Inspiration

Wide Open: An Ode to the Wild West.

/ Gin Getz / 1 Comment

Somewhere along the way 

of this long, quiet ride that life is

a calling becomes lucid.

Maybe even glaring. Too big to brush aside.

Listen. Deeply.

And if you dare, heed the counsel:

Throw open the gates that define and confine you

and set the wild horses of your spirit free.

Open. This is the initiation. The invitation. Again and again. Over and over. The eternal unfurling. A boundless break to something far bigger than you and yours. You feel it out here in a land raw and vast as the shades of sand and stars and a transient autumn storm and the rugged landscape passing between the rapid beating of the windshield wipers offering temporary clarity to the road ahead.

Open. To something you cannot tame, you cannot hold, you cannot confine nor contain, but you can be with, a part of, like one more star in that starry sky. Some complete connection of space in a land so vast it does not separate us in these distances, but allows us each to be. Each of us. Those who dare to be out here. Together, though not too close. We come here lusting room to roam. After all, some of us weren’t made to fit in. We’re made to step out. This is the land of black sheep on the outskirts of a field of white ones bunched in a flock of concrete and pavement, chairs in a row, drawing within dotted lines. Out here, even the misfit fits in, between the sand and stars and amongst the wild beasts that we are, just enough feral and free. 

We’re driving across the Wild West. Once again on Highway 50. Nevada. Eastern Utah. Between sorrel earth and stormy sky, corrugated mountains and swaths of seemingly endless basins in between. 

It is a land that coincides with the opening of one’s soul, synchronizing with the opening of time and space, all of which out here appears unbridled. This is the land of freedom. unable to be tamed, conquered, claimed and branded. Not a place to set your plow, build to code, and remain safe and sound. No, it is a land that will rip open your armor and test your true strength, of body, mind and soul. 

Opening as we drive across this Wild West where I am reminded how to breathe.

I am driving the 25-year-old van decorated with chipped paint as camo-covering and a window replaced with roofing screws holding tight a piece of a plastic tote in an attempt to keep out rain. It works. The van is where we and the two big dogs camp at night close enough to our horses to see them in the big moon that this last week afforded, rising later each night, lingering longer into the white light of morning each day.

Bob drives the flatbed with racks. My people use racks. Showing our true colors. Red may be our necks. White may be our trash. Blue may be our collars. Black may be our sheep. As brown and tan are the landscape that allows us a place to be.

The West opens to us. Not holding us in, but letting us be. This is the way of the Wild West. It is not a land to contain you, confine you, though in that freedom, it may define you. It is a place to let you be.

There’s lightning in the rearview mirror. To the side, a band of wild horses with wind swept manes stirring up a dust devil in the distance. Yellow blooming rabbit brush and the soothing scent of sage speckling silver across the sunburned auburn ground framing the pencil straight road ahead. Sunflowers burst in between tumbleweeds along the road that leads into a view that goes on for a hundred miles. Tan earth, dried grass, the color of dirt, of the desert, of mountains, high and harsh and ancient, changing into autumn bronze as it weathers my skin and fades my hair and turns my blue jeans brown.

Ahead the only lights are the taillights of Bob’s flatbed and the horse trailer loaded down with three horses, a flock of chickens, a thousand pounds of garden plants I can’t help but try to grow (indoors) at ten thousand feet (thank you Bob, for allowing this of me) and another thousand pounds of a wide assortment of home-canned jars of home-grown produce, since where we are going is not like where we were.

Opening. To what feels like home. Coming home like the Joads, the Beverly Hillbillies, with everything but the rocking chair where laughingly I would like to be; for there’s no person, no place, I’d rather be than in the true grit of this Wild West. How could you not fall in love with these wide open spaces? 

In my reverence of this land, I may be blind to assume this wild vastness is what everyone’s soul longs for. It is not. It’s not for everyone. Certainly not for those who prefer to remain held, helped, where they fit in, conform and are confined as they cling to the comfort of their castle walls, not seeing the shackles they have chosen to wear, or so those things feel to me.

Out here a person feels stripped of those restraints. You may not be safe, but you are free. Safety is a myth we cling to like the search for the place where we belong, until we wake one day and realize that where we belong is where we are, who we are, and no matter where we are, we are a part of this big bright beautiful world. 

Open up and strip yourself of the burden of fitting in with the flock and keeping up with Jones. And in that nakedness, freedom is found. 

