Author Archive
You could see in his eyes the wild gallops of his past, his lush mane streaming and his glorious tail wind-whipped in his wake. Eight years in the wilds of Utah, a stallion, maybe with his own band, maybe running in the bachelor herd, a life on the move— grazing, finding water, rutting and running…
When a sculpture is going well, I feel as if I am in a dialogue with the emerging form, with each tool used, and with the material itself. My hands and eyes are listening, responding, exploring, coaxing. Sometimes what comes out is a complete surprise to me, as if a combination of my unconscious, the…
Not just the words, but the compass they offer… That’s what I want, what I need. The ability to keep balanced as humans wobble the earth on her axis, insanity inflames, and demagogues spin their lies in a thick and sticky web, ensnaring true vision, feeding on ignorance and fear, offering easy answers all tied…
It made no sense to back him in a corner. I could see him stiffen and flare his eyes as he went on the defensive. How she could not have seen it too is beyond me. But no, she pushed him even harder. Any trust and sense of belonging he’d had up to that point…
Let’s call her Alice, a chunky woman (chunky by her own definition) who sometimes comes into class with makeup I wouldn’t begin to know how to apply—thick penciled eyebrows, heavy eyeliner, multiple shades of eye shadow, mascara that makes her eyelashes look like caterpillar fur. Other times she just looks like the worn out single…
Why is it that when I was younger, pining for the day when I was older, time shuffled along, mulish and obstinate, but now, about to turn sixty-five and feeling like there’s still so much I want to do, create, see, touch, hear and give, the days gallop by like the jet stream touching down…
Incarcerated students are back in my life, thanks to teaching through Adams State Extended Studies. Their words and wisdom hearken back to the 90s when I was a volunteer teacher and administrator of the Prison Integrated Health Program at FCI Dublin, the West Coast federal prison for women. I never thought I’d be doing prison work again,…
It was Linda Kohanov, author of the Tao of Equus, Riding Between the Worlds and many other books related to the wisdom of horses, who first introduced me to the idea of the Tornado Head: an aspect of the False Self who is so shackled by fear that it is hell bent on sabotaging our…