Day: June 8, 2015

And when I leave,

will we meet again,

in the forgiving place?

And will you forgive me,

for what I could not be?,

In the forgiving place.

 

Thank you for your kind words about the photographs of the young people at Blue Star. They are gift to the world. I have a few more to put up, two of the young people drawn to Blue Star and working there are Loretta, an artist,  and Taylor, interesting, fiercely individualistic, and loving to one another. Taylor showed me an original tattoo on his forearm, a water molecule tattoo. I asked him what it’s purpose was, he said it was to remind him to be hydrated.

It is impossible not to love these people.

In Hopi mythology, the Blue Star Kachina is a spirit that will signify the coming of the beginning of the new world, the new beginning by appearing in the form of a blue star. According to the Hopi prophecy, after the earth is threatened the True White Brother will come to earth in search of those who adhere to the ancient teachings. If the True White Brother is successful in finding others who follow the true Hopi way of life, the world will be created anew and all of the faithful will be saved from destruction.

There is an alternative vision. If the True White Brother fails in his mission and is unable to find uncorrupted people, then the earth will be destroyed and none will be spared.

Blue Star Equiculture is named for this new beginning. The story is all too relevant to our time. We have forgotten how to love one another, the earth is bleeding from our deprivations, it can only be saved  by the pure at heart.

Pamela Rickenbach, Blue Star’s founder, says it is time to begin turning the farm and the horses over to the young, the uncorrupted, so they can purify it and honor the vision and the prophecy. She says it is time for her to give way to them, to let them grow and emerge. This is happening, it can be seen, but Pamela is not a person who can fade into any background.

She is a regal presence, the Queen of the place. She is tall and imposing, her faced etched in character and feeling. She is almost always the tallest person anywhere she is, she stands out, she dresses in the colors and individuality of the tribal people she grew up with in South America and worships with on Native American reservations.

She radiates a charisma and a presence that is unusual, that is striking.  I think of her as the Queen of Blue Star. The horses are spiritual beings to Pamela, they are spirits that live to remind us of our duty to be good to the earth and to one another, they have come to heal us and save us from the deprivations of people. In restoring our bond with them, she believes, we can heal ourselves and purify our world. They are radiant beings to her, treated with love and respect, understood in a particular way.

There is a powerful streak in human history of people like this, they seem always to be persecuted, even hunted for their strange and heretic views, they seem to exist in opposition to the powerful institutions that human beings need to create and bend their knees to. They are often women, they call them witches and devils and burn them alive or find other cruel ways to kill them.

And Pamela has been persecuted for her views, she is treated cruelly, insulted and harassed, hated and condemned because she believes that horses are sacred and their bond with human beings is sacred. She has lost her partner, Paul, in part, I believe because of all the cruelty and anger that swirled about the Blue Star vision, and surrounds it still.

I am a watcher, not a believer, an observer, not a disciple. I am fascinated by Pamela’s ideas, I feel the power of the horses, they have altered my life as well as Maria’s. But I don’t always know what to make of what she believes, I am listening and learning, opening myself to something larger than me, scraping away at my cynicism and caution and detachment.  I don’t know where I am going, or where it will take me, and I don’t need to know. It will reveal itself to me.

I know that I feel the prophecy at Blue Star, I see the outlines of a new beginning, I see uncorrupted young people drawn to the idea of a new way. Human history is littered with the remnants of movements like this, the systems that run the earth always seem to find a way to crush them or quiet them.

I am not a prophet, I cannot tell the future. I can just open my eyes and my heart and try to feel the place. Pamela was touched with this spirit, so was Paul Moshimer, her husband, my friend. He believed in it very strongly, in one of his last messages to me he told me that he was astonished at how quickly I had seen it, felt it, been drawn to it. I was, as usual, surprised to hear it. So that’s where I am, I don’t know any more than that.

When I go to Blue Star, my camera is always drawn to the presence of Pamela, a Queenly figure, and when I look through my photos, she is there, standing out, radiating her message, speaking it, feeling it and believing it. All I can do is write what I feel and see and take photos of what I feel. I am not a preacher,  I am not her to persuade anyone of anything, I am a story-teller, everyone must find their own path. In my heart, I imagine that if and when the True White Brother comes to the earth, he may end up at Blue Star, he may find the uncorrupted believers that will save the world.

 

 

 

Bedlam Farm is a changing place, there are new things here, new images, new feelings. I love seeing Maria ride on  her new pony Chloe, the two of them looks as if they’ve been together for years. Red loves to sit in the pasture if I’m out there and preside over things – it is his farm, really, I am just renting from him. Chloe has fit in beautifully. She is finally permitting the sheep to go into the Pole Barn – sheep can be persistent. She loves the grass out in the pasture, she is already part of our herd, she stays with the donkeys, the three of them are always together, Fanny and Lulu have completely accepted her.

Some days she is easy for Maria, some days she doesn’t feel like riding, ponies have a mind of their own, but Maria persists and gets her way. She is very attached to Chloe, we are grateful to the carriage horses in New York  for helping open our hearts and minds to the horse universe. I am grateful to be able to capture the images here, it is a parade of life her, we are rocking our way to life.

One of the hardest things to teach a young border collie – especially a 15 week old border collie – is to get sheep out of a corner. Fate worked this morning without any leash attached to her, I thought she might be tired this afternoon, so I let her loose and had her drag a six foot lede, so I can step on it if things get crazy. They did not crazy, Fate continues her stellar work during herding lessons.

The circled the sheep today and pushed them into a corner of the pasture. Sheep dig into corners, it is hard for the dogs to get them out. Rose was great at that, at the command “get ’em up,” she would burrow in on the right or left side and start barking and nipping. The sheep would come flying out of the corner.

Fate is almost always fixated on the sheep, as she should be – don’t want them looking at the herder – but her, for the first time, she was stumped. Fate has tremendous drive and poise, she is not intimidated by the sheep, nor is she aggressive towards them. But she is intense, even powerful, a bit like Red. And she has a strong eye, and is bristling with instinct.

Herding lessons have already changed her, she has a focus now, she is calming down, is very responsive to commands except when she gets into the border collie trance – shivering and staring at the sheep. Then she doesn’t hear much of anything (thus the lede).

She walked the sheep into the corner, they gathered and stared back, they wouldn’t move, trying to figure out this small but formidable little beast. She turned to me: can  you help? Trainers teach the handlers that there are times when they need to support young sheep, back them up, give them confidence strategize with them. This was one of those times, I picked up the lede, walked Fate to the right side of the flock, got a bit excited, saying “get ’em up,” and she lunged towards Liam – “did I do that?” –  and then after a few lunges, Liam got nervous, he stomped his feet,  the sheep moved out and to the left.

Fate was beside  herself, puffing up with pride and confidence.

A very good lesson, and on that note, I ended the lesson. Even Fate will sleep tonight, and I am having a blast teaching her. She is finding her focus. She loves herding and then rushes eagerly into Maria’s studio where she has a  great and a dog bed.They are making art together, going for walks in the woods, a good life for a border collie I think. They can do more than one thing.