What do you choose? 

The only right answer is what your soul says. Listen deeply to what she says.

Mine calls for freedom. 

That is what I choose.

I choose this rugged land and life. 

Somehow in my forming, conformity was not a thing.

Out here in these wide open spaces, with every breath, an opening, calming, welcoming, home. This is my Wild West. This is my home. A land where outlaws and outcasts have room to roam beyond confines of social media and social norms; a land where black sheep remain untamed outside of the fluffy white flock.

Opening into the Mountain West as we move onward. Opening like wings unfurling, catching air,  rising high, soaring upward, as we move from outside one small town to outside another small town and along the way is this big wide open space like the endless sky that rips open your fears and you realize you have been holding your breath for too long.

Open. Open your heart, your mind, your eyes. Soften your gaze and let the magic in. Magic can’t be found staying safe in your box. Open the lid. Have the courage to step out. Magic is there waiting for you. The invitation. The initiation. It doesn’t appear suddenly while you’re still sleeping in the same old box.

Opening to the ritual of moving, in our case across Hwy 50, from the far North of California, back to the Southern Mountains of Colorado. Opening as our convoy rumbles eastward with the sound of down-pouring rain drowning out the chugging motor and scratchy western ballads on a distant FM radio station and the snore of sleeping dogs as I drive down the loneliest road in the mesmerizing trance following the horse trailer’s taillights.

This opening is a return to grit and gusto, high and wild, cold and harsh, rough and rugged. 

And yet into this landscape, I soften. My heart opens. My spirit soars.

And now…

Opening. To a new life, a new world, a new homestead waiting to be created. Roll up my sleeves. Get to work. There’s lots of work be done. Starting over. Again. Building from scratch. A home. A homestead. A dream. A fiery passionate way of life not for the mild mannered, yet nor for those needing to be heard. Not when the nearest neighbor is eight miles away.

The open road ends, horses unloaded, chickens and dogs and a stray cat picked up along the way find their way, settle in, heels and hands grounded in black soil while spirits soar into this wild open starry sky as never before though something I have always been.

Writing has been bumped to the back seat for a while. Social media too, but admittedly I am enjoying the distance from that distraction while enjoying the reality of face-to-face, one-on-one, real connection, real touch.

Beginning again. There is always a before and after. And in the middle, there is the real-deal cliche of blood, sweat and tears. There is tending. Nurturing. Caring. Stewarding. Giving. And a good dose of dreaming.

Beginning again. Starting over. It is hard, but I’ve always said easy isn’t always good. Security is a false hope to hold fast to. Stop clinging. Leap. And if you don’t find a net at first, get to work; start weaving one.

And so I weave. With calloused hands and soiled jeans, dusty boots and windswept hair blowing like the tails of those wild horses.

And a fear arrises as I see how far I am, how far I have come, how far I have yet to go. Can I do it all over again?

I imagine myself someday in the hopefully not so distant future when we have a hot water tub and a safe chicken run, a warm barn for the horses, fencing for cows and the garden grows.

I will be standing there, strong, leaning into the wind. Hair ever wisping like that of the wild horses. The brown a little grayer. Arms and legs a little more wiry. I hope to stand proud not against but with, into the elements as I wear the weather with the roadmap of my wild life etched across my face. 

And one day years to come I will think once again of before and after, knowing that in the middle there is seemingly endless work, dirty floors and dirt imbedded in the skin, bruises and sore muscles, broken tools and re-framed plans, using the outhouse and stuffing insulation between logs – all of this and more along with a good dose of dreaming and laugher, awe and love. Always, always, love.

For now I am there. Here. Deep in the Wild West. In the transition of ever opening. Into a new world. A very old world. A world we are only beginning to bring to life.

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin

The Good Life.

/ Gin Getz / Leave a comment

Thirty years ago, I moved here. Not to Riverwind, but to this mountain. A single mom with a three year old kid and two big dogs. I knew nothing about living like this. Didn’t know how to bake bread, grow a garden, fix a pipe, saddle a horse. I had patient and generous teachers. Phil, Honey, Becky, G&S, Pat, Paul, John, Bud, and so many others, to whom I bow in gratitude.

The one who taught me to make that bread, as well as a hundred other essential skills like milk a goat, make cheese and strawberry jam, also made sure I read. A former librarian, and like me, grew up in and around NYC, Emmy believed in books, and passing them on. Books as not only a source of pleasure and relaxation, as reading most certainly is, but a source of potential wisdom. You can learn a lot from books. As a start. Then get out there and do it. If it’s just stuck in your head, you may be smart, but you’re a long ways away from being wise. You gotta get out there and live it.

