I’ve been offered this opportunity to go to Denmark to offer EFW workshops. It’s a long distance from here to Denmark. It all came about very casually. I didn’t put it on a vision board or figure out a way to make it happen. I just said “Yes, I’ll come meet her.” when my friend Maggie Ranger reached out to let me know she had a WWOOFer named Jonna Kvist Stripp, who’s horse farm arrangement had fallen through and was wondering if I would be interested. On meeting her I was immediately inclined to say, “Yes, you would be welcome in my home.” She came, painted my bedroom, picked my potatoes, we went riding and saw a bear and a cub before we’d even left the hayfield. My husband Charlie and I became friends with her and very much appreciated both her presence and her independence.

On the last day we found time for me to demo EFW for her. I facilitated myself in a session with Blue, it turned out to be about separation, grief and loss. My daughter moved out this past year, my time as a mother with a child at home is over. I was hanging on to a few strands of Blue’s tail with my eyes closed, he was leading me around very gently, a tug here, a moving together there and then, inevitably a parting. The loss of breath, tears, sobs, then a steadying, acceptance, back to the breath, the realization that I am okay, forever altered and enriched and sad, very sad, ironically with a deeper and greater capacity for joy.

Through my blur of tears, I looked over at Jonna and saw hers flowing too. I recall her saying something to the effect of, “I had no idea it would go so deep so fast”. “Would you consider coming to Denmark to give workshops?” she asked later. “Yes”, I repllied, for the magical third time. She returned to her Danish nest, got together with Susan Danaher and Ulla Jensen and together we hatched a plan for me to come to Denmark and offer 2 workshops. I fledge next weekend.

A few weeks ago Charlie came as close to dying as he has since I’ve been with him, perhaps in his life. He came down with pneumonia. By the time we went to the hospital he was very weak, his life force ebbing. It’s been a year of loss for him, first Hazel leaving and then his mother dying. He is an incredibly strong, robust, gentle, kind man. My sister nailed it in an email, “Charlie isn’t invincible? Who knew??” Now, I’ve watched a few things die and it has taken for-fucking-ever, so Charlie getting close in one paltry week was a real eye opener for me. Granted it was a week of spiking a 104 degree fever a couple of times a day but just the fever, no other symptoms.

So an emotional time, a vulnerable time and a time of new appreciation for the gifts and blessings of being alive together. A realization of how fast it all can change and a commitment to softening and opening to the breadth and vastness of the range that is possible when I don’t shut down, withdraw, numb or narrow. That was my intention for this year, to soften and open to loving compassion, for me, for other, to what is. I’m feeling quite accomplished in this moment. I’m also crying, often. Maybe as often as I’m feeling incredibly happy.

This will be the longest period of time I will be away from my farm and family, right after a very intense time of nursing and caregiving. Decisions and declarations are being made, possibilities of movement are arising, attachments to roles are releasing. The rebirth that follows death is imminent and the essential destabilizing process is the only thing established. Flicker fast shifts are afoot. The Way of the Horse card I pulled is, “Bonfire”.

Two nights ago I was not feeling at all “accomplished”. I had prepared a letter for the workshop participants and sent a draft off to Jonna. I got a reply saying the letter was “interessending”. Gotta love communicating across a language barrier with or without the help of autocorrect. “Interesting good, or interesting bad?”, I wondered.

The risk of going half way across the world to stay in Jonna’s home and offer workshops to people of another language and culture came crashing down on me. It hadn’t occurred to me before. The risks inherent in my actions seldom do. Until the moment I am jumping off the cliff, I only see the gleeful opportunity to free fall. The possibility of landing badly arises those few seconds before my feet leave the earth when it’s too late to change my mind. I love that about me.

So in that moment all the shit history of places I went to be with people I loved, that went horribly wrong came up for review. I’ve thrown myself off a lot of ledges for the love of others over my lifetime. Mom hating me long and loud, horses gutshot and dead.… let’s just say my outcomes weren’t always favourable. “Ploosh!”, I’d suddenly landed in the water at the bottom of a chasm of self doubt and was struggling to surface. Fortunately, (I choose that word in all honesty) this is not my first dip in the pool. I know better than to believe the thoughts that I”m having as the water closes in over my head. I have developed my confidence, one restorative experience at a time, in my ability to plunge without panicking and hold my self together until I surface. Although never comfortable, it is very familiar.

