I haven’t written in well over a year. There have been no words. I have been able to express better with color. I have explored painting more and for whatever reason the colors soothe me. For someone who is an avid pencil and charcoal sketcher, a lover of the color black, every tattoo and favorite piece of clothing being black, the fact that I’ve been so drawn to color is odd. Perhaps, it is God, showing me the light through my own work. Who knows? So much has changed.

I cant even express what the last year and some months has looked like to my life, my heart. Such great loss. So much learning. So much grieving, mourning, soul searching, and exploring. I am finally coming to a point where the words are coming back. I’m literally finding my voice again. But the words are different. The emotions different. The questions different. But still distinctly me. It is an odd feeling to not even recognize the person looking back at you from the mirror.

I recently had the opportunity to go tour some fossil beds, wind caves and museums from the Ice Age to the great American fur trade. I have always had a strong draw to history of all kinds, but especially American, and the Ice Age. I feel sometimes when I look at history, when it’s right in front of me…. That I have been there before. It seems so familiar. It seems as though I know what things are before I am told or read the plaques and that things that have no explanation, I somehow feel I know the answer.

I think as humans, most of us with any awakening, are drawn to the past. I think it’s human nature. We want to know who “they” were, as bad as they wanted to be remembered. What is it about this piece of human consciousness that drives us to leave a mark for anyone who might come after us? What is it about us, that makes us want to find out why they did? It seems to me that perhaps, it is the deep need to know it is not all in vein. This life, this human condition is wildly painful. The loss, pain, heartbreaks. What is the point of it all?

Perhaps, the need to put our hand print on a cave wall, is to shout to the world “I was here”, and that somehow, that mattered. That someone, one day, will see it, as say “Someone was here. They tried to tell me something. They had thought, feeling, a message.” The forever struggle for the human heart to be seen.

My draw to these peoples is real. I don’t just find it interesting, as most do. I feel an empathy toward them. I feel their pains and struggles. Or at least, I think I do. And sometimes it begs the question in my mind, of reincarnation. That feeling, when I look at these dwellings, see these prehistoric animals’ bones, feel the coldness of the caves…see hand prints on the walls, that I have been here before. I have searched for another explanation for the feeling, believe me. As the idea is not really something I readily believe. But the feeling is so strong, it begs the question.

Many people feel they were born in the wrong time. Especially people naturally drawn to agriculture, hunting, camping, and especially horses. It is a common theme among many. Saying they should have been born in the time of the cowboy, or mountain man, or Native Americans. I hear it all the time. Perhaps its not a longing for what “should have been”, but more a memory of “what was”? It is fact, that energy is constant. It may take other forms but it never ceases to exist. Regardless of faith, it is people who do not believe in life after death who are missing the facts. Once in existence, you cannot un-exist. Is it truly that far fetched a thought to think that perhaps you’ve been here before? That people are drawn to certain places or cultures, because perhaps, it is not fascination, but a memory? It is an incredible struggle I have never given much voice to for fear of sounding crazy, but I generally am not taken very seriously anyway.

I believe, in my deepest heart, that perhaps my hand is on one of those walls, from a me that existed so long ago. And it is incredibly hard to understand, and it is a battle I face with my faith as a Christian. But I cannot deny the familiarity, the power, the struggle, the longing, to be “home” again. It is becoming more apparent to me, especially after seeing these great museums and fossil beds up close, that there is a reason I have always longed for a home I could not find. It would make sense that I will never find it, because it simply does not exist anymore. It is thousands of years gone, buried in ice and snow… and memories.

Some nights I can’t sleep.  Tonight is one of those nights.  I hear the hum of my computer and the rain on the windows and the metal roof.  It’s black out here at night being so far from any city lights and the cloud cover and rain make it even darker.  It’s incredibly peaceful, and still I cannot will myself to sleep.

My heart seems to have a cycle of wants.  Sometimes it wants to be a nomad, live free, no real belongings to speak of.  Just stories of travel and adventure.  Then it will shift and I want to pick one great adventure, Alaska….  I think sometimes that’s because my high school writing teacher told me to read the book Into the Wild, and I’ve never been able to sit well with it.  Almost like I want to finish his work.  And then it’ll shift again and I’ll want to do exactly what I’m doing, working on building a homestead.  Doing as much as I can on my own, building, hunting, farming, raising animals, learning to can peaches…  Then I will shift one more time in the circle, and I’ll want nothing more than to show horses, train horses and generally live my life for nothing but horses.

