Wide Open: An Ode to the Wild West.

October 9, 2026October 9, 2026 / 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

Out there.

December 15, 2025December 18, 2025 / Gin Getz / 2 Comments

Open the door and dive in, out there.

Into morning fog so thick it leaves sheen of droplets covering your heavy coat and the dogs’ coarse fur.

Turn to close the door to the comfort of the woodstove and Christmas lights and a still half filled cup of coffee behind you.

Suddenly engulfed in wet whitewashed morning air, you feel as if you’re swimming, trying to stay afloat on solid ground, your head above water, somehow struggling to breathe.

Step out into it, shrouded as if in a daze, a dream, an altered state, as the season spirals around you like sufi whirling, almost a madness to dance the year to an end. Heading into new moon, as even the night sky darkens before solstice this year. A powerful dark presence stirring within, feeling somehow more so than most years, or is this how you selectively forget each year?

And all around you, defused energy washed over in morning fog and sparkling frost as if waking from a dream while the sun finally clears the hill to the east and you watch horses stand like sundials, flat side to the sun; a heron sitting stoic in the tree in need of the warmth it brings.

And the day begins, beautifully.

Back in where the wood stove hums and Christmas lights twinkle and that coffee is still warm in my favorite cup.

And my mind is haunted by places I have been and am reliving in words alone.

My stomach bunches up in a twisted knot as I write along with where we rode along.

It’s scary to tell you what I did, how it happened.

But scarier, of course, having done it.

A Long Quiet Ride.

Tangled in the isolation of writing, as it was in the isolation of riding.

Writing about it takes me there and my breathing becomes tight and shallow; nostrils flare, jaw tightens, teeth clench and my heart feels like it weighs as much as the saddle I hoisted up on the horse each day.

It was the loneliness I have ever been. I don’t want to be alone now. I want to take you with me, sharing the smell of damp leather, fresh sweat, horse hair when I brush them each morning or better yet at the end of day as I slip off the damp saddle blanket that will be the pad upon which I sleep that night, and the horses heads are down in some place lush with field grass, tangled barbed wire off to the side, and the primordial call between a pair of nesting sand hill cranes like a beacon, leading the way, for where they nest, we always find tall greenery and fresh water and a safe place for the horses, and me.

And just out of reach, just beyond the thread of searching for a sense of belonging, that ever and continuous theme for me as it is for some many of us, I thought that journey was going to be about inner strength and independence. Prove to myself (and everyone else) that I was strong and capable. Beyond badass.

Found out I wasn’t and don’t need to be.

See, I set out expecting some solo trial for me and my horses out on the open road.

No people, please.

People scared me more than all the bears, bulls and bugs I slept beside; barbed wire gates and snow banks that stopped me cold in my tracks, as well as maps and apps I never could figure out.

I just wanted to be alone.

And then I was, and no longer wanted to be.

Funny thing is, people turned out to be what the trip was about.

I’ve had a lifetime trying to perfect the art of being the outcast, outlaw, outsider, off gridder, misfit, black sheep, stray cat and/or rebel without a cause. I daresay I’ve done rather well.

People were not my thing.

That journey turned me around.

Rather than it be an adventure based on independence, something I’d always known, I had to learn about interdependence. That was new to me. And it was force fed. Trial by fire, thrown under the bus, sink or swim – call it what you will.

This is what it taught me.

People are good.

Yes, you heard me right.

Never thought I’d say that.

If you know me at all, you never thought I’d say that too.

It’s hard to relive it. Though of course not as hard as it was to do it.

But now the challenge is in sharing it. Writing the real story.

And my fears are no longer about finding good grass, fresh water and a safe place to rest my horses.

It’s finding the right words. It’s wondering if I can write this story well.

Humbly I bow my head as my fingers get work.

No longer gripping well worn reins, lifting packs or pulling cinches tight. Now dancing freely across the keyboard, watching stories come to life.

Looking within for a different kind of strength.

The strength to share.

May it be a good story.

And may I share it well.

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin

Somewhere out there in this big bright beautiful world.