The Good Life by Helen and Scott Nearing was one of her favorites. Remember how inspired so many of us were by the iconic DIY couple and the self-sufficient and sustainable life they built and shared? Their intentionally simple life was formulated to be balanced and full. Full, but not full of clutter, which is the common way. Consumerism, bigger and always hoping for something better, more more more, and the never fulfilled hungry ghost. Rather, the Nearings showed us that full could be full of values, intentions, and ideals they were willing to work towards. They reminded many of us that, well, actually, less may be more.

My neighbors got me thinking about this again because they live a similar life. They make it look easy. I know better than that.

How full is too full?

Looking beyond, there’s a world filled with people rushing around every day, finding identity and meaning in habitual full-ness and busy-ness, then stressing about fitting in time to relax. Ever searching for more-more-more. Forgetting about what is found in less. Seeking fulfillment and security in things like benefit packages, paid vacations, travel to exotic places, cocktail hour and dinner out, the ease of flipping a switch to power on, having your nails done, stopping to buy a Starbucks coffee, and scheduling plenty of time for Netflix.

There’s nothing wrong with any of those, or all of those, but they are not me. I’ll stick with gratitude for simple things. Tending to land, animals, art, creativity and contribution.

With Bob away more than here this season, I have been working double time, doing stuff he usually does, like tractor work, and irrigating. Even the dishes. But I got it.

Long days. Full days. That’s what summer is.

Full. At times, my cup runs over. Then I try to remember, sometime near the end of a hot day, to bathe in the river, lay in the sand, listen to the rush of the water for just a moment or two.

There are the hundred-and-one one-more-things that this simple life requires. (Definitely one of those, “if you know, you know” things, as those of us who do know are so often asked, “What do you do?” To which we don’t responds.)  Social media is not one of them. And though my absence online leaves me at times feeling somehow out of it, it is one more thing I can not do.

Allowing me more time for this:

Being happy.

I think happiness is built by this: Acceptance, appreciation, action, awe.

Happiness includes love. Meaning. Contributing and being a good person. Doing things for others. I am not happy when I’m a bitch.

Shedding the skin of the Mean Girl, nurtured from a lifetime of believing I had to be; instead allowing myself to be vulnerable and open and real, maybe even soft, something that has come on with age. All in all, one of the big lessons learned on A Long Quiet Ride. Something worked.

There is not a day that passes that I do not count my blessings now.

I ended up with more than I ever dreamed of. Thing is, I haven’t stopped dreaming.

Though I love where I am, I am not attached. I question how a person can be. I am not where I am, but who I am. Today. Because tomorrow is always a new day. So allow it, appreciate it, accept, evolve.

In the past thirty years, I moved on, returned, and will move on again. I did not have the privilege to remain in one place. Not everyone is born where they belong, nor finds the place that holds them. On the other hand, not all who wander are lost, you know. Some of us search. Or maybe we flow like a mountain stream, blow like spring winds. Not better nor worse, just what it is. A life rich and full and wild. And if you think I’d trade mine in… well, I think you know me better than that.

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin

It’s what I do.

/ Gin Getz / Leave a comment

Today it rains. It is like an exhale, gentle, letting out, letting go. A soft, easy rain, like tears, not from grief, just from a heavy burden. And sometimes you simply need to cry, to stop holding it in. The sky understands, offering just enough to dampen my dirty jeans, but not darken the earth into which I dig with calloused hands.

Yes, I am still writing. Still. I am ready to be done with this book, but the words are not there yet. Finish what you start. I do. Slowly.

I am not fast, can’t sit still for long, have other things that call me like irrigating fields, growing food, baking bread and working with the horses.

Distractions. Balance. Completing the bigger picture that paints my world.

That bigger picture. I look around, and at my empty hands, wondering what I have to contribute, to give, from this simple quiet life I live, and see that in my palms, I hold wonder.

Words. Giving. Receiving. Listening. Sharing. Holding space sincerely.

Is this enough?

Are we enough?

The simple life is never as easy as we make it look.

I live along the river yet have yet to take time to swim. Things don’t grow looking like this.

“What do you DO?” they ask, a question we smile at, rather than respond to.