All seem like the perfect life for me.  I can see myself in each of them.  There is a little bit of each in me.  And I think on these sleepless nights it is my heart fighting over which one of the people I want to be.  Because for the life of me I cannot figure out a way to become ALL of these people.  And making myself choose is painful.  How to you choose just one life?  How do you choose all you want to be?

Right now, I’m the homesteader.  I love this farm and the possibilities here.  But it doesn’t change the fact that I want to see Alaska.  Or that I want to still show a mustang at the Worlds Greatest Horseman competition.  Or that I want to live out of the back of a truck and see the world.  How do you square with that?  These are the things that keep me up at night.

She’s just scared, can’t you see?  Just scared you know?  She’s not mean, she’s not dangerous.  She’s not a “Hell Bitch”, “Wench” or “Pig”.  You have to understand that to her, she’s fight or flight.  Every ounce of instinct and past experience is telling her to fight for her life.  She’s not mean, she’s not aggressive or crazy.  She’s scared.

That’s why every reaction is exaggerated.  Her response to this pressure, any pressure is to blow.  Panic.  Protect herself at all costs.  She can’t handle being touched, in this reactive state.  All it will do is set off a chain reaction of fear that manifests into what appears as physical rage or aggression.  You see, in these ones, these wild ones, the motives for their actions is always fear.

The other thing you may notice, if she is pushed continually, backed into a corner, she can physically only fight for so long, before she will shut down.  Before she gives up.  She’ll stand in the corner, eyes glassed over, not looking at anyone or thing but through them.   She’s completely checked out.  But make no mistake, this is not acceptance.  This is not learning, trusting, partnership.  All this is, is her last way to cope with the assault on her soul.  She has shut down, unwilling to fight for her own life.  Think about that.  Unwilling to fight for her own life.  This is a much worse place than scared.

Most of the time, one like her, will come back every day, ready to fight again.  But every day, every fight, she’ll shut down a little faster.  Some may call it progress, but nothing could be farther from the truth.  It is breaking her.  The once beautiful, wild, elegant, strong thing God had given you is breaking.  Void of life.  Void of hope.

These scared ones, they don’t have to be broken.  She can overcome this.  But my, it takes an understanding hand.  Someone who’ll understand she’s fighting for her life.  It’ll take time.  She cannot come out of this in a day.  There wont be a 180* turn.  She has to be given a reason to trust.  Day after day, to one like her, you have to prove that you’re safe.  That’s what she needs.  Safety.  And she’ll have times when something will scare her and she’ll fall back to instinct.  But if the trust is there, she’ll come back.  In fact, in her fear and panic, she’ll look for you.  Look for you to be her safe place, to look for your guidance.  Desperately saying, “please lead me.”

She’s just scared you see?  She’s misunderstood.  She’s not mean, she’s not aggressive, she’s not crazy.  She’s fighting for her life.  She’s scared.  She’s just scared.  I’m just…scared.  Do you see?

I’ve been compelled to write about something different.  It may afford me new friends and enemies, I don’t know.  But this is my blog so I suppose what I put on it is my prerogative.  I am incredibly uneasy living in this world of hate, ignorance, and no respect for the land or animals.  This is a slippery slope and I feel we are already half way down.

Recently there was a bill to be proposed that Federal Public Lands could be handed over to the states and that when in need the states could sell off said land to anybody.  Our great parks.  The legacies of Roosevelt.  The lands that were crucial in helping to bring back endangered species that we had already succeeded in almost wiping out once.  Luckily there were enough Americans who loved our wild places that spoke up that the bill was taken off the table.  But the fight for our land is far from over.  As of today, there is a vote happening on weather or not, on those same federal lands, the government has a right to drill and mine without need of vote or permission or even a need to tell park officials of their plans.  Those same great places like Yellowstone, Arches National Park and The Redwood Forests.  Land that is precious purely as the wild and untouched places they are.  This is genocide against the land.