September 23, 2025 / Gin Getz / 13 Comments

Here’s a little side note to share with you.

This past week, I had to fit a quick trip to Denver in between finishing windows, walls and doors. And since I never did get a truck (remember, I got the horse instead), and the bus route I used to take is no longer, I flew.

No matter how it happens – by foot or horse, truck, boat or plane – I’m one of those that loves travel. There is something about stepping outside my box. Like throwing the curtains of your mind open wide. And in that place of being challenged beyond your comfort zone, in that state of vulnerability – expectations, demands and judgments disappear and you see the world for what it is. Like the opening of this season, travel encourages us to let go of our armor, have the courage to step out vulnerable and exposed, and see the world for how it really is. Mostly, I’d say, it’s beautiful.

And the best of that beauty is usually found in chance encounters, in meeting folks and hearing stories. Everyone has a story. Ask. And listen. That’s where the magic is.

Short as this overnight trip was, it was no different. And the magic started before I even got to the plane.

As Bob was driving me down the mountain, we stopped to let the pup out for a quick break. Where we chose to pull over, two guys were pulled off in the shade with touring bicycles. Now, I got a soft spot for people out there on long rides, be it horse or pedal bike or motor bike. So before we loaded the pup back up and headed on our merry way, I searched around the truck and found a couple healthy snack bars – the only snacks we had in the truck. I brought them over to the guys. Felt kind of like handing out goodies at Halloween. Told them I wish it was something more sticky and gooey. But the young men received the gifts with great appreciation none the less.

And of course, though I was already running late for my plane, I couldn’t help myself. I got to asking question. Talk about opening up a can of worms. Though this wasn’t wiggly and creepy crawly – this can was jam packed with goodness.

Turns out these two guys were from Finland.

Long way from home, I said. How did you end up in La Garita?

Long story short, they explained: they got here via Alaska. And they got a long ways yet to go. They’re riding all the way down to the tip of South America. And if you have any doubt these guys will do it, they told me about an adventure they already completed: riding their bikes from Finland to Singapore. Seriously? Seriously! Wow!!!!

Two beautiful friends, Valterri and Alvari, of “Curious Pedals,” out there living life full, rich and wild… Daring to dream and having the courage to create their dreams come true. OMG I was so impressed! These guys were so inspirational. So open and grateful and positive.

We briefly shared stories and compared notes after I mentioned about how I had my own little adventure – going horseback from California to Colorado, alone. Nothing quite like the adventure these guys had, but we shared some similar feelings of time on the road.

The biggest thing we were all amazed to have found out there was something I told you about many times before. It was the greatest lesson of my whole trip. It wasn’t “where” but “who.” And “who” was everyone – strangers you meet, people who stop to talk, folks who share their camp site, their home, the guest room or kids room or just their front yard. People who smile and wave and roll down the window and cheer you on. People who share their table, their meals, their snack bars.

The kindness of strangers. Something very near and dear to my heart that I learned during that Long Quiet Ride two summers ago. Valterri and Alvari said it’s been the same for them. The unexpected beauty they have come to expect: people are good.

So here’s something really cool that I think is really important to share, now more than ever.

We briefly talked about the anger and hatred that you read about all the time in the press that’s supposedly all over this country. Interesting to note: they hadn’t felt it, seen it, experienced it. Neither did I. Instead, we both talked about the kindness we encountered. The openness. The generosity. The warmth. The goodness.

Sure some of us may have hard shells. Tough to crack.

But we’re not as different as some may (want us to) think.

Inside, we’re all the same.

People.

Good people.

Human beings.

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Don’t drink the kool-aid. Hatred does not rule. Hatred does not win. Hatred does not help.

And goodness does prevail.

Believe in goodness. Believe that most people are good. Be good in kind.

If you don’t believe me after a life changing adventure that spanned over a hundred days and 1500 miles, that crazy solo ride that would never have worked had it not been for good people I met along the way, then please believe these two young men, who have totaled well over a year on the saddle, and over 10,000 miles out there in places I don’t even know where to find on a map… That’s a helluva test of humanity. And guess what? People passed the test. They ran into bad dogs, wolves, and stuff like that. But no bad people.

