I know I should be creating lovely, educational blogs on dog training or canine massage, but my head was aching from way, way too much computer time and way too little earth time. I needed dog time, mountain time. I needed to smell trees, and wind, and water. I needed to be in high places. So, I took the dogs and ran away up to the mountains.
We didn't go far, just up into Carr Canyon (Cyn) meadow in the Huachuca Mountains, here in Sierra Vista, Arizona. But it was enough. Carr Cyn meadow sits like a tipped bowl below the rocky palisade down which Carr Cyn waterfall flows in season. The farthest end of the bowl is tipped up slightly upwards, the end closest to us, down. The result is like a giant lap resting below the torso of the mountains. We walk it counterclockwise, entering bottom left.
The light was that wonderful slanting magic fall brings that etches each leaf with a sharp jeweler's precision. Tufted grasses waves a thousand shades of celery green, harvest gold, pale straw. The trees shimmered and flipped through a palette of greens and silvers, while the sweet, pungent aroma from the fading yellow blossoms of Mexican arnica still permeated the air. I actually managed to harvest this year, a few plastic bags full, to make the world's best liniment for humans. Nothing even comes close, and when it is finished, it's just like having all that golden meadow sinking deep into one's bones.
The Shibas love the meadow, and their golden coats flow in and out of grass and light and shadow. Nagi, the big, black sable shepherd, lumbers along, feeding his soul with the mountain's portfolio of sounds and scents. The blue jays chatter above, and Nagi stares, dreaming his endless dreams of blue jay conquest. The moon is slightly more than half full and is up early, perching proudly on a clear azure backdrop, dead smack center above a cleft in the top left hand corner of the ridge line. My heart raises up to meet her premiss. My body arcs to greet her.
The dogs are earthbound, earth passionate, earth ecstatic. They are buried in earth's cloven ridges. As we cross the top of the bowl from left to right, the whole Sulphur Springs Valley opens up in the distance, the demarcation of earth and river, the line of the San Pedro, visible from afar. Deer scamper ahead of us, the grasses so high that all we see are the flash of white flags disappearing into the trees. The dogs pause, bodies keen on alert, then gentle at my call.
We meander to the creek's edge, and I sit to listen to her songs. I love this little creek and talk to her often. She is full of stories, humor, pathos, yesterdays, and tomorrows, but mostly todays. She is ever so present. She makes me mind the moment. It is this gurgle, right now, that flash of light, that dropping leaf, this resonant reddish tinge, oxides a testament of summer's hard floods. She is here now and forces me to be as well. The dogs just drink.
Across the creek and up the trail we go, tight together around the cattle guard, a right turn, and then down the right side of the bowl into the shadowed woods. Year round these woods give me succor, give me blessing. I am more comfortable in them than any friend's living room. for me, they are like an old flannel shirt. They are my home, my family, my respite from the world. I know their moods, like I know the holes in my own soul. We have known each other.
Back across the creek, and up and out once again into the meadow. Lizards live here, basking in the sun. For the dogs, it is a playground nonpareil. Lizard chasing is heaven. They dash and dart -- the dogs that is, and I presume the lizards. It is an old, and endless game. The dogs are happy. The lizards I assume, not. Down we go back under the big, rambling mesquites. We have lost a number of these old grandpa trees in recent years, their shallow roots no match for the turbulen winds that seem to torment so much of the year anymore. It is sad to see them toppled, their wizened wizards' limbs uselessly beseeching the sky.
Then on down the path to the final creek crossing, parking lot and home. It is still there, my meadow, thankfully. I have once again climbed into her lap for comfort. The dogs and I are soothed and replete, full of mountains and sky. Home again, home again.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
More about me
Known for the accuracy and depth of her analysis of movement patterns in both animals and humans, Maryna's involvement in the world of the moving body began early. Raised in the Hudson Valley of upstate New York, Maryna began coaching soccer at the age of 16, became the first woman soccer referee in NY at the age of 17, and co-founded the first girl's soccer league. She later taught recreational skiing and horse back riding, and was an Instructor for TROT, Therapeutic Riding of Tucson. For many years, she was deeply involved in the sport of endurance riding (long distance horse races) as competitor and crew, where she helped pioneer concepts of sports therapy in the horse world. She would go on to apply what would become Kinaesthetics to elite athletes from the disciplines of competitive trail, cutting, dressage, driving, endurance (including winners of the Tevis Cup, and the 1986 and 1990 World Championships in Rome, Italy and Stockholm, Sweden), eventing, racing, roping, and vaulting.
She has worked on or with dogs from a vast array of breeds and disciplines from the conformation ring to agility, doggy dancing, search and rescue, police dogs, and the family pet. Currently she is collaborating with Animal Care Center of Green Valley to develop detailed bodycare strategies for canine patients with movement disorders, post-surgical patients and geriatric patients.
She has worked on or with dogs from a vast array of breeds and disciplines from the conformation ring to agility, doggy dancing, search and rescue, police dogs, and the family pet. Currently she is collaborating with Animal Care Center of Green Valley to develop detailed bodycare strategies for canine patients with movement disorders, post-surgical patients and geriatric patients.
Language, Dogs and Discipline
In some circles, it has become emotionally akin to participating in the holocaust to mention the word discipline in the dog world. For these individuals, any discipline whatsoever seems to be immediately equated with abuse. This is insulting and patently absurd, and does an enormous disservice to our interface with the culture of dog. The language of dogs is structure. Everything about their culture is imbued with structural language, boundaries and limits. To pretend otherwise is like trying to speak Amislan (American Sign Language) by waving your hands in the air.