Still in this age of science, there are those that believe global warming doesn’t exist and that humans have had no impact on the earth.  How is that even possible to believe?  How can you not see our polluted oceans, our massive pit mines and dumps, oils spills, roads, factory farms, acres and acres of forest lost for farm ground, the sheer volume of waste and somehow say, we have no effect on the land?  These are the same people that will tell you that coyotes, wolves and wild horses are pests that destroy ranges, hunting and waste water.  A few k9’s and some mustangs are “destroying” the range, but millions of humans have no effect on the planet?  It’s purely because global warming, or the acknowledgement of it would mean you’d have to change your ways.  You’d have to acknowledge your faults and change your life.  And that, is too much to ask of any American.

Our planet is dying and over half the population doesn’t seem to care.  What will you do, what will your children do, when there is no clean water to drink?  Or clean air to breath?  What will they do when the land is so tapped out from farming it cannot produce anymore?  What will we do when the bees die?  And still, there are those that believe global warming is not real.  Over population is not real.  Pollution is not real.  No wonder they see no problem in destroying our only wild places that we have left.

The fear that has gripped our nation has led to a close mindedness I don’t believe we have seen in a long time.  This is what genocides are made of.  Fear, a scapegoat, a “solution”, murder.  How can it be that after so long humans continue to repeat history over and over instead of learn from it?  A huge backlash over refugees.  Last I check, as a Christian we are called to “love the least of these”.  How many times do you have to wonder, how many churches would let Jesus, a poorer, simple middle eastern man, in and welcome him with open arms?  Today’s America?  Close to none.  Have we truly forgotten all we have supposed to have learned?  Because the thing is, is that all the hate, is really disguised fear.  That’s all it is.  And fear makes people do crazy and irrational things.  And the government knows it, and uses it to fuel the fire.  Can we not be smart enough to see past all this?

Animals are certainly no better off with this administration.  Since the transfer of power, a governor has come forward saying he’s hoping to make dog fighting legal in the States.  A bill that was supposed to protect horses from the awful abuse of soring, making it illegal and federally punishable, has been thrown to the side.  For what reason I cannot imagine.  If this is only the beginning I fear what will happened to government funded shelters, humane laws in agriculture, the protection offered wildlife and endangered species and of course, God protect our wild horses.  We are loosing sight of the fact that the way we are all the same is far more important than the way we are different.

Our world is broken.  Innocent people and animals are suffering, our planet is hemorrhaging and when I speak to people and ask why they don’t seem to feel it’s important or worth changing they just say “that’s just the way things are.”  I’m sure many felt that same way about the genocide of the Native Americans.  That it was unfortunate what our government was doing, but it is what it is.  Probably the same for slaves and you know it was said over and over in Nazi Germany.  No use trying to fight it.  It’s just the way things are.  I’m truly heartbroken that people care so little.  It keeps me up at night.

“I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness; I hear the approaching thunder, that one day, will destroy us too.  I feel the suffering of millions.  And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.” -Anne Frank

Her heart is a ghost, a white she-wolf.  She trots though the shadows, trying not to be seen.  She knows the dangers are out there.  She knows the heartache those dangers cause.  She has no home.

She is misunderstood.  Many fear her, many hate her.  Some love and admire her from afar, for the wild thing she is.  But no one truly knows her, they are all too afraid of the unknown.  Too afraid to get close.  So her heart travels this road alone.

She was not designed to travel alone.  She was designed for a pack, friends, family.  But she fits nowhere.  She is alone to battle the dangers of the forest.  She is powerful, smart, cunning, reliable.  She will survive the woods alone.  But she hopes that she will not have to survive alone forever.  She hopes one day she will find her pack, her home.

Until then she moves silently, unseen, through the shadows and mist.  She will fight when she must, stay hidden and unseen when she can.  No one wants to understand something so wild.  Surviving the hunting grounds for her heart.  An arrow may seek out and find her heart one day, but not today.  Today she is a ghost.  A ghost trotting through the shadows and mist.