Have faith in humanity. Please. We’re all in this together.

If you don’t believe us, get out there and take a wild ride yourself. It doesn’t have to be a long ride. It can just be around the block or around the world or wherever your can make it happen. Be open. Be curious. Drop judgments and pretentions and defenses and fears and just be open to who and what’s out there.

I don’t know how to explain it but it’s like, you gotta put yourself out there. Be vulnerable. Trust. Try. Have faith. Believe. In people.

Try it. Please. Try to believe in our common humanity and the goodness that resides within us all. If you dare do that, and I hope and pray you will or maybe already have, please let me know how it goes. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed in the beauty that really is out there, and inside most every one.

Anyway, please find Valterri and Alvari, of “Curious Pedals,” on their website, follow them on Instagram , and watch their documentary which Bob and I did last night, and it was incredible, just wishing it was longer than one hour as there was so much: CuriousPedals documentary on YouTube

Finally… I’d like to share something that they had posted, regarding six lessons they had learned from “life on the saddle” that I fully whole heartedly agree with, having tried “life IN the saddle:”

Cherish the bad days, for they will teach you the most.
Don’t hope for things to happen — make them happen.
Focus on the process, not the outcome.
Always challenge yourself.
Stay physically active.
Put 100 per cent into what you are doing now and it will open doors for you in future.

They concluded: we could all do with “less planning, more living”.

And I’d like to add one more that I think they would agree with:

Believe in goodness. Most people are good.

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin

The beginning

January 7, 2013January 7, 2013 / Gin Getz / 2 Comments

like leaving a lover

on one hand

and with the other

holding onto my hat

as we dive down into the wind

Since Solstice

Sometime just past noon, the cabin is drained, power shut down, everything put away well enough. Food scraps and the remains of the cookie jar set out for the Steller’s jays, magpies and pair of ravens that will have to make do without us for a while. Another pack rats caught in the trap under the house tossed out into the snow. Christmas lights taken down and put in away in the attic. Four boxes of food for a friend in town clean out the fridge. And everything we’ll need for nearly four months away, piled and packed into the toboggan sled hooked behind the snowmobile.

Funny to be so bundled up in down jackets, long johns and thick winter boots. We’re heading towards mid summer. Such is travelling to the other side of the world. People do it all the time. I never have.

I’m not going to say deep farewells this year. I’ll be back soon enough. Long enough. I’m in no rush. Leaving behind the worse snow we remember. Bad snow. For us that means: not much. Better that we’re not sticking around wishing for something we do not have. Elk tracks down on the reservoir flats make it look like a feed lot without fences. They coyote are loving life. Feasting on snowshoe hare that are also abundant this year. Their advantage lost in low snow.

Just past two weeks after Solstice and you see the difference. Already I feel the sun stronger on exposed flesh. My hands without gloves for the first time this year. Nose and cheeks, weathered and creased skin at the corners of eyes and lips and it feels so good. It feels. I remember last winter in northern Washington where the sun held no power of touch during the deep of winter, filtered by mauve light under the soft inversion.

Last night I stepped out to walk with the dog under the brilliant and unlimited depth of our night sky to say farewell. I will not see the same constellations for nearly four months. And although I’ll be a in “remote” location, I can only guess it won’t be this many miles away from another light, another human being. But it is our altitude that brings sparkle and luminescence to otherwise emphatic black. It is this altitude that brings us closer to touching the skies.

And tonight I watch the sky on fire in the coldest place in the Lower 48 as we drive through Alamosa and the San Luis Valley.

Now in a hotel. With TV, pizza and wings and the dog on the bed between us.

on one hand

how quiet

without the call

of the coyote

on the other

TV and traffic and the buzz

of central heating

oh yes, the adventure begins

Do I call this Day One of this adventure when I feel our life is always an adventure and even this one, I’ve been working on for months? How about Day One of this chapter?