If you know, you know…

Some days its more complicated than I can handle, at least, that is how it feels right now, weighing heavy, that burden, those tears, when what I want is to feel light and expansive and free.

Life as a worker bee.

Entangled with the soul of a poet.

And with the sometimes turbulent tossing of two sides of the coin that is me, I look around and within and still see I wouldn’t want to trade my life for anyone’s. So if it means I’m slower, I’m slower.

And the other side of my coin says: yes but… I am ready to finish what I started. It is time.

And so I hole up, bring my gaze back from the river and garden and horses, and with a dog on each side of the stool on which I perch to write, I dive in. Leaping. Weaving my net along the way.

And I remind myself as I braid my life, of the expansiveness of creativity. To have the courage to choose that which over-rides the constriction and restriction of fear, insecurity and anxiety. Creativity by its very nature is expansive, inclusive. Rather than shutting down and out, it opens to and of. Creativity is the radical act of awakening imagination and inspiration.

Create, my friends. Create. Maybe it will be beautiful.

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin

Next!

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

Sharing some deep thoughts, as I’m known to do – and a slew of photos as I’ve not taken the time to check in for a couple weeks. Three years since getting my first phone and setting up this Facebook account, and I can’t say I’m really rocking it. Nor especially keen on it yet.

The last few weeks found me polishing up the proposal for A Long Quiet Ride. Now it’s time to kick it out of the nest and see if it can fly… time for magic and prayers… while I move onward, back to burnishing the rest of the manuscript.

What’s next?

For now, I intend to have my cake and eat it too but I’ll explain what that means when I figure it out.

What’s next? I don’t mean what adventure. What move. What I’ve got planned. Or even what horse. If you’re curious, ask me. Though I don’t know if I have the answers.

What’s next? What I want to share is that deeper thing. A thing about life, or rather, stages of life.

How’s this for a stage?

I read recently that menopause is going from taboo to trendy, so hang in there while I bring it up. (Still feels like forbidden fruit to me, and maybe just as dangerous.)

What happens after you step out of the stage of life that was the transformation from The Mother to… The Matriarch? Or is it the Crone? Or is it something else entirely?

Call it what you will, it happens. Thank God. You do leave menopause behind. At some point you look around, with an unfamiliar sense of brilliant clarity, and realize you slipped out of the sticky skin the She Dragon had enwrapped you in.  

And then… who are you now?

That is a lot of what ALQR is about – trying to figure out who the hell I am and the how the hell I got here.

We go through stages of life like that – stages that shake us up like an Etch-a-Sketch, and when we’re done, the screen is clear and it’s time to draw ourselves anew.

Am I there yet?

Do we ever arrive?

Where I am at is where I want to be. But here and now is ever changing.

If in fact we do only have this one wild and precious life, I intend to make it very wild and very precious. So far so good.

What do I choose? Do we have to choose? Either way I win.

And yet, I wonder why at nearly sixty I still feel so far from… what is it? Grown up? Together?  Settled down? Mature – at least in the way that word held meaning when I was growing up?

Well, at my age I can make my own definition, thank you very much.

I’m not much of a practical, stable, sensible shoe sort of gal. I color outside the lines.

At the same time, I look forward to being the old wise one – when I get there. The crone being the stereotypical model of that woman. Long gray hair, deep wrinkles, gnarled fingers, and soul seeped in her eyes. I am getting there. But I am not there yet. I am not her yet.

In the meantime, where am I? Who am I? What I see when I look around makes me smile. This is good.

Perhaps it is another stage. Or is it the time in between? The ever living Bardo of transformation that life seems to be.

There’s more to many of us than maiden, mother, matriarch or crone. Simplified by the triple goddess moon like the tattoo inked on my shoulder at a shop in El Paso when I was working at a midwifery clinic, where helping women birth brought it all together with pain and bliss and blood.

Whatever it is, it’s a good place to be. A good stage of life. And sure as hell beats the last one.

We are left to create ourselves and define our lives, beyond the constricting parameters of labels and title and roles. Define ourselves. Be ourselves. Not based on others opinions, judgments, assumptions, or social norms. I’ve never been big on normal.

Why must we be defined and confined? Rather than simply step from one neat and tidy box to the next, get messy. Have fun. Play around with your life. Kick the cardboard, set your spirit free, and soar beautifully. That’s how we each can make the world a more beautiful place.

Have the courage to create. Your self. Your dreams. Your life. Your way.

