Category: Living

The humanity of being human and the horse that could Go. Part one. 

As that big fellow hit the ground, I knew he was going to hurt for a week… if he hadn’t just broke something. My partner and I, who had working real hard to make sure that horse didn’t do THAT, couldn’t help but  grow a big smile. If hadn’t been who it was, we’d having laughed out loud, (It’s a strange thing about cowboy humor, not all people appreciate it, and this fellow would have been one).

It’s kinda a considered courtesy out west, when a fellow falls off his horse, to wait a bit. It’s seems best to let a fellow catch his breath, find his hat and dust himself off before you ride over and ask the question “what happened?, trying to seem ignorant to the foolishness you just witnessed .

 

It slowly became apparent that no medical attention would be needed immediately.  My partner pulled it together enough to ride off after that Arab horse, that was still circling the arena dragging this man’s saddle.

 

I just pulled my hat down a bit and moved my horse to intercept his wife and daughter (in hopes of keeping them from being run down by their traumatized horse), who were trotting afoot across the dust to the seen of wreck.

 

I personally hate these times. We work so hard to created a relaxed and willing horse that a person can take home and have a great relationship with for a long time. Having to ride up there and seem empathetic, and come up with something other than “I tried to tell you…”, always goes against my being human.

It’s always a bit awkward to set there and not look smug, when you just spent forty-five minutes showing your clients what we do and don’t do at this stage of training. And  why we do and don’t do with your horse. And even ride the horse in front of you, in relaxed and willing way.

 

This is where we find a great conflict between the reality of our created humanity, and our being human.

 

Seeing that I’m very good at making a short story long, I will endeavor to not to fall in any proverbial gopher holes in this conversation.

 

I got a call one evening from a lady that was wanting my services in starting a five-year old Arabian gelding, it was a normal visit with the usual, “never been rode… didn’t know much about him…. Seems like a nice enough horse…Her daughter and her were hoping to take up competitive trail riding.

 

I  listened and quoted a price for the first month, which she replied with a hint of excitement, was a fair deal. She said that she lived on very large cattle ranch, that I was quite familiar with, some three hours north and would be there by noon cash in hand.

 

(Now let us just look in this conversational gopher hole for just a minute without stepping in.)

 

This ranch that she said she lived on was a big rough outfit. They had more cattle, land and horses than most people will see in a lifetime. Those boys that made their living there, were born with spurs on. They ate their breakfast on a the back of a bucken horse, and ate suppers on a back of a gentle one. So I quickly surmised that they were “horse people“.

 

She and her daughter arrived the next day in a timely manner. And commenced to unload this tall, narrow, bay Arabian gelding. Bigger than life itself and feeling he was worth it. Not surprisingly they called him “King”.

 

They were both very nice and eager for me to work with their horse. It was rather apparent that there were somewhat fearful of this thousand bounds of uncontrolled energy, and justifiably so.  I did make such to explain to them that 30 days of working with him, may not be enough time to create the confidence in him to be rode safely. But they were welcome to come out and see what we were working on. And we could asses where he was at mentally, and if they wanted me to keep working with him.

 

As a trainer I try to find out what the horse is interested in and begin teaching off of that talent. It was not hard to find out what King was good at. He wanted to GO. He was created to GO, GO everywhere, anywhere, fast and furiously, with complete confidence. Where he was, was  where he was supposed to be. He rocked his world and everybody needed to know that.

 

This youngest was living the dream, and having a person on his back had nothing to do with it. And to boot you could not wear him out. He was going to be an awesome endurance competitor, if you could ever get on his back and point him in the right direction.

 

And so with hope of creating awareness of the existence of a human being, sneak in some relationship through  leadership, we went to doing what he did best GO. You could sneak a rope halter on his if you distracted him with an apple, but that was it.

 

So just on foot with a rope halter and the longest long line on the place we had we to work. We went in huge circles very fast in one direction and then huge circles to the other. When he realized I wasn’t going to stop his god given gift to GO, but only ask that him for a certain direction. He began to notice me some.

 

Little by little the circles got slower and small. And after about three day he realized that he could walk if he wants to. He figured out that he could go back and go sideways. And before a week was done he could go outside the arena with another horse, I riding said other horse. I ponied him with catching cattle water and fence , we went over hills and river, brush and rocks. He figured out that his gift to GO, was even better than he thought.