The introduction

January 6, 2013January 7, 2013 / Gin Getz / 12 Comments

Three months ago we met, though still not face to face. A strange coincidence. Those seem to be the best kind of meetings, have you noticed? Something about the things we cannot explain. She told me there are no coincidences. I don’t know what I believe, but I do believe getting to know Ginny has been somehow magical. I wonder how much more so when we finally meet. In a way she’s turned my world upside down already. Because of her, Bob, Gunnar and I are heading to the other side of the world. Patagonia.

Let me tell you a little bit about Ginny. Oddly enough, I know a lot. I have spent these three months pouring through notes, writings and information on websites that she compiled over the past several years covering her life stories, from birth to present. What a life it is!

Gin and Ginny. You might just get confused. Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it if you stick around a while.

I am Gin, and just the writer. Working to put the pieces of the puzzle together into hopefully one beautiful picture. A memoir manuscript with consistency, interest and intrigue, capturing the essence of this remarkable woman.

The story is Ginny’s.

The adventure, well, that’s all of ours. Even yours if you’re ready to go for the ride.

Tomorrow, we leave our mountain and begin the journey south.

The fun begins.

And so, now.

Finally, an introduction.

For those who have been wondering where I am going and why.

For those who would like to “meet” a truly remarkable woman.

Tonight, I share this treat. An introduction to Ginny Carrithers.

Following is a rough draft, a condensed bio of Ginny Carrithers, and an introduction to her memoirs.

For now, we shall call this “Dancing in the Winds of Patagonia”

One remarkable woman’s inspiring adventures of living life fully with MS.

Welcome to the world of Virginia Tice Neary Carrithers. Welcome to a world that covers two hemispheres and spreads wide across the worlds of the Aspen art scene, Thoroughbred horseracing, jet setting and a fairy tale world where Prince Charming still sits at the head of the table. This is the story of life as wild as the land she chose to settle in, and as fast the winds that now embrace her. Ginny’s is story of extremes and challenges. Beginning with a childhood laced with trauma, Ginny has confronted, overcome and learned to live with physical and emotional obstacles throughout her life, and managed to come out laughing. Her drive and passion led her to the highs that are hard to keep up with, and lows that would be devastating to so many of us. Hers is a story of living the high life and ultimately choosing the simple life.

On the surface, this is a fun, fast and racy story of one woman’s wild journey generated by her own strength, positive outlook, and brilliant, shining character. It is a story of the power of creativity and nature. Deeper down, this story is one of personal growth, healing, and inspiration that the reader (viewer) will want to cheer, cry, scream and ultimately hug and rejoice for the celebration of character that Ginny Carrithers is.

Her story begins in 1949 in New Orleans, Louisiana. From the beginning, her strength and resolve are challenged with life threatening bouts of the croup. Hers was an odd and lonely childhood on private island with a psychiatrist father, and mother that had her first nervous breakdown and was institutionalized when Ginny was only nine. From her earliest days, art, horses, and nature where her consolation and inspiration.

Life begins to bloom at age 15 as her body blossoms. Her world widens and begins to speed up with boys, cars, and wild rides to Aspen with her best friend, Janice. Yet again, Ginny’s world is severely shaken by her brother’s car crash which left him forever in a wheelchair, her father’s suicide, and her mother again institutionalized.

With her great resolve and joy of living, Ginny continues to create her place in the brilliant world filled with wealthy and powerful men, painting, and horse racing in New Orleans where she lived the young beautiful life. Her notable accomplishments include becoming the first licensed woman in Louisiana to train Thoroughbred racehorses, commissions for her equestrian art, modeling and acting and being a body double/stunt woman in a James bond movie. This woman was indeed living the “racy” life, with a whirlwind of travel, power, passion, and fame.

In 1976 at the age of 27, Ginny has become paralyzed and is given the diagnosis of MS. A chronic, progressive, disabling disease. And still this woman is not slowed down, does not back down. For Ginny, it opened new doors. After a year and half of paralysis, Ginny goes into remission and begins her work for the National MS Society, becoming a world-wide spokes person, creating and donating her own artwork, raising millions of dollars over the years, creating promotion and awareness with her talents of horse racing and art, and inspiring so many, not only those affected by the disease, but so many touched by and finding themselves in the embrace of this exciting woman.

