I’m still in New York City, I spent a powerful afternoon with the carriage horse drivers, the horses, Chief Arvol Looking Horse, the dalai lama of the Sioux Nation and with my camera. I’ll write about this more when I return tomorrow to Bedlam Farm.

I have been out photographing the carriage drivers and talking with them this morning.

I felt an urgent need to pause and share my encounter with a remarkable woman named Alicia, a former Broadway Dancer now unable to walk due to degenerative tissue disease. She says she had given up on life until she began coming to the park every morning to see Rebecca and the other carriage horses.

The horses, she said, have given her a  reason to live, something to look forward to each day.

When she is coming to the park she calls Ariel, one of the drivers, and he comes to meet her in his carriage, he kisses her on the forehead and gives her a carrot to give to Rebecca, his horse of many years. Ariel grew up on a Kibbutz in Israel with horses, they are his life. Alicia beams when she sees Rebecca, she strokes the big  horse’s forehead and the horse nuzzles her. Alicia says the horses are healing her, she says they give her a purpose. They are, she says, “the heart of the park.”

I asked her if she would come to the park every day to see an “eco-friendly, cruelty-free” electric car. It would be an awful thing, she said, to replace Rebecca with an automobile. It would be devastating, she said.

It is a powerful thing to see this beautiful woman, smiling through her affliction, the horses are sustaining her. On this trip to New York I focused my camera and my eye on the human connections between people and the horses. If children voted, there would be no question of removing the horses. And the children deserve to be heard, just as the horses and their work need to be respected.

I also spent several hours in conversation with Chief Arvol Looking Horse, and heard his remarkable perspective on the horses and what they mean. I’ll write about that later. I wanted to share at least one image of Alicia, I will share more. I had a wonderful time in conversation with the drivers, a remarkable and diverse community of men and women who love their lives and are prepared to fight for their way of life.

In addition, I photographed and spoke with some of the animal rights demonstrators seeking to ban the horses from New York City. I learned a lot and they took some photographs of me and told me I will soon be on their Facebook enemies page. I said I was sorry to hear that, people who disagree with me are not my enemies, not in our democracy. It has been a powerful experience to far, I am eager to write about it, maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow when I return to Bedlam Farm with Maria.