 

He began to look for my leadership because when we went somewhere it was awesome. He even realized that his gift to GO could made cows go. And that where he went made the cows go where he wanted them to go. All of this before I even thought about putting a saddle and myself on his back.

 

Having a relaxed relationship is what we are created to want, and the big ship we are naturally created to use is, compassion.

 

As the first thirty days came close, I was aware that most people won’t take the time I was having to take, to have a relaxed ride. Young King and I were still working on controlling speed by direction.  The smaller circle the slower the pace, until the feet “stopped on the bend”. Pulling straight back on the reigns just made his head to come up, his body tense and his feet go faster. We didn’t have a lot whow in our Go.

 

Sadly nobody had come out in a whole month to see the problems and progress that King was making. I called with in the last week of training as I always do, to give them an honest assessment of were their horse is in training and asked what they would like to do.

 

I’ve always been very straightforward with clients about their horses. After the first thirty days they can consent to more training or pay the bill and take him home. I always want make sure they are confident and have gotten their moneys worth.

 

With a bit of reluctance she agreed to letting me continue training and promised to come out and see how comfortable she and her daughter in riding him. But within an hour the phone rang and a very gruff male voice informed me that they would be out in the morning to get “that horse.”

 

(Now given the fact that they lived on this big cowboy outfit. I was expecting for some tough cowpuncher who was half horse to step out of the truck and show me how it done. )

 

I informed my training partner of the next days event, because we had a very refined system for riding king that included Tom being on another good saddle horse ride when I rode me. There were still some relationship issues and it was good to have another horse for King, and Tom for moral support,  even if it was just to call 911. If he wanted me to ride “that horse” I had no plans to ride him alone.

 

Tom and I saddled up a couple of good horses but left old King alone so that these folks could see him fresh out of the stall, and what it requires to set him up for success.

 

All three jumped out of the worn out Ford truck, and this tall, lean forty something, fellow came striding up and shuck may hand in a hard cold manner. It was one of those moments when I knew this was no church social we were about to commence with.

 

I brought old King out and began to let him drift out at his own pace with not so long line but gave him some slack to see how he was feeling. I was talking to them about letting him pick the speed me picking the direction.

I was two minutes of working with King. When this gentleman interrupted me forcefully. “we don’t need to see all that. Just get on and ride it”…

Now folks, like always say, if you can’t say it in 1500 words say the rest in part two. Hope you will come along for the rest of the story.

Leave a comment and tell them when to publish part two.

Creative consistency and consistently creative. Or Controlled confusion and confused control.

My wife and I have a small outfit on a mesa with a beautiful view of the mountains to the north. Every day, all day, and even at night, the view is there. It is a constant reality. Yet depending on the time of day, week or month, the view is different. It i a created reality. Which I am confident is intended to create feelings (spiritual influence that is intended to motivate a physical response).

Every morning as I’m out doing chores. Filling water tanks feeding horses, doctoring on something sick or hurt. Not to mention it may be in the snow or cold, wind or rain, mud or dust and heat. (Often all at the same time! ).

And on any different time day or season, the reality of a leaky water tank, a hay tarp frozen to the ground or blown away, no gain and or the wrong kind of medicine. (Oh and the dogs got into trash, and we had chickens for a while, but that a whole nether story). This reality I am also confident it is intended to create feeling.

You may be wondering why I am confident that difficult physical views on life create feelings. Because: and this may come as a shock to some people (mostly *christians *) , we are created to feel spiritual influences . This is who our Creator is. He is the spiritual reality that we are created in the likeness and image of. We are therefore spiritual being first.

It is no different from physical feeling. Touch your spouse on the shoulder is something she feels, that will create an emotion (motivation of a physical response). Our feelings are our spiritual connection to our Creator and our created humanity.

Like it or not we are in a world of spiritual existence. Living in this reality (truth), opens us, not into a simpler way of living, but in a more full way. It’s a lot like coming to my house. When first entire you come in through the closed in porch. It has roof and walls some rugs, a bunch to sit on and even some places to hang coats or other clothing. We appreciate our the porch, it is a very useful room of house.

But now if you were to come to our house to for “acoupleadays” ( a couple of days). And we ate and slept on the porch, you’d not take long to find this is wrong. There is something wrong with the house or me and my bride. We could feed you the finest food ever cooked, and give you silk pillow cases to sleep on. You might even stay, you may even have a good time us while you’re here. But you will ways have an uneasy feeling about that visit. And it will change how you feel about me.

