My tabby cat
Is ensuring our survival,
Bringing sacrifices of small rodents
From the garden.
No morsel for his appetite,
He places them reverently
On the stone in the ancient way, [Read more…]

On June 2, 2012, I sustained a concussion. Some of you who follow my blog already know this. I must admit that at the time, like most people, I had no idea how serious a concussion can be. Over the next few months, I learned first-hand that a concussion is a brain injury that “may take 3 to 6 months to heal.” (Picture me doing the air quotes, and you’ll see why below.) Another name for a concussion is a mild traumatic brain injury.

It’s referred to as “mild” only because your head isn’t split wide open and you aren’t laying unconscious in the ICU. [Read more…]

So…today it has been one whole year since Alf departed this world. I have been torn in my heart all day. Part of me wanted to blog, to commemorate this milestone and honor his memory. And part of me wanted to have nothing to do with thinking about it, because it is still very painful to remember that he is no longer here with us. To remember how much I love him, and how much I miss him. I don’t know if anyone can even begin to imagine how much I miss him. Even now, as I write these words, the tears fall. This, THIS is what I was trying to avoid today, this feeling. But with grief, there is no way around it. One must, as always, journey right through the heart of it to get to the other side, to get to the healing.

[Read more…]

The owls hooting outside my window on these long, dark winter nights reminded me of this poem, which is based on a tale from the Welsh Mabinogi. You can find this selection and many of my other poems in the collection “Purple Roses & Other Poems,” available through Amazon.com.  This Wikipedia entry summarizes the story: Blodeuwedd. I include it here so that those with no knowledge of the tale may better understand the poem.

Blodeuwedd

The wind sighs through the browning, brittle leaves
dark and withered under threatening sky
The owl calls ‘who?’; her question pierces
the heart and soul of this lonely place. [Read more…]

February 2nd is known to us in the US as Groundhog Day, a day upon which we traditionally divine the future weather from the behavior of a rodent. However, in both ancient Ireland and in modern Celtic practice, it is called “Imbolc” and is known as the Feast of Brighid (Brigit, or “Breej” in the Irish pronunciation). This is the time when we honor a powerful female figure of light and inspiration. Some scholars believe that the name Brighid is derived from brio-aigit, “fiery arrow,” which is certainly a fitting name for a goddess associated with three fires: the hearth, the forge, and the flame of poetic inspiration. She is the Celtic Goddess of poetry, healing, and smithcraft. In Irish tradition, poetry and seership are interwoven, so Brighid is often seen as the imbas (inspiration) behind divination and prophecy as well. All of these are magical arts of transformation. They are also gifts that can be of great value to society. [Read more…]

Happy New Year! May 2015 be the year your dreams come true!

When I reflect on the past year (2014), I realize that I had a mixed year; some good things happened, but some not-so-good things, too.

The not-so-good things: Alf, my soulmate, my equine anamcara, died in April, and though I knew it was coming and I knew I would be spun into a hard grief, I had no idea just how long that melancholy would last. In addition, my mother was in and out of the hospital with congestive heart failure and then finally went into hospice care in October with end-stage renal failure. I had to take yet another leave of absence from grad school to help get her affairs in order, putting me now a full year-and-a-half behind my original schedule toward attaining my Masters degree in Counseling Psychology/Equine-Assisted Mental Health.

But then I look at the good things, and realize that maybe, in spite of my overall sadness, 2014 wasn’t really so bad after all. For instance, [Read more…]

We are working with shamanic dreaming in a course I am taking with Robert Moss, and right now we are specifically working with dreaming with the dead and with spirit guides. I have always been a strong dreamer, and the current subject matter inspired me to share with our group a powerful dream I had years ago that involved my father and my spirit guide. My father died suddenly a little over 21 years ago, and this dream came about 3 months after he died. I had fallen asleep mid-afternoon on the couch in the living room. I am also feeling inspired today to share it with my readers, so here it is:
[Read more…]

I posted this old photo on my personal Facebook page recently, and was encouraged by a friend to post a blog because she wanted to know the whole story. So here it is:

My horses Dusty and Alf were equine actors in an episode of Unsolved Mysteries in 1992. Dusty was 33 years old at the time, and Alf was 5. My friend Brenda told me that the producers of the show had stopped by her horse farm and asked to film there, and also said they needed horses for the filming. So she asked me if I was interested, since at the time she didn’t have any suitable horses. The story was about a missing heiress from Bridgeport, NY (a town right next to where I live), who had disappeared when she was 17 from Chittenango High School, presumably with her boyfriend. Her name was Sandy Breed. Her mother had died and left her an estate in excess of $150,000, so they were trying to locate her. The girl had had horses when she lived in the area, so the film crew wanted to depict some horse scenes for the Unsolved Mysteries reenactment section of the story. My horses would be paid for the gig, so I was quite agreeable. I selected Dusty and Alf for the job.

[Read more…]

“The life I live is created by the story I tell.”  – Abraham-Hicks

     I have always thought of Thanksgiving as a traditional harvest festival of European origin. I know that for Native Americans it can be a difficult time, and as a social scientist, is important to me to share accurate historical information as it applies to all cultures. In that vein, [Read more…]