I’m going to let you all in on a secret buried so deep in my heart it’s almost painful to bring to the surface.  The last few years have been really hard.  Really hard.  Mentally, emotionally and physically.  It’s really been a strange time in my life.  And there have been times I want to give up.  Not on life, but on horses.

There.  I said it.  I feel like I betray myself above all others when I say it.  But it is true.  There have been times I’ve wanted to give up.  Henry passed away 5 years ago and since then I have had four other horses, none of which I have been able to make a good connection with.  Granted, they have all been very nice horses in their own right and a lot of it has been circumstantial.  But not being able to connect has made having them well… less enjoyable.  I’m really going to hate myself for this post.  I genuinely feel like I’m betraying them somehow…

I used to not have to decide to spend time with my horse or my dog.  But as Shorty gets older the harder it is for her to come to the barn and keep up on a daily basis leaving me to decide.  Dog day, or horse day?  Either way I feel like I’m cheating on the other.  If I go for a hike or a run or a bike ride, I feel I’m cheating on my horse as well.  I tell myself there is time for both but there really isn’t if you want to be serious about riding.  You’ve got to get to the barn above all else.

I’m sure a lot of the reason I’ve had a hard time connecting is because of the poor state of mind I’ve been in over the location I live, the awful jobs I’ve had to take and so on.  I go out to the barn with so much baggage it’s no wonder the horses don’t want to hang.  My energy is just not right.  And I honestly don’t know how to snap out of it.  I used to snap out of it by going for a ride.  But that was when my horse was a long time trusted friend and we had a deep relationship and my horses helped me.  They say the horse is a mirror to your soul and when I go to the barn now, I see lack of understanding, fear, restless energy, no clear direction or purpose.  What “they” say seems to be all too true.

As I said before, I have also had health issues I’ve never had to struggle with.  Weight gain (also a sign of the emotional state I believe), deteriorating joints, more knee injuries, migraines, and a host of “female problems”.  The state of health insurance has taken a toll financially to nurse these problems and thus leading to more emotional unbalance.  I feel wildly unsure of my body in a way I’ve never had to navigate before.  When you feel unsure of your body, riding horses, or at least horses you don’t trust (not because they are bad, just because of the lack of connection), is actually, I’m finding a terrifying experience.

Because of the uncertainty of my body it has created a fear I never had before.  It truly is terrifying when you don’t or can’t trust your own body.  I’ve never felt anything like it and it’s truly hard to explain.  There was never an inch of fear in me when I picked up Henry for the Mustang Makeover.  Or when I rode Sally down a steep, icy, narrow trail in Telluride in the pitch black.  No fear when I started the uncounted number of colts.  No fear stepping on a horse I never rode before.  And yet, I am fearful because I don’t know if my body can handle the “what if’s”.

So yes, all these things making me bang my head against the wall, making me wonder what happened to that girl I used to be.  All these things have made me want to give up.  Sell the truck, sell the trailer, sell the horse… sell the saddle.  Think of what I could do with the money! But I haven’t yet.  And I still don’t believe I ever will.  Because there are times the only thing that makes me still feel real, are the horses.  Their scent.  The way they move.  The way they feel under hand.  The big liquid brown eyes.  The twitch of their ears.  That soft spot on their muzzle only other horse people will understand.  The rhythm of a good long, low, relaxed posting trot.  One, two, one, two, one, two…

I know I will find my way through this.  Nothing stirs my heart like the horse.  And God would not have put a love like this in me, if it were not to be.  To become teary at a quote, a photo, a movie, a moment.  To feel so deeply to a cause to save the Mustang that my heart literally feels like it is breaking in my chest.  I cannot give up.  I must find myself again.  I must find my health, my courage and my heart.  I named my horse Arwen, after the warrior princess of the Lord of the Rings.  The name she came with didn’t feel right.  And I’d never had a hard time naming a horse, but it took me almost a week to find her name.  She seemed familiar to me for some reason.  And that threw me off.  Like we had known each other before.  Who knows.  Perhaps this warrior horse has come to battle for me.  Battle for the heart of this lost soul.

She is a shadow.  A faint memory of some ancient wisdom.  This girl is a piece of the intuition all women share.  Beautiful, wild, free and strong.  She is the girl we all used to be.  The girl we were before the truck payment, the house payment, going to work, cooking dinner, cleaning the house.  She was so delightful.

