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Riding Toward Higher Ground · Relatively Stable

0:04
SPEAKER_00: Riding toward higher ground.
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SPEAKER_00: What is inherited and what is learned.
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Despite few people in my current world having actually seen me
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on top of a horse,
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SPEAKER_00: I've spent a large portion of my life identifying as a rider.
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SPEAKER_00: There are many reasons for the sabbatical,
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but the truth is I have learned more from horses by their side
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than I ever figured
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SPEAKER_00: out a stride.
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SPEAKER_00: I will always be a riding instructor,
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but that title has come to embody a whole horse and whole human
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way of leading
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SPEAKER_00: people as they explore the complicated,
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SPEAKER_00: simple,
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SPEAKER_00: mysterious,
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and grounded relationship with horses that is worlds away from
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the forceful
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SPEAKER_00: mechanics that marked my early career.
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SPEAKER_00: I've personally had legions of instructors,
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SPEAKER_00: mentors,
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and trainers who filled me with knowledge and helped me become
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the riding stable
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SPEAKER_00: manager that I am today.
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I will find many more teachers as I continue this journey
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because a life with
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SPEAKER_00: horses isn't a flow chart.
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SPEAKER_00: It's a shore of shifting tides.
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The choices I make with horses today are a monument to the
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wisdom and ignorance of
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SPEAKER_00: the teachers who crafted the living,
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SPEAKER_00: changing herd of my bones.
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In honor of the mindset that guides me today,
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I want to talk to you about one of my teachers.
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SPEAKER_00: Let's get started.
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SPEAKER_00: But first,
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SPEAKER_00: if you're interested in how we find meaning through presence,
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SPEAKER_00: practice and language,
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SPEAKER_00: listen to my recent podcast conversation with poet Jason Chambers.
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Jason's journey is about survival and return through addiction,
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loss and rediscovery.
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What brought him back was the pull of the natural world and the
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act of writing it into meaning.
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SPEAKER_00: We talk about cultivating reverence,
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SPEAKER_00: the challenge of putting the indescribable into words,
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SPEAKER_00: and how nature can become our greatest teacher.
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SPEAKER_00: His insights on creative exploration,
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SPEAKER_00: vulnerability,
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and connection feel like a natural extension of the themes that
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guide my work.
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SPEAKER_00: The Trouble with Titles
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It was prettier than the standard midlife crisis because it
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involved horses.
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The rite of passage that took me deep into the coves and
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hollers of the mountains
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coincided with my 40th birthday and a big chestnut horse that
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was as handsome as he
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SPEAKER_00: was nuts.
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SPEAKER_00: Explosive,
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SPEAKER_00: domineering,
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SPEAKER_00: and violent,
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SPEAKER_00: Odin,
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SPEAKER_00: like his namesake,
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SPEAKER_00: refused to be tamed by any training knowledge that I possessed.
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SPEAKER_00: In truth, he needed an exorcist.
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SPEAKER_00: So did I.
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SPEAKER_00: Fear had turned me into a wild animal of desire, impulsivity and rage.
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My stomach was filled with ulcers and my mind was plagued by an
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unquenchable thirst
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SPEAKER_00: for connection.
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SPEAKER_00: My womb was bleeding me dry,
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SPEAKER_00: my body faltering,
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but I couldn't slow down because I had a farm to run and a
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point to prove.
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SPEAKER_00: All my best ideas happen out of desperation.
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SPEAKER_00: The old silver farm truck was unreliable,
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and I needed a vehicle that would allow me to make a weekly
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sojourn to a horse
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trainer whose knowledge could fill gaps in my understanding of
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how to take a horse
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SPEAKER_00: with problems and make them reliable and usable for the general public.
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SPEAKER_00: So I purchased a big black truck,
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SPEAKER_00: brand new with a warranty,
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and admired the glow of its chrome in the moonlight as I sat on
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the front porch and
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drank wine while clicking the remote start just to hear its
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engine roar into life.
