No More Safe Haven

With these summer hours, usually come inward journeys for me. More meditation, more creation in the areas of weaving/knitting, writing, painting/sketching. But not this summer. I am being called to get out there, in more of an active role.

There are reasons to leave my safe haven, good ones, and I can bring my safety and comfort to others. I have a lot to spare. The 11 day old foal with a joint deformity has taken residence in my heart. I massage her tight shoulders (are they withers?) and her low back and her bad knee (I'm sure they're not knees). She responds, and her Mama approves.

My friend Carlie, so compassionate, so grounding, so wise, helps me find loving detachment when I go into desperate saving mode. And Holly reminds me that animals don't count the days they are here, they enjoy all the good moments without the human fear that their time isn't long enough.

These are some hard lessons that I can no longer hide from. The heartache I feel on my way to the barn is nothing compared with the heartache I feel when I don't go. So I go....Now, in fact, I am going there, away from my safe haven, to be a part of the active world.

Lexey's Ranch

....And the skies are not cloudy all day....Rocky Mountain high....thank God I'm a country boy....Mama don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys....What is the lure? It is the mythic quality of the range, the grandeur of the purple mountains' majesty, the freedom to roam the canyons and high desert without seeing a soul, the raw power of a waterfall, the gangly legs of a newborn foal, the natural openness of the people.

My friend left New York two years ago, and has made her home in a new state. A state of constant work and continual change, rescued horses and adopted dogs, new friends who passed on too soon, old friends who come to be transformed, ATV's and tractors, Spring mud and Winter sun, and views that can't possibly be captured in photographs, and twilight rides on Lexey that bring tears of bliss to her eyes as she surveys her dream ranch, now a reality.

It was hard to leave. Transitions are always hard for me. I take in new experiences so completely that I get a little ungrounded by them, then settle down and sort out the changes I will keep and the changes I can leave behind.

How full my heart feels. Lexeys Ranch is a magical place, an unforgettable powerful landscape that cleansed my soul and reoriented me in ways that aren't even clear yet, but that feel so right.