Vying for first choice of my favorite books is The Wood Wife by Terri Windling. Terri Windling is an American author, artist and folklorist who now lives in Devon, England. In order to give you a better introduction to Terri Windling, I refer you to her information here. The first time I read The Wood Wife, twenty some years ago, I was glued to it. Terri Windling weaves together the ordinary with the mystery of the other world to gift us a story read with caught breath in between gasps of “what next” and “how I wish I were there.”…
Trees of My Life I
In the land where I grew up, trees were important. This was in the rangeland of north central Montana, in an old, worn group of buttes called the Bear Paw Mountains. Native grasses and trees covered these buttes, as well as irregular patches of shale rock. Bubbling springs and cheerful creeks were salted throughout the buttes, many so hidden they were seldom seen by humans. There were fir, pine, aspen, willow, hawthorne, dogwood, serviceberry and chokecherry, to mention just a few. The trees provided shelter for livestock during stormy weather as well as hot days. Wildlife and birds made their…
Horses, Words, and Herds
Above, we see a photo of my Lusitano, Evaristo, and I. I love this photo because of how attentive and open Evaristo is to our connection. Even though I am facing the person taking the photo, I am thinking of Evaristo, too. He recognizes this, and reciprocates. Without words. I did not mean to include a huge picture of Evaristo and myself, then the same smaller picture of Evaristo and myself. There is only supposed to be one, but WordPress (the platform for this blog) refused to allow me to delete the large one, which is set as the featured…
Glimpses of Jenny's Writing I
Going on behind the scene of Earthwise and the Alabaster Horse, I write essays. I am building my collection so that I can someday turn them into a book. Occasionally, an essay appears as a blog post in a shorter, condensed version. To give my readers an additional taste of the words I write, from time to time I will include excerpts of essays here as well. The following passages are from my essay “Across the Way.” This essay arose from the photo below I took one unseasonably warm 50 degree January day in north central Montana, as I was…
Horses & Roots
Horses and roots go hand in hand. Or, rather, hoof and root. Improbable. We will examine this thought. I speak of the true movement and be-ing of horses. They root. They root to the earth and to the landscape. They root to the air. I recall a line attributed to an ancient Arabian proverb as “horses are drinkers of the wind.” Horses root to their spirit. They root to each other. They can root into us and we into them if we can find this. Or allow this. Trees root. We all know this. Have you ever considered that rocks…
BlogKeeping II...
Here is a quick notice regarding my last post, which did not disperse to my readers as it was supposed to. I think I’ve got it working again! You can read it here. As a not so subtle hint, this post is the beginning of the presence of horses on EarthWise and the Alabaster Horse. I am looking forward to their being here, as I’ve all kinds of ideas and words I want to include about them. The photo of the flowers (which I believe are a type of amaryllis) is from a visit to Manito Park public gardens in…