next year, the third week of May, to capture these lovely blooms once again. I was amazed to see them again this year.

It’s amazing how wonderful it feels to have a sort-of vacation. Five days off in a row! I’m curious to see just how I’ll use the time to myself and what I’ll actually do, if I choose to do anything at all.

You can save a life

He looked like he had the strength of an ox. Wide, muscular shoulders, thick thighs and corded neck made his sitting figure seem far too still and compliant. The gray hairs over his ears and peppered among the black of his moustache and eyebrows appeared more a sign of his years of struggles than of his age.

I’d seen him at work years ago, saw his back hunched in effort to pull pallets of product onto the store’s floor, watched him pull far more pallets out than any of his coworkers; and though his eyes would smile, he never stopped to talk.

When he came in to my office last week, I finally understood why. He stutters, and he is barely literate. It took awhile, but he explained his circumstances. He had a job that is now only working him one day a week, and he is about to become homeless.

At the end, he looked at me and fought with himself awhile before he finally dared to say, “I am thinking of ending it. There is nothing left.”