It matters to a dog how close you are to them. It matters to a dog how and where you touch them. Just because they allow the kind of inconsiderate, fur ruffling touch that is commonplace does not mean that that does not have language significance for them. They are, on the whole, a tolerant culture. We would be sadly adrift, even more than we are now, were it not so. It matters to a dog, proximity, up and down, near and far, how big of a space over which we are moving, how fast or slow we walk, whether we are bowed or straight and what our eyes are doing. They have an immense culture and language of structure.
Discipline, in the dog world, is about recognizing dogs inherent need for structure, boundaries and limitations to thrive and maximize their well being. Dogs, like most living creatures, do not flourish in chaos. I have had the unique opportunity to participate or live in an anarchic society, a society with "no rules", three times in my life: first, a commune in Virginia; second, a village of boats in San Diego Harbor, the third, my farm in rural Mexico. In the first two instances, people were there precisely so that they did not have to live by society's rules. They were independents, fiercely so, from many different walks of life, and in the boat community, different countries. And yet, each time, hurtful events, incidents which tore at the thinly woven fabric of the group catapulted the community into structure. Was the resulting structure slightly more collaborative, a little more freewheeling than a traditional town council? Perhaps. But meetings were held, rules laid down, consequences discussed and adapted.
When I went south to live on my farm in Mexico, it was both inherent in my New England upbringing, and learned from my life experiences, that structure would provide the framework of our days, keep us safe, and nurture our creativity. And so we managed to feed and clothe ourselves and an extended family of people and dogs even when payment for our services were rendered in calabasas and queso (squash and cheese).
At the ranch, I had the rare privilege of living with and managing what grew to be a 13 dog pack. No fences. No kennels. No crates. Just the land, the house, my voice, food, and the structure of our lives. I ran them like I ran the ranch. No violence allowed, no posturing, no threats. Meals at certain times, lights out at certain times. Time to play and patrol the ranch, chase birds and rabbits, and bark at the horses and cows going by in the river bed below, our local highway. Time for four leggeds to nap while the two leggeds made scratches on paper. Time for intimacy. Time for everyone to be in their respective beds. I could leave for weeks at a time to work in the states, leaving our caretaker in charge and return to a happy, tail-wagging chorus at the gate, all present and accounted for. No one ever left of their own accord. Two were poisoned, and one was stolen. I still have the two terriers from the original crew, and the rest grew old and passed on. Life was very rich.
Lack of discipline, lack of boundaries and limitations and consequences doesn't work with kids, it doesn't work with employees, it doesn't work with collaborative group efforts, it doesn't work for governments, and it certainly doesn't work for banks. Structure provides sanity.
It matters to a dog how close you are to them. It matters to a dog how and where you touch them. Just because they allow the kind of inconsiderate, fur ruffling touch that is commonplace does not mean that that does not have language significance for them. They are, on the whole, a tolerant culture. We would be sadly adrift, even more than we are now, were it not so. It matters to a dog, proximity, up and down, near and far, how big of a space over which we are moving, how fast or slow we walk, whether we are bowed or straight and what our eyes are doing. They have an immense culture and language of structure.
Discipline, in the dog world, is about recognizing dogs inherent need for structure, boundaries and limitations to thrive and maximize their well being. Dogs, like most living creatures, do not flourish in chaos. I have had the unique opportunity to participate or live in an anarchic society, a society with "no rules", three times in my life: first, a commune in Virginia; second, a village of boats in San Diego Harbor, the third, my farm in rural Mexico. In the first two instances, people were there precisely so that they did not have to live by society's rules. They were independents, fiercely so, from many different walks of life, and in the boat community, different countries. And yet, each time, hurtful events, incidents which tore at the thinly woven fabric of the group catapulted the community into structure. Was the resulting structure slightly more collaborative, a little more freewheeling than a traditional town council? Perhaps. But meetings were held, rules laid down, consequences discussed and adapted.
When I went south to live on my farm in Mexico, it was both inherent in my New England upbringing, and learned from my life experiences, that structure would provide the framework of our days, keep us safe, and nurture our creativity. And so we managed to feed and clothe ourselves and an extended family of people and dogs even when payment for our services were rendered in calabasas and queso (squash and cheese).
At the ranch, I had the rare privilege of living with and managing what grew to be a 13 dog pack. No fences. No kennels. No crates. Just the land, the house, my voice, food, and the structure of our lives. I ran them like I ran the ranch. No violence allowed, no posturing, no threats. Meals at certain times, lights out at certain times. Time to play and patrol the ranch, chase birds and rabbits, and bark at the horses and cows going by in the river bed below, our local highway. Time for four leggeds to nap while the two leggeds made scratches on paper. Time for intimacy. Time for everyone to be in their respective beds. I could leave for weeks at a time to work in the states, leaving our caretaker in charge and return to a happy, tail-wagging chorus at the gate, all present and accounted for. No one ever left of their own accord. Two were poisoned, and one was stolen. I still have the two terriers from the original crew, and the rest grew old and passed on. Life was very rich.
Lack of discipline, lack of boundaries and limitations and consequences doesn't work with kids, it doesn't work with employees, it doesn't work with collaborative group efforts, it doesn't work for governments, and it certainly doesn't work for banks. Structure provides sanity.
Testing
As my first attempt, after much typing went into blog oblivion, I am testing the links on my new site.
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