Tuesday, November 3

[gottawonder]

Today I am grateful for:

Getting up a little earlier than I have been, which made me feel like I had more time during the day, even if it wasn't MUCH more time.

Going to the barn again today. I am very grateful just to have somewhere to go, and there's usually people around. Everyone wears masks at the barn, and generally we're quite a distance away from each other, usually at least ten feet apart because the owner, R, kind of uses the stalls as a way to keep people distanced. Generally you put your horse in one of the box stalls to groom and saddle etc, and we can chat while we're doing our thing, but the other person is in another stall often at least 10 or more feet away. It doesn't even seem weird to have a conversation with someone ten feet away because you're grooming horses or something.

I talked to one of my sisters, and I still find it remarkable that this is my eldest sister, but she is in really good shape compared to most of my other sisters, and she's much more mentally positive. When I talk with her, she's excited about her new horse, about going to her adult son's house for Halloween, and even though the weather was too crappy for decorations they watched movies and she played with her son's puppy, and she laughed about her horses taking themselves for an adventure and she had to go find them in her neighbor's bush, and she's interested in the stuff I'm doing with River at the new place, etc. She's still physically active, still is curious about life, still keeps planning on doing interesting new things, and she laughs.

I can't help but compare this outlook to three of my other sisters that I talk with the most, who are not that physically active, smoke/vape, spend a lot of time sitting around, and who say a lot of cryptic things like "it's only going to get worse". They don't seem to keep planning new things to do, aren't interested that much in what I'm doing with River, and so on. In fact, two of these sisters I can remember when I was in high school, they were already moaning and groaning about being too old to go for a walk on the farm with me, and aches and pains, and talking about how rough it was to be old, and you know what? They were likely only in their 30's!

When I think of this sister at 70, and our Mom at 70, Mom seemed so much older. She was already not walking around much, and was not that curious or interested in the world anymore, certainly didn't watch new movies or anything, and we all treated her like an "old person". My sister doesn't act like an "old person".

Yes, she knows she's getting older. She and her husband are facing some health challenges, but she doesn't spend all of her time sitting in a chair looking out the window. She's not lost in nostalgia, only talking about the past. She's still looking forward to things she wants to do. She and her husband had an epic trip to Germany last year. She still jokes around. She doesn't focus on negative things.

I think it's important to take care of yourself physically, and not stop participating in the world. My sister S has literally seemed "too old" to do anything for about 30 years now. I only think of her as sitting with a smoke in one hand and coffee in the other, complaining about being tired. My sister E bought an acreage in her 50's, got a horse, and found a friend to ride with. The couple of times I went to her place we rode horses, talked about the stuff she was doing in her yard, and she might have talked about getting older...as she was carrying a saddle across the yard.

I didn't work River too hard today, but I did ride him at a walk and worked on just getting him to stretch down, and then give at the poll. I did the massage again, we gave him some additional food that he enjoyed, and some stretches.

The barn owner R, is really into Reiki and energy stuff, crystals, and new age spiritual things. I've always had a lot of resistance to these ideas, and I do tend towards cynicism. I knew a lot of people in this community when we lived in Wyoming, and while I was always kind of cynical, I usually liked those people. They are generally very kind and well-meaning, and all they really seem to want is to be able to DO something to help people. I'm not really sure that I buy the idea that crystals promote healing because of vibrational energy, but here's the thing; people likely feel better to lie down, relax, have someone pay attention to them in a very kind manner, and to feel like they are doing something for themselves. I think this isn't so different from meditation or prayer, in that you are entering a different mental state that is healthier than our usual fretful monkey mind.

I do think there's a bit of a racket surrounding Reiki, in the marketing of all the crystals and so on, but I guess it's no different than anything else.

I also remember that the people I knew in Wyoming just seemed to find "negative energy" everywhere. I guess when you're personal view is that you are healing stuff all the time, you're not being useful unless you find negativity all over the place. In people's bodies, in their homes, in their animals. I used to kind of get burnt out being with my new age friends in Wyoming because literally every person they saw, every animal they petted, had tons of "trauma" and "negative energy" that had to be "cleared". I don't know how many times I had people sitting around doing energy work on each other and each other's dogs, cats, horses. It was kind of like hanging around with "Ghost Busters", performing exorcisms on people everywhere you went. They would sometimes see ghosts or spirits, and were always talking about the energy of people or places or objects they picked up at yard sales.

Most of these people, once you got talking to them, had pretty rough lives. I think that all of this work with crystals and energy is a way for them to try to heal themselves, and then to feel like they have some control over the world by seeing trauma everywhere and feeling like they have to power to heal it too.

Anyhow, I don't see anything harmful in it, and I don't mind people running energy on me or my horse or doing some clearing mantras on us. It's all with good intentions. It's not that different to me than someone sending you good thoughts when you're not feeling well. Mostly it's just nice when anyone tries to be positive about anything.