“All I have to do, is show up as who I am, do what I do, and not abandon myself. Regardless of outcome, I will be able to stand by me and love who I am.” I reassured myself.

“I can love me in a pit of despair! I can love me anywhere!” Thus, “Suessed up”, green eggs and ham style, I went off to sleep.

And woke at 3am in a frenzy of creativity, laid down the framework for the workshops and sat in a real appreciation and gratitude for this whole process. I also reread the letter that Jonna found “interessending”, heartily agreed with her assessment and felt entirely satisfied by what I read.

I create a new workshop every time I have an opportunity to offer one. After 15 years experience I have developed a level of mastery and a body of experiences and resources that I can pull from. Every workshop I offer is birthed out of the context of my life at that point in time, the relationships, the blessings and the challenges. The experiences I have with the horses and nature serve to validate, support and guide the offerings I create. I say, in all humility, that it is an amazing collaboration with the universe that I am blessed to participate in.

This morning, I was getting ready for a walk and I looked out on the lake and saw that the water was opening, the ice receding, almost to in front of the house. Soon the swans will visit. I thought about taking the horses with me, but when I went to see what they were up to, Freya was lying down for her snooze, so I left them behind. On the way down the road between field and forest, I saw the eagles who lay eggs this time of year in the old cottonwood, frolicking and flirting in flight.

As I climbed the old pool ladder I’d found at the dump and plopped over the barbwire fence where I didn’t hold my ground to have the gate installed, I tripped off into the trees and felt something rise within me. There was a swirly feeling that comes before tears in my chest, a recognition of how tender and open I feel in this moment and how incredible and perfect the juxtaposition of Charlie’s health breakdown with this European breakthrough, I am experiencing.
There was a point when he was very, very sick that I wondered if I would still get to go. Whether the darkness would overtake the light. I never once thought that perhaps the darkness was a consequence of my aspiring to the light. I used to believe when bad things happened that I was being punished for aspiring beyond my lot. That it didn’t even occur to me is a landmark on my journey from braving the badlands to dwelling in the belief of benevolence.

And so, when I stopped at the top of the hill and did a “remembrance” meditation, filling my heart with the Divine that exists within and all around me, a joy rose in me. I was entranced by the trees, so filled with light shining on and from them and tears of joy rose. I breathed deep, in through the nose and out through my feet, like my mare Beauty had taught me and Grounded. My dog Angel appeared from her foray and happily headed my way at a run.

When I came out into the clearing at the top of the hayfield the sun was so warm, I stripped down to my undershirt. I could feel the sun on my arms for the first time since last fall. The horses were waiting by the hay shed, all oriented in my direction, attending to my progress.

When I got to them, Freya came out to greet me. We stood in the sun and breathed together. She’s stoned on heat hormones and so lovey she almost drools. It’s delightful. Yesterday, I turned the herd out into the hayfield for a run and boy did they run. At one point she came back to the gate and stopped, stood stalk still for seconds, before wheeling and burning off, mud clots flying. She is so alive, vibrant, big and powerful in that liveliness…and then this soft, gentle, mumbling, sighing besottedness. I yearn to inhabit her range.

And then along comes the new boy Mater. Lower lip hanging, subtly smiling, peaceful, present Mater. I took in the beauty of him. Thought about how expressive his eye is, although it isn’t large in proportion to his head like I usually like them. “Maybe, I’ve grown up?” I thought. I stood beside him and stroked his shoulder and we sighed together for a time.

When I got back to the house, I walked in one door to see an otter out the other door, on the ice. I walked out onto the porch and watched him through the binoculars as he rolled and flipped, smeared and slid his way out on the ice. I had the thought, “I wonder if that’s what lured Angel out onto the lake the spring she fell through.” I left off watching for just a moment to let her in. When I went back to watch some more, the otter had completely, magically, disappeared. From the middle of the lake…to gone.

“Now there’s a visitation of joy for you!” I reflected as I stood in the warmth of the sun, still in my undershirt. Suddenly, the wind picked up and I could feel the chill roll in and hear the first rumble of thunder roll out of the black clouds amassing to the east. I retreated indoors, grateful for the timing, thinking, “I get it, I get it already, now if I can just write it down”.