She is the girl who danced in the rain, sang her favorite songs over and over and didn’t wear make up.  I often wonder what happened to that girl?  The girl who was fearless and didn’t worry about the future.  What happened?  We get so bombarded with the day to day in our adult lives I feel like, no matter how much we all loved and adored that girl, we shove her away.  We tell her she’s grounded, to go to her room, and at some point we don’t ever let her back out.  We have things to do.  Commitments to keep.  We don’t have time for her play.

Oh she was wild.  Raw and beautiful, long unkempt hair, dirt on her hands and a smile that makes you feel alive.  Why have we let ourselves cage her?  She was so beautiful.  We long to let her back out, to be her again, but we don’t dare.  For she is untamed, and powerful and beautiful and that means she is dangerous.  She knows her heart, she knows her mind, she follows her truest self, and that is dangerous.  It is not safe, contained in the day to day.  And we are afraid of what we cannot control.  We love horses for their raw beauty, power and wildness, and yet the first thing we learn is we must “be the boss”, and control them.  Control them because they are dangerous in their natural state.

Are not women the exact same way?  We must be controlled because we are dangerous when we are free and our souls on fire?  I must believe so because for centuries there are two things man has perfected controlling and that is women and horses.  Perhaps that is why we are drawn to them so much?  Because we understand what it is to be this beautiful, strong willed, wild being, trapped by bit and bridle, responsibility and laundry.  What on earth would happen if we were turned loose?  What would happen if we allowed for self expression?  What would happen if we lost the bit and quit the job we hated?  I wonder if what we would see would be beautiful?  I wonder if we would see our horses dancing and our lives worth living?  Would not the world be better for it?

It is a new year, a new time.  I challenge all the women I know to let that girl out of her room.  Be that girl, full of life, passion, freedom.  I challenge you to take off the bridle, trust and see what happens.  Because she is still there, in her room, dancing.  Just waiting for someone to open the door and say how lovely she is. Riding freely, like a warrior princess, she charges on into the day of battle.  She rides swift and light, her horse a spirit of the wind itself.  Set them free….

Photo credit: Baylee Shepherd  and her horse Nic

A friend of mine posted a goofy thing on Facebook the other day that asked “The Zombie Apocalypse starts now.  Look to your right, what is your weapon?”.  I looked to my right and on my nightstand was my .40 caliber pistol.  Cool.  I must be totally set for the Zombie Apocalypse (chuckles).  Despite the silliness of the Facebook post, it made me look at my nightstand and for some reason in a way I have never before.

I’ve usually had a pistol close at hand, then when my husband took up trucking and was gone most of the time, the bond with my .40 grew.  I’m not going to make this a political post, just stating that I always have a gun on my nightstand when I go to bed at night.  And here is where it gets fun.  I also have a very expensive essential oil diffuser and several oils.  I am a walking contradiction.  I have a beer can and a bottle of Smart Water.  A cross necklace and a stone bear because it is my spirit animal.  A few other trinkets from my husband and pictures of passed away horses.  What a strange combination.

However that sums me up pretty well.  A strange combination of gentle and powerful, rough and refined, smooth and rough, leather and lace.  I love all things good, healing, natural, soothing, spiritual.  And yet I am also but a human that needs God’s grace and a drink from time to time.  I’ve never been able to be pigeon holed and put in it’s proper place because I really don’t belong anywhere.  I love the dessert, I love the Mountains.  I love rugged, wild, free Mustangs muddy and battle scarred and I love them clean and tidy in the show pen.  Black and white with so much grey.  I think it’s part of why I have always had such a hard time fitting in and finding people that speak to my soul.  No one quite understands what is going on in my heart.  Sometimes I don’t either.

I never thought something as silly as the items on your nightstand could really tell so much about a person.  The pictures of my passed away horses and trinkets from my husband, remind me of how powerful love is and the things that actually matter to me.  The constant battle with dog hair, mementos of the loyal love that trots behind me and never leaves my side.  All of this, so much of my life and who I am, just right there on my nightstand.