Begin and watch the universe unroll before you, welcoming you to your true nature, your highest and best self, the best you can show up with and bring to this beautiful world.

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin

Where I’m at.

/ Gin Getz / Leave a comment

The past couple months have found me at Riverwind, grounded, silent, content. Humbled before soil and seeds and starts in the ever blooming garden. Humbled before the cold blue screen upon which a story breaks ground and grows. Both need nurturing, tending, feeding and weeding, digging in and turning entire sections over. And then it begins to come together. In the garden, glimmers of hope seeing every bed brought back to life with a new season of beauty and bounty. On my computer, the story begins to fold to close (though the editing process remains ridiculously consuming still).

The security and stability I have spent much of my lifetime searching for, figuring I would find the answers I longed for in a place. As if place defined me. Instead it confined me.

The radical act of lifting boundaries and flying free.

And the paradox of finding freedom in place.

I am challenged to find the answers within, crafting my own, rather than clinging to an outside source.

Oh yes, I soften my gaze. Look around and within while remaining in place. Until your wings have dried and spread and you feel what wind can do to them. Then you soar. And that’s okay too. You can’t see the bigger picture from inside your box.

Fling open the door wide and set the gates of your spirit free.

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin

Shifting seasons.

/ Gin Getz / Leave a comment

One day snow. The next a river of rain in the sky. And then we’re out working in shirt sleeves while it’s 75 in the sun.

The river slowly settles after the dumping of warm rain stripped snow from the hills and even the mountains appear bare.

Early morning, robins speckle the pasture along with horses, chickens and the backyard covey of thirty or so plump round quail that scamper for shelter in still leafless blackberry groves when the dogs and I walk by.

Five geese, newly returned for their breeding season down by the shore, bickering over who will claim this prime nesting ground with green grass and guard dogs.

The chirping of the phoebe that spent winter nights tucked in under the eve over the porch door is finally met with her partners whistle, having recently returned from who knows where.

This morning all remain enveloped in a veil of heavy air, a layer of thick fog separating us from the sky.

The inevitability of change.

And the reluctance, at times to the point of refusal and denial, to change.

In an hour or two, the sun will shine. The air will feel lighter. The geese will settle. The chickens and quail will stay in the shade as the red tail rests on the tip of the tallest snag and the almond blossoms will lure honey bees with their heavenly fragrance that enwraps me as I turn fresh soil and scatter seeds nearby.

Shine, sister, shine.

Sometimes it feels like the last spark is petering out.

It is not.

It is just waiting

For you to catch your breath

And blow it back into a flame.

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin

Good advice

/ Gin Getz / 3 Comments

Alright, this one got long. Grab a cup of coffee and sit back when you have some time, if you’re willing to read it through.

At my age, you start to hear it more often:

You should teach that! With all your years and experience, you have so much to share! Is this a compliment, or another way to tell me I’m getting old?

In my case, it’s stuff like herbs, wild crafting, writing, cooking and baking, off grid living, and horses, which I spent a lot of years already doing.

There are plenty of experts out there. I have no interest in being one.

See, I’ve never believed I would be a good teacher because I still feel the best way to learn is by figuring it out yourself. Not being told by someone else how to do things their way. Find your own damn way.

 At least, that’s how it works for me. Always thought it would be easier if someone could give me the answers. But then is that really learning, or is it remembering what someone once told you? For wisdom to sink into your bones and your belly, you have to live it. Yourself. Your own unique path. All the damned mistakes, misunderstandings, misjudgments, mess-ups and all.

Funny thing is, all the same, I’ve always secretly longed for a teacher, a guide, a guru. Sometimes just for reassurance. Because more often than not, likely I won’t agree with what he or she is telling me. But it’s a good prompt. It’s comforting. And people love to give advice so they can feel they have all the answers. But is it always in your best interest? That’s for you to figure out.

Sometimes help is a great thing. The encouragement of courage. The direction for taking the next step when sometimes you can’t see where your feet are meant to go. And it reminds you, you are not alone. Which with writing, can be a thing.

Other times, you need to figure it out yourself. After all, it is your path, and your feet ultimately that will walk it.

I think it comes down to this: Do you believe in yourself? And do you believe in others?

Believing in yourself in so far as you can stop counting on others for wisdom you already have or will figure out. Everyone is not wiser, better or more than you. You got what you need, got what it takes. You got your own trip around the sun. You have the ability to make it brighter every year. No one ever can do that for you.