Why? You may ask. Because it’s a part of our physical nature to know that is not what the porch was created for. My wife simply told a carpenter she want a simple porch a certain size and he built us porch. We did not come home one evening and open the screen door to a living room .

It is just wrong to deny, devalue or simply reason way the feeling (environmental influences) that exist in our existence. And honestly it doesn’t work. We are spiritual being, and many of us are sleeping on the spiritual porch. Some of us as good human beings are trying to choose by reason (of insanity) only the good ones. But this like sleeping on the porch with the door to the main house open but not going in.

By now you might be wondering what about the chores? Just get them done. Doesn’t matter how you feel, you wanted a place with some land and livestock, just get the fences fixed. (Have you ever been on fence line with a person sleeping on this spiritual porch? )

I lived a long long time believing that this was the way we as individuals were created to exist . It was a fight to get things done. A struggle to choose the right attitude. Life just becomes a world of conflicting emotions, actions and choices from with in our selves and other human beings.

Life is exhausting and become a world of controlled confusion when we are sleeping on the spiritual porch. The sad reality of this way of living, is that we believe our human being character, of mental reason and choices will is created for us to navigate through a spiritual existence. And live in a waste land of need.

This mentality of the choice *free will * is a lot like playing a game of rock, paper, scissors. No matter how smart you are you have a 66.66666666 % of losing ever time. The mind and the body were not created to be the controller of our spiritual existence.

When we live in our true nature, as a spiritual being first, we find a greater reality of who our Creator is. We see that He is energetic excited and pleased with what He creates. That He is a constant Creator. And the creative constant in our existence. It is the ship in how He relates to us. Because we were created in His likeness, to respond to the nature that is our DNA to create and be creative constantly. The energy to respond is natural to our total existence, because it is His nature to respond to His creation.

Let me comment here, before we run off down another religious rabbit hole, that this not some magical truth for the sake of simplicity and ease. There is a huge difference between physical compilation and spiritual complexity. (But that is for another blog)

Two nights ago I came to this little place of our, and saw the dark sky filled with bright red and orange smoke, at a very close distance. My personal existence was overwhelmed with feeling. Fear and anxiety and anger were the big ones. To simply over ride those feels and started making choices was my physical desire. Yet living in a deeper reality allows me recognize that those where not the only feeling influencing me.

The energy to respond to what is created in me by our Creator, allows me to do more than just suppress the feeling of panic. It allowed me to be creative in putting a plan of action to work. I simply gathered all livestock to the pens where a fast-moving grass fire would burn around them, if I didn’t have time to get them hauled out. Hooked up the tuck to the trailer and maybe the greatest feeling to respond to was wait.

It allowed me to feel confident in our humanity, knowing that the people fighting the fire had the same creative desire in them. Live that reality I was able get my place in order and then seek to help others, knowing that it would be easier for others if I needed help.

It all worked out and no porches were lost to fires while writing this blog.

The richness and fullness of life is in the experience of feeling. Our Creator’s nature is of constant creativity that may seem to us, in our individuality, as complete chaos. It may feel like He doesn’t care or even exist. But that is not reality. Our humanity was created for change to new and fresh experiences.

Our mental capacity to reason through and choose the right and wrong, good and bad is a shallow existence that we where never created to experience. We where created to feel, recognize and respond. You may think I’m just playing with somatics. But there is a huge difference between choice and response as to the type of ship we create to relate with.

My wife and I where on the couch watching tv and she said to me, “I’m cold can you get me a blanket.” To recognize her feeling of desire for comfort, and my feelings wanting her comfortable, I naturally respond to her request. I am relating to her humanity through feel. I’m not cold but I have been, and l know what it feels like for someone to care about my comfort and the feeling of a soft blanket. (And yes l do this every time because I super husband).

Sometimes I feel tired stiff and sore from the day, and will respond with irritation thinking “I’m not cold, why am I getting a blanket, if I was cold I’d get one, but I’m not… it’s not even cold in here . Boy just wait till January… she will know what cold feels like. I remember last winter fix the tractor in ten below weather. Now that was cold and I still got my own blanket “. But then over ride my feelings and choose to get all the way up from the couch, walk all the way over to the blanket, pick it up, and walk all the way back to the couch and hand it to her. I have chosen to do this task out of *love and sacrifice*. Right? Not!