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SPEAKER_00: The trainer, we'll call him the cowboy, came by the name honestly.
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SPEAKER_00: Raised by the founding fathers of the natural horsemanship movement,
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SPEAKER_00: his knowledge filled gaps I didn't yet know how to name.
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SPEAKER_00: I was hesitant to latch onto any one system of working with horses.
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SPEAKER_00: The tools I craved were ancient,
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rooted in a desire to understand how we ruin horses in the
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English riding world,
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SPEAKER_00: and then send them to Cowboys to fix.
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SPEAKER_00: The goal was to drive two hours from my farm once a week,
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SPEAKER_00: immerse myself in the Cowboys way of training,
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SPEAKER_00: and write about what I discovered.
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SPEAKER_00: I wanted to ride for pleasure, away from the eyes of staff and clients.
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I needed to reclaim pieces of myself that I'd traded for making
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horses my livelihood.
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SPEAKER_00: I loaded up the big black truck with saddles,
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SPEAKER_00: snacks,
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SPEAKER_00: and the hazy edges of my failing inspiration and took off for the hills.
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SPEAKER_00: Stable Roots is where I share stories about horses,
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SPEAKER_00: resilience and the life I've built from both.
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SPEAKER_00: Subscribing helps keep these stories going.
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SPEAKER_00: A paid subscription goes even further by directly supporting the farm,
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SPEAKER_00: the horses and the work we do here daily.
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However you choose to be a part of this community,
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I'm just grateful you're here.
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SPEAKER_00: A drive to store my memories.
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SPEAKER_00: My people are from these mountains.
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SPEAKER_00: The altitude climbs through resorts in despair,
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visitors and residents each with differing claims to ownership
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over the land.
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SPEAKER_00: Late summer wraps the mountains in a thick blue canopy.
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Golden and red flowers line the roadsides as I drive away from
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what I know and
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SPEAKER_00: deeper into what I wish would happen.
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SPEAKER_00: The last time I made this drive,
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SPEAKER_00: I was a child in my grandfather's Cadillac,
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listening to cassette tapes while he schooled me on land grants
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and how our people
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SPEAKER_00: came here with the holy permission of the King of England.
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The family plot is a short hike from the parking lot of a park
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below the fish hatchery.
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SPEAKER_00: My Aunt Stella's cremains are scattered in these mountains,
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around tombstones worn smooth by rainfall dripping from the
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oaks that surround the
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SPEAKER_00: burial site.
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Stella became part of the land in a way that makes me consider
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how we all return to it,
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SPEAKER_00: how we're all a part of it,
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SPEAKER_00: transmuting into the elements.
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I drive these roads with my grandfather now washed into the
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dirt and the opposing
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SPEAKER_00: angels of his legacy continuing their battle inside of me.
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It's time to choose the country or the city,
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the mountains or the pavement.
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SPEAKER_00: Dual citizenship in both is no longer working.
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The cowboy greets me at the gate and waits for me to park the
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truck before he pulls
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SPEAKER_00: me into the orbit of his tasks.
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SPEAKER_00: There are bottle calves to feed and a horse to brand,
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and there is a commercial hauler coming with a semi-truck that
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can't make the
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SPEAKER_00: curves in the higher elevations to drop three horses off.
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SPEAKER_00: Money migrates up the coast every year like birds in reverse,
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humans escaping the heat for gated homes and the cool wildness
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of the mountains.
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SPEAKER_00: Their horses come with them.
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SPEAKER_00: The cowboy is made of tobacco and movement,
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his short frame adorned with a hat that states his bearing in a
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community that no
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SPEAKER_00: longer cares about tractors and herding dogs.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm Southern,
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SPEAKER_00: born and raised,
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and I can barely make out his meaning through the thickness of
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his accent.
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SPEAKER_00: He's equal parts parody and pride.
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He's agreed to take me on for the price of weekly lessons and
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the potential sale of horses,
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SPEAKER_00: including Odin.
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SPEAKER_00: You look like that lady and the man from Snowy River,
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SPEAKER