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The Cost of Moving On · Relatively Stable

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: The cost of moving on, on land, loneliness, and crowdsourcing a farm.
• 0:20
  In the middle of my mad dash to save our horse farm from the
• 0:24
  creeping fingers of
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: progress,
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  SPEAKER_00: someone who held a vast amount of power in my future said,
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  SPEAKER_00: just move two hours away.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: There were plenty of affordable farms outside the city.
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  SPEAKER_00: This person had never managed a farm or built a horse program.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Their fate had never been tied to the land.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: To them, it seemed cut and dry.
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  SPEAKER_00: Just move.
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  Around the same time,
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  an equine professional took offense at my fundraising.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: She said riding programs lose their lease all the time.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: They find another barn to rent or they close.
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  SPEAKER_00: She assumed I was asking for a handout because I was afraid of hard work.
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  She was caught in the strange divisiveness that fills the
• 1:12
  comment sections of our
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: favorite platforms,
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  SPEAKER_00: where asking for help is somehow offensive.
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  Both positions are oversimplified and rooted in an outdated
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  model of rugged
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  SPEAKER_00: individualism that might have worked two decades ago.
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  But the landscape has shifted,
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  even if the soil beneath our feet remains determinedly the
• 1:35
  same.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: If we're going to preserve what matters, we cannot do it alone.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Community is as essential as food, and our food is tied to the land.
• 1:49
  Living and working beside the energy of a herd shows me that no
• 1:53
  organism thrives in isolation.
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  Moving to a farm where the horses have the space to live
• 1:59
  outside and follow their
• 2:01
  biological rhythms reminds me that humans do ourselves harm
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  when we try to go
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  SPEAKER_00: through life alone.
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  Loneliness has become a universal crisis,
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  even as our population reaches an all-time high.
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  SPEAKER_00: In 1830,
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  SPEAKER_00: the word individualism surfaced in the English language,
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  SPEAKER_00: just five years after Lavender Hill,
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  SPEAKER_00: the farm I'm writing from,
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  SPEAKER_00: was built.
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  SPEAKER_00: The enlightenment that preceded it brought a necessary shift.
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  Humans began to think about personal liberty,
• 2:35
  compassion,
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  and the rights of others.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: It also changed horsemanship.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: After centuries of barbaric Roman practices designed for warfare,
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  SPEAKER_00: this new awareness helped us see horses differently,
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  SPEAKER_00: as sentient beings with thoughts and feelings of their own.
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  From that awakening grew the Baroque system,
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  the foundation of classical training today.
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  It still had roots in warfare,
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  but it valued balance,
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  clarity,
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  and partnership over force.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: In this way,
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  individualism helped us see a wider view that our own freedom
• 3:12
  depends on honoring
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  SPEAKER_00: the autonomy of others.
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  SPEAKER_00: There is always the potential for harm when two beings meet,
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  but we could no longer deny that we exist as centers of our own
• 3:25
  small universes
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  SPEAKER_00: within one vast constellation.
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  SPEAKER_00: As humans spread west across America,
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: leaving traces of those classical methods along the way,
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: the heart of what we now call natural horsemanship.
• 3:42
  That early ideal of freedom began to harden into a pathology of
• 3:46
  aloneness that still plagues us
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sitting in a field as a client walks beside a grazing horse.
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  The herd surrounds her,
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  peacefully munching as cars pass on a nearby road.
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  It is sunset and the light spreads over a meadow through the
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  trees to the folding
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  SPEAKER_00: chair I've placed precariously on a hill.
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  SPEAKER_00: I sit and scribble in my notebook.
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  SPEAKER_00: I am both a part of this client's work and I am separate.
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  SPEAKER_00: We are all sharing space in this field together.
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  SPEAKER_00: At the heart of my work,
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  the farm exists for us to have a space to quieten into a
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  quality of connection that
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  SPEAKER_00: can only happen beyond the busy noise of living.
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  SPEAKER_00: We share space with the horses, with each other, with the land.
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  SPEAKER_00: We allow our barriers to drop and our minds and hearts to open.
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  SPEAKER_00: We feel supported.
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  SPEAKER_00: We feel heard.
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  SPEAKER_00: We feel seen.
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  SPEAKER_00: And isn't that the whole point?
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  SPEAKER_00: Dr. Rebecca Gimenez-Husted recently commented on one of my posts.
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  SPEAKER_00: She said, there's nowhere to go with 8 billion of us.
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  When my 88-year-old father was born in 1936,
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  there were just over 2 billion.
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  SPEAKER_00: When I was born in 1967, there were 3.4 billion.
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  SPEAKER_00: There's going to be nothing left.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm not cynical.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm a realist.
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  I travel all over the world,
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  and everywhere I go,
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  they're arguing over water,
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  food,
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  space.
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  Until there's less of us,
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  we're on a short trip to our species' manifest destiny.
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  SPEAKER_00: Use it up,
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  SPEAKER_00: throw it away,
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  SPEAKER_00: growth economy,
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  SPEAKER_00: until we run out of all of it and fight for what's left.
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  SPEAKER_00: It could be a beautiful planet,
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  but we're not willing to make the hard choices to protect it
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  for the long term.
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  SPEAKER_00: As land diminishes and the population grows,
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  SPEAKER_00: as people feel more and more alone,
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  SPEAKER_00: we need farms and fields and herds more than ever.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm crowdsourcing a farm.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because this work isn't just for me, it's for all of us.
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  SPEAKER_00: Together,
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  SPEAKER_00: we can show that caring for ourselves,
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  SPEAKER_00: each other,
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  SPEAKER_00: the animals,
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  SPEAKER_00: and the land is a collective art.
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  SPEAKER_00: Every generation must decide what it will protect.
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  SPEAKER_00: Some build walls, some build empires.
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  SPEAKER_00: I am trying to build a refuge,
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  a place where horses and humans can remember how to belong to
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  the earth and to each
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  SPEAKER_00: other.
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  SPEAKER_00: When I look out over the pastures of Lavender Hill,
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  SPEAKER_00: I see the old oaks that have watched two centuries of human movement.
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  I see the pond holding the sky,
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  the herd breathing in a rhythm with the wind.
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  I think about the people who told me to move on,
• 6:44
  to start over,
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  to let it all go.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I also think about everyone who showed up,
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: who shared a post,
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: sent a message,
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  SPEAKER_00: gave a dollar or more.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: carried a fence board,
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  are simply believed that keeping a farm like this intact for
• 7:00
  the public is an
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  SPEAKER_00: important act.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because it is.
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  SPEAKER_00: The future won't be built by us choosing to look away.
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  It will be built by those who keep showing up on the same patch
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  of ground,
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  SPEAKER_00: repairing what's been broken,
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  SPEAKER_00: and listening to the land long enough to hear what it's saying.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm here.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is what we're doing here.
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  We're rooting into something older and wiser than progress as
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  we hold space for the
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  SPEAKER_00: knowledge that community is our only way forward.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you believe in this work,
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  if you've ever found peace in the presence of a horse or hope
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  in a patch of land,
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm asking you to help us protect it.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Every contribution to our GoFundMe keeps Lavender Hill,
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  SPEAKER_00: a 200-year-old farm,
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  SPEAKER_00: alive as a refuge for connection,
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  SPEAKER_00: education,
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  SPEAKER_00: and belonging.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Together, we can prove that some things are still worth preserving.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Love, Kim.