It is during this time that Ginny meets Ashley Carrithers. The year is 1986. Another one charmed by this lovely and vivacious woman! It is because of this connection that two new worlds are opened up for Ginny. The first is Patagonia. The second is motherhood. Ultimately, it is the combination of these two that transform Ginny to the next stage of her life.

As their relationship begins, Ginny is living the Princess Dream come true, continuing the jet set lifestyle though now between hemispheres. There she is on the Estancia, riding her white Arabian, continuing to evolve with her artistic endeavors. playing polo, flying out on their private airstrip. She is on one hand the wealthy Patrona, juggling baby, paintbrush, estancias, a challenging marriage, building airstrips, buying land, travel, travel, travel… Yet all the while the darkness of MS follows her about like an uncomfortable shadow. A shadow that at times can be fierce and cruel and painful and all consuming. And somewhere between those two extremes, she is learning about healing. She sleeps outside alone on the ground. Builds her fire, drinks her mate. She finds a deeper, stronger place of visions and medicine cards and animal guides.

After the divorce, Ginny continues the back and forth between North and South America, and ultimately chooses to remain in Patagonia. She is drawn to remain because of her daughter. Because of the simpler life. The grounding. Nature. What matters most. She finds her own strength, learning to live without the Prince Charming fairytale and become her own woman. Still the artist. The artist of life. She is continually challenged as she deals with the progression of her disease, her broken back, her independence and loneliness, her desire to continue to give and reach out to and share with others, her connection to the earth, her creativity, her horses, her limitations, and her broad and beautiful spirit shining possibly stronger than ever.

This brings us to The Present. This brings us to Ginny, today, dealing with a debilitating disease while living in the dramatic setting of Patagonia. And still finding ways to give, motivate, inspire. New ways to share beauty and life. This is her spirit. Brilliant and warm as we all have seen or are seeing.

This is Ginny Carrithers.

On the surface one sees a beautiful woman and talented artist living a dream come true complete with fairytale lifestyle, world travel, wild adventures, fast horses, and elite connections. The high life. Look again and see the lows of trauma, drama, loss, and the side of the same passionate, vivacious, driven woman learning to live with MS. Multiple Sclerosis for some. Messenger of Sprit for Ginny. MS became her call for transformation and inner growth, for waking up and living her life real, strong, self guided, empowered.

The greatest element of this story is still just beyond my reach. It is within Ginny. Her true essence, her spirit if you will, which you can read so much about on paper or the computer, but no doubt will change me and complete this story. After months of becoming relatively obsessed with the life of this remarkable woman, we will finally be meeting. And there, my friends, lies the missing link to this story.

And so it is that the rest of the story, in fact the part we will begin with, starts there. Next week in Patagonia.

In the meanwhile, I can promise you this. Ginny’s story is a wild ride. Hold onto your hats, sit back, buckle up, and enjoy the ride. Ginny’s story will take you first to places you’ve only dreamed of, and then to a place and space within that you secretly long to be.

(for more information, please see Ginny’s web site at CreativityHeals.org)

Well, sorry to leave you hanging. You’ll have to read the book to find out all the juicy details. In the meanwhile, stick around and enjoy the adventure as Gin meets Ginny, the Mountain Man leaves his mountain again because of his woman’s crazy whims, and the Pup heads to Patagonia.

Detour

November 5, 2012November 5, 2012 / Gin Getz / 5 Comments

Today I lighten the literary load and lower the photographic standard. I’m just going to tell you a story. Plain and simple, in words and pictures. A story about yesterday.

Going to the other side.

The other side… of the Rio Grande.

Soon of course we will be further.

The other side… of the equator.

But for now, I’m here awaiting winter.

And since it’s slow to come, we’re quick to head out and enjoy.

We saddle up, my sweetie and me.

Me on my little Arabian, Flying Crow (Fadjurz Ideal).

Bob on Crow’s first born, Tresjur of the Rio.

We start by crossing the river, our mighty Rio Grande.

After ten years of drought, this fall she runs with mild manners.

And down in the hidden crevasse below the bluff that cuts through our land,