Thursday, March 22, 2012

Reverence the Gods and Ride the Horse.

I'm playing the "Slinger's Theme" from the "Bastion" game and dreaming of riding.

I'm remembering being much younger and fearless and thinking that all feminists should not only ride, but teach other and especially younger women to ride. One of my little girl students trotted without me for the first time tonight, and she didn't turn a girl's face to me when she was done. She looked down at me with the face of a woman who's tasted power for the first time. Slainte and hail Epona, girl.

A woman who loves horses gets up and leaves the house like a wraith. A woman who loves horses doesn't care who might be looking for her when they get up - she left a note on the fridge or the coffeemaker (before there was texting, or texts, now). A woman who loves horses shivers in the cold dawn in the winter and sweats in the first rays of the sun in summer. Riding English or Western, a woman who loves horses is competent. She deals with a crisis, getting help when there is some and dealing as best she can when there isn't (walking through the pasture today, rope around one horse and my t-shirt through the halter of the other, hoping my little-girl student will learn something about women and horses by watching my trek back, wearing only a sports bra and breeches, mud up to the ankles, closing the fence back up).

I say my prayers to Epona every time my students mount. I say my prayers when I put my equine charges back in the pasture and give them their well-deserved dinners. I thank her for this time, for however long it lasts, in which I am teaching other women, no matter their age, to ride and love the horse.

Tomorrow. Up with the sun and out like a breath. I do not know how many more rides I get, but I intend to make them all count. Hail Epona, slainte Epona, go raibh maith agat Epona. Lady of the Horses, bless me and them, and let us all run safe in the pasture.

Friday, March 16, 2012

An Explanation of the Absence of the Ocelot.

A few months back, I decided that given the lack of office gig action, I'd go ahead and look for training/riding instructor gigs. I got a callback, but then heard nothing else...until about two weeks ago. And now, ladies, gents and others, I am a riding instructor.

A somewhat tired, stiff, and sore riding instructor, but a riding instructor nonetheless. And one who is damn grateful to have brought home a modest but much-needed paycheck doing something I love.

I'll get back to the witchery in a little bit when my schedule settles into something a bit more predictable.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

This is what you want....

(the title's from PiL, for those of you not from the Paleolithic Era. Public Image Limited, for those still wondering what I'm on about now.)

Second Husband and I headed off to the woods for a few days. I needed some serious peace and quiet. We left on Monday, got to our destination around 2pm, hung out, ate, slept, got up, ate, he fished, ate some more, then sat around the fire until he got the Impending Doom sensation that drove us to suddenly break camp and stuff the damn huge tent that suddenly thought it was a frigging Macy's Thanksgiving parade float into the van and flee with decorous but hasty steps into the night.

I got a little over 24 hours of the peace and quiet I was after. It wasn't enough, and it's my own fault.

See, I got talked/talked myself into car camping. I fell prey to the lure of a fire ring, a nearby toilet with lights and whatnot, the van being only ten feet away and chock full o'conveniences, even if the price to pay was Other People. I told myself it was better than the Place By the Lake With Coytoes, which has no lights, no toilet, no parking near the tent, no fire ring and no Other People. It'd be better to camp less wildly this time, I told myself. Maybe next time.

Then Second Husband got the Doom and we came home early anyway. We came home to cats causing chaos (including barfing, shitting inappropriately, tossing litterboxes over, and various and other annoying behaviors, causing me to stare at the lot of them and intone, like Prachett's Death, ADULTS DON'T LIVE LIKE THIS Y'KNOW AND THERE ARE TOO MANY OF YOU SO I THINK YOUSE HAD BETTER FLY RIGHT LEST I MAKE GLOVES FOR FREYA OUT OF THE WORST OFFENDERS).

Oh, and I quit smoking. I hate it and I don't care, which is weird.

I've been tired and blah since we got back and I think it's because I didn't get what I really wanted - the coyotes singing me to sleep, the fear of the deer running through the tent in the pitch black, the half-mile hike to the site. The lack of potable water. The lack of any lights. The lack of any sanitary facilities. The lack of any human being I didn't bring with me.


Like Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction, I didn't emphasize the importance of the kangaroo; hence, here I am getting twitchy again because three of us in one 10 x 12 room is just a little. TOO. CLOSE. This leads to thoughts like the following:

FIRST HUSBAND: It's the full moon tonight. We should do something.
ME: Uh-huh.
F.H.: Not, maybe, the full, high-church thing. But something.
ME: (Why, yes, what a lovely idea. I think I'll find some belladonna and an unbaptized baby or nibble the neighbor's datura and then I'll be butt-naked up the front tree except for my combat boots and a metal colander on my head, screaming at the moon and calling to the owls) Uh-huh.

I'm not sure why they put up with me, or why I haven't made a burrow in the pool cabana, really.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Unitarian Jihad Name Generator.

My Unitarian Jihad Name is:

Sister Claymore of Mild Reason.

Sounds about right, whether you consider "claymore" to refer to a sword or an explosive device.