Believing in others in so far as trusting that they too have the wisdom they seek inside them. They can figure it out for themselves. You are neither better nor less than them. They don’t need you to teach them your trip. You are not the expert. Everyone’s got their own trip. Let them take it.

Okay but… truth is, I have worked with coaches, and I love that. They’re different. Coaches help you find your own answers. They don’t give you theirs. That’s fun. That helps. They are more like cheerleaders. Not teachers, guides or gurus. And who amongst us couldn’t use some cheering on?

Mentors are similar, with the added bonus of they might hold a little more weight. They might actually have something you are looking for. Maybe answers. Maybe a career or life path you’re trying to follow. Sometimes a specific skill or trade or way of thinking. Good stuff here too. And a good reminder that this is where age and accrued wisdom really pays off – when you are able to share it with others. Not just amass it for your self. What good is that?

Though do remember that wisdom does not necessarily come with age. It’s not a guarantee any more than expecting wisdom to come from books or school or teachers telling you. It comes from experiencing those truths, yourself, then contemplating what they mean. It comes from learning by living. Not just going through the motions, but understanding them. Wisdom is the beautiful balance between knowledge, experience and deep understanding. Age can be on your side there.

All this rambling is inspired by this.

This past week I’ve been spending a lot more time than usual at my desk staring at the screen. In part because of the rain. In part because it’s work. Not the fun, inspiring, creative writing of getting my latest book moving along. This week has been work to get the book proposal (for A Long Quiet Ride) ready to send out. This is big and scary stuff. Finally reaching out to the pros and saying, “Is this good enough? Am I good enough?”

Of course what I really want is someone to tell me, “Yes that is good” before I even send it out. But no one does. First of all because no one but Bob has seen it. Though of course he always says it’s good.

Where are the mentors when you need one? The elders who can lend an ear, or a hand? When we’re really feeling lost, that’s when we most want a guide or guru. This week I was feeling I needed one. Guidance. Answers. Direction. A pat on the back. Something.

And then I got the answer I needed.

It came in the form of an owl.

If you take things as signs (as I tend to do), you know Owl is a symbol for inner wisdom. She’s also a symbol of the Divine Feminine.

Last time Owl came to me was after my long quiet ride, on our ride back from Colorado to California. It’s dark early morning, Bob’s driving out of the place where we camped for a few hours for a quick rest, almost halfway home, somewhere in Nevada. Crow and Bayjura are rocking back in the trailer, calm and still despite the movement of the trailer after all they’d been through. We’re pushing it, rushing to get home because we heard Canela was missing. As we ease out of the parking lot onto Highway 50, an owl crashes into the windshield. Hard. I knew it had died. I cried and screamed because I knew what it meant. Canela was dead.

This time, this past week, this handsome little fellow crashed into the glass on my kitchen door. Chances are he was after the phoebe who lives in the eve over the door. I rushed out to check on him, so afraid of what I’d find. Lifted his limp body in my hands and held him close to my chest as I brought him inside.

A moment later, I felt his talons grip strong on the flesh of my palm and my heart alighted. Within minutes, he was able to fly free.

I shared that story this weekend with a couple of soul sister poets with whom I get to gather with online once a month.

“You already have the mentor you need,” one blurted out firmly.

You know sometimes when you hear the right answer (even sometimes when you don’t want to) it hits you in the gut strong like a punch? Bam. Yes. You know it’s true.

This was one such time.

“What more of a mentor do you need?” she continued.

“Draw on your connection with the Earth, with the Divine Feminine.

She knows where you need to be, what you need to do. Ask her. Within.”

Yup. Gotcha.

The choice is yours.

How do you choose to see?

With self empowering wisdom? Balancing understanding with a continual childlike open mind?

Or feeling you don’t know enough, don’t have enough, aren’t enough, and all the answers will come from someone else? Like where, what? The perfect parent, teacher or Prince Charming?

It’s not just for work, like getting this proposal together. It’s about life.

A friend wrote recently so sad that as a new mom not enough people where showing up, helping out. When I was a young single mom, likely I felt the same way. But that’s grumbling, whining, blaming, being the victim of our life rather than the creator.

I asked her who she reached out to in kind. She hadn’t. Ah ha!

If you need a friend, go be a friend.

Don’t wait.

Don’t be the victim of your own life.

Have the courage to reach out, create connection.