Now she may the value of my choice of sacrificial love and just be happy she didn’t have to go through all that just to be comfortable, but this ship in our marriage of relating (which is designed to be big and able the sail over deep and stormy waters), is a shallow, leaky row boat, with a broken ore. The action of choice don’t add anything to design of the beauty of marriage.

In the end our personalities are more often drawn to the superficial and shallow things of life to created a sense of self worth and purpose. Much like walking on the beach as the waves roll in and say “I’m swimming “. Our desire to control the perceived confusion of earthly living is not what our humanity was created for. Our humanity was created for the feeling of experience of change.

Where it starts…

Have you ever had a moment in time when you learned something that changed your existence? We may call it a moment of enlightenment, clarity, revelation or vision, something that changes the reality of being. I have had two different moments in my life time.

I’m not talking about negative situations that influence use to pull back or find “escape” or hounds our past to determine our future. Instead I’m talking about a moment of realisation that you can respond to that helps come adversity, and negative influences.

My first time rocked my world. I mean it changed my existence on this planet never to be the same. I was six years old and I learned to… RIDE A BICYCLE. I know right, it was an enlightenment that bought man and machine together and I never looked back. ( I’m not a professional cyclist, never have been, although I once rode my bike in a parade couple times. To be truthful, I have not rode a bicycle in 10 years.

It’s never really about the physical thing, but about what that knowledge allows us to experience and feel. Until that moment in time when my mind changed what my body could do, my world was very small. My world was a ten by ten foot sand box, a table with food brought to me, and a back seat of a car with windows that I couldn’t see out of.

My whole life existence was about looking down as an individual human being at little things. Even the mechanical mobility of a tricycle was inefficient and limited me to a small driveway full of cracks that I got stuck in all time with my little wheels.

Now the day when my mind convinced my body I could balance on two wheels while going forward, created for me a new vision of life . I could go places, places I never know existed. It allowed me to look up and see where I could go, and not crash into stuff. It allowed me to experience and feel a whole new universe.

This magical revelation made a huge difference in who I was and what l was capable of, as an individual human being. And truth be told, l’ve never regretted that moment of clarity. I’ve been a lot places, seen and done many thing, living a life to fullest extent of the law.

With this enlightenment my whole existence was motivated by the power of being a human individual. It shaped my education, my financial stability, my emotions gratification and even my sense of spiritual connection to the “christian god”. It all depend on my power as a human being. The ability of the mind and body to make the right choices to receive good circumstances or the responsibility of consequences of bad circumstances.

Now I intend to go much deeper on this revelation of human being power concept in blogs to come. But for now lets just say that there are many limitation and confusion about this kind of “power”, and until this path of enlightenment runs its course, I needed nothing else to function as a normal being of a human, in normal human life.

In time these limitations and the emotional stress of mental confusion, over my *choices*, began to add up and created a feeling of uselessness, worthlessness. The harder I tried the less feel of worth I felt.

In response to the many conflicting confusions with in my person. Like many people, I turned to my religion for answers from a higher power. There are many riddles to this human power. Yet the doctrine of those that claim to be talking for Him, were just speaking in even bigger riddles. I began to realize that the “christian god” of the “bible” was not really going to help much. This “christian god and his son” spent more time talking about me and my power than about His power.

My second moment of clear enlightened revelation was truly super natural. I wasn’t really searching at the time, but simply drifting with the statics quo. I know honestly that it was a spiritual awakening that did not come from my sense of reason. I had come to the end of myself in the ability to figure the riddle of life out.

This moment of reality came randomly as I read the first few chapters of God’s words . And it was simply this: This book is not about me, but in reality it is about Who my Creator is . It is about how He feels, thinks and what He does or doesn’t do. This book is not about us as individuals, but in fact about His character and nature. It is about God as a Creator and us as a whole (our humanity) of His creation.

I intend to go much deeper into the reality of this truth, but for now I will just say that it has had a profound impact on the way I view life and interact with my fellow creatures. The regular moments in time and space have greater meaning. With that reality, I realized that I am created in my Creator’s image and likeness. I am a spiritual being first. The feeling of experience and the experience of feeling, is what humanity was created for.

We can no more disconnect from feeling of spiritual existence, than we can the wind in our face, when you ride a bike. In truth our whole existence is motivated the by influences of spiritual connection with our Creator and His creation of humanity. We were created for relationship with Him and each other through the experience of feeling .