Have just written in Balthazar's blog about his first friendly overture. After we'd finished our clicker training session, when I was hanging out with him, he in the paddock, me on the other side of the gate. It was about intention. When we 'train' I am in training or teacher mode. When we hang out we're...hanging out, no pressure on him to perform, even if the performance earns him multiple carrot treats. The friendliness was a revelation. And a *treat* for me. Marked by his head hanging over my back and his neck pressed into my body. Yes, I want more of that. Yes, I want to be friends. Yes, I have to change my intention. Yes, I have to change my attitude. It all comes back to what we put out we get back. If I want a friendly horse who seeks out my company than I must be a friendly person who seeks out his. I am friendly to him. I like being with him but it's similar in a way to meditation. There is a filter or a gauze curtain of my own making between the object (meditating or Balthazar) and me, one of my own construction. I'm not sure how to explain it. When I'm meditating or attempting to and I approach that state where I am nearly there (my *there* being only focussed and present and deeply silent) I often get in my own way. It's the monkey mind chatter, yes, but it's also something more, a reticence and holding back despite my desire to be in that place. My will is to be in that meditative space yet something in me also constructs this cheesecloth barrier that I maintain beautifully and effortlessly *in spite of myself*. So it is with Balthazar although I think that barrier might be easier to dissipate as I only have to really *see* him as Balthazar, the lovely chestnut thoroughbred person, to feel that friendly affection that I have for him in all interactions that don't involve clicker training.
Vanity, thy name is mine. Went to a friend's house yesterday for an art day. Two friends, two bird lovers and bird carers who love art and creating as much as I do. It was a great day. We all worked on projects and chatted. Had to use the loo and saw a set of bathroom scales. Got on and squinted. 53kg. 116 pounds. I haven't been below 120 since weighing 47kg while depressed after a bad breakup (actually the worst breakup, the one and only time I'd been beaten by a man but that's another story and one I don't want to revisit). That was in 1987. Once I recovered I quickly regained weight. This time I am not depressed. Quite the opposite. It is solely due to yoga and being practically vegan, specifically giving up dairy (except that found in Fair Trade chocolate and the two tablespoons of milk powder I put into the homemade bread). I eat like a horse. I eat huge portions of salad or rice or whatever's going. Yet, without effort I continue to lose weight. I'm 56 and gravity has taken its toll yet I weigh 116 pounds! I know, I know. Vain and silly and so against the precepts of Buddhism or any -ism yet I am so proud. I feel good. I feel strong! I have muscles where I've never had muscles even when I was lifting weights and working out at the gym. I have to bite my tongue to stop myself from proslytizing about the benefits of yoga. If I'd only known 30 years ago! But I know now and timing is everything. Perhaps I wouldn't have appreciated it 30 years ago. I didn't appreciate it 10 or 15 years ago when I attended a class in town with a couple of friends. I am so grateful to Gabi and Pete for inviting me to a class. And that teacher, who has since moved, for being a good teacher. I have a different teacher now but she's brilliant and although I do over an hour of yoga 5 or 6 days a week I still come home sore and wrung out after her class.
I've been thinking about blogging for a few days now. Things I wanted to write about - not grandiose things but things like how I like Natalia, our little bladder kitten who is a kitten no longer, a little chubby. Obesity in pets is verboten. I know that from all the surgeries I've witnessed on overweight animals. Yet, because she is short and stocky with stumpy legs and a cobby build, she looks so endearing and somehow *right* being a little overweight. I call her The Scamp. She has the personality of a scamp. She is at once endearing and maddening. She'll pick on the furniture while watching me in full knowledge that she'll get a sharp NO and a stamp of the foot. She does it for attention as much as to sharpen her claws. When I take the food in the afternoon to the verandah birds, she races from the chair across the mantel, jumps to the top of the TV cabinet to leer, pupils dilated, at Tony who jumps onto the top seed dish.
But that's enough for today. The big thing was Balthazar and my Moment of Vanity.
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