Have the courage to do something beautiful for someone else.

There’s healing in that.

There’s connection in that.

There’s love in that.

We all want the same stuff. We want to feel safe, to belong, to be loved.

If you want something, if you need something, nobody knows but you. Don’t wait for someone to carry it to you when chances are they have their own issues holding them down. Go get it. Chances are, they will receive you, beautifully.

Sounds like I’m giving advice. Really, I’m just talking to myself. Reminding myself. Or trying to drum the wisdom in.

So what’s the best advice I was probably given, didn’t listen to, and eventually had to just figure out?

(besides “give more than you take,” “listen without judgments or assumptions,” and maybe just “be good.”)

It’s this:

The answers you’re looking for, the advice you’re seeking… It’s already in you.

Listen.

Inside.

Not to something or someone out there. Not all the time at least. Not for the really big stuff, or the ultimate answers.

Be your own guru.

You have heard this too.

Others can point to the moon, but only you can find your way there.

Life will test us, allow us to learn, hopefully not always the hard way.

If you’re gonna leap, and I hope you do, get to weaving your own damn net.

Find your own answers. Your own truth. Your own goodness and beauty and truth.

Stop looking out there.

Start looking in here.

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin

Standing.

/ Gin Getz / 3 Comments

This has nothing to do with writing or rain or riding through the wilds.

It’s political.

Because I choose not to be.

I don’t get what’s up with our world. But I can’t not see it. So what’s a gal to do? You see; you feel; you care. And then what? At some point, you’re gonna stand up and do something. Hopefully, something good. We all need that.

More and more of us can’t watch the news. Bad for mental health. It’s like watching a brutal boxing match, or ancient gladiators in a pit, or a really bad WWE show. Two sides in a barbaric fight, a fight to the death, while the spectators, show leaders and ringmasters egg the battle on, laughing at the foolish, bloody pawns they’re playing against each other.

No thanks.

If I was standing on the fence, which at times I feel I am, how could I choose sides when at their core, both sides are good? Good folks with good values wanting a good life for their children, but somehow pushed to this dark place of devaluing and dehumanizing the other side.

“We’re not the same,” some friends say about other friends.

Bullshit.

Y’all look the same to me.

Y’all want to be safe.

Y’all want to belong.

Y’all want to be loved.

So why are we ripping one another apart?

I don’t care what side of the fence you stand on.

Because it is not a fence between two sides or walls between us that will keep us safe when the danger is already within. Building bridges, not walls, is what will make us stronger.

Remember these bold words of Ronald Reagan, “Tear down this wall!”

Let’s do it. All of us. No matter what side you stand on.

There’s no room within this country for walls.

Me, I’m gonna kick the bricks when I see them stacking.

Not kick the builder, the contractor or even the client wanting them stacked.

I’m standing together. With all of you. With this country. With my home.

United we stand.

Divided we fall.

Remember?

I’m standing.

Please, stand strong, people. Together. Without a stinking wall between us.

One Nation. Under God. Indivisible. With Liberty. And Justice. For all.

I might be a sappy idealist and optimist, but I’d rather go down feeling like I’m doing the right thing, a good thing, and helping my neighbor rather throwing bricks at him.

I’d rather see the beauty that is all around and in everyone, because no matter what I’m told, shown or news I’m fed, it’s there. Beautiful stuff. Good stuff. And love.

Yes, there’s a lotta junk and bad stuff too. But you know the story: What wolf do you choose to feed?

Fear fuels hatred. Don’t be a weenie. Have courage. Choose love.

May all be safe.

May all belong.

May all be loved.

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin

Choose magic.

/ Gin Getz / Leave a comment

The garden roses finally called it quits for the season, right in time for wild Manzanita to begin their bloom while daffodils break through saturated ground.

It’s a beautiful world. Magical, if you will. I will! I will find magic.

This is a photo dump of magic from last month: roses blooming through to the New Year.

It’s also a sharing of some deep thoughts, because well you know, that’s where my mind goes.

I thought you might enjoy.

We all could use more beauty. And more sharing. Good stuff. Connection. Common ground.

These are things I have to tell myself.

What takes more courage?

Fighting?

Or getting along.

Because I will not be divided.

And I will stand strong for a country capable of holding its center together.

Don’t fall, I tell myself. Don’t allow yourself to be ripped apart at the seams. Like the baby before Solomon, two halves are not the same as one whole.

Heavy sigh…

I want to shift…

Shift from seeing hatred

To seeing holiness

With everyone I meet.

Shift to seeing Sacred

Magic

God

Love

Whatever you’re called to name it.

Say it. See it.

Live it. Be it.

Try. For you, I shall find the courage to try.

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin

On rain and writing.

/ Gin Getz / 7 Comments

If the two were together, black ink would be smeared across the page, some Rorschach picture divulging my secret psyche. Not, of course, to determine what the image reveals, but rather what I choose to see.

Alas, they remain apart.

And this is what I see.

Out there, outside fragile weather worn glass separating me from the elements and allowing continual comfort from the wood stove as long as I remember to stoke it, rain continues.

Everything is drenched – beyond saturation – running off in drips, smears, pools and rivulets. Streams pour around fence posts and tree stumps; puddles amass in deep imprints left behind by horse hooves; the meadow is a marsh.

Pounding rain on metal roof deadens the roar of the river. Puddles gather on the deck, the driveway, the pasture.

The chickens seek refuge in the dog house while dogs do the same by the wood stove, soggy obstacles to overcome on the living room rug.

Inside rain gear hangs dripping by the back door; boots still damp when you slip your sock feet into them. Towels used on soggy dogs never seem to dry, while splatters from their shaking fur leaves white cupboards speckled brown.

The horses are pissy, flinging their heads, telling me to turn it off and I wish I could. Days like this I wish they could come lay by the woodstove, too. Instead, mid day they stand under the roof where they spent the night, wishing they were somewhere else. We never stop wishing. Because, you know, we never forget what it feels like to lay in soft lush grass while the sun enwraps us in its ethereal embrace

In the garden, roses finally quit trying to bloom. What a run they had this year, clear through to the last of the year. And yet as I walked through the rows earlier today, trying to be gentle in my bulky muck boots in search of some collards or kale for tonight’s stew, the humble, hearty calendula stood brightly defiant, refusing to succumb to battering rains, continuing to share her sunny smile. The yellow and orange seem out of place, adding to her gentle resistance.

For now, I sit at the table in front of the window that looks over the ghostly glow of the computer screen and scribbled open notebook, down toward the swollen river, through saturated moss and lichen growing like eerie bedclothes on every leaf-bare branch of gnarly oaks sprawling the distance between the river and me.

The stillness of the keyboard counters the constant motion of the river.

Some days my fingers do not dance. As if they wonder why, what’s the point, when what I want to do is give. But I look at the blue screen between the window and me, and wonder if it’s worthy.

Sharing the story of something in the past takes me there. Sometimes I don’t want to go back there. I don’t want to be there. It was hard, scary, lonely. It was also big, bright, and beautiful; expansive in view and of soul. It brought me back to life. Maybe to the point of living more than I ever had before.

There was so much I didn’t share. There was so much I couldn’t share.

I am struggling to share that story now. The intensity, the wildness, the hugeness I experienced out there. The wild side I could not, would not share as I was riding (or walking or being shuttled) through it. Some things need time to ripen, to age, to roll around in the mouth to find their full, rich flavor. Or to sit on the shelf and collect dust for a while, which doesn’t hurt a thing.

My attention easily drifts out the window. I get dizzy watching the river rage.

Stop it. Get up. Away from the table where I sit for too long. Get on the ever damp rain gear and muck boots and get out. Out. Out there, in it.

Let the moist air plump and swell me and get the dogs dense coats soaked clear through to their skin again as we laugh at our folly and splash through puddles the size of ponds and marvel at the beauty of watching bountiful drops of water fall from overhanging branches and do their circle dance on the surface.

A moment later, the dogs stir up a heron from the salt pond, rising silent, arching upward as a graceful, majestic bow. Somehow primitive, ancient, blue-gray against tan-brown winter woods. I hold my breath and feel goose bumps rising beneath all these impermeable layers separating me from the elements.

In the blatant and natural simplicity surrounding me, I choose to watch herons rise and rain fall and puddles shimmer as a waving mirror. I choose to listen to ravens calling and the river roaring and rain beating down on the roof overhead. I choose these simple things over and above more complex things like news feeds and programs, with AI masking the mystery and magic that is really there, right in front of us, if only we take the time to look, to listen, to feel.

I would rather stand defiant like unpretentious calendula.

I would rather rise up, lighten up, and shine.

Even through this leaden sky that might otherwise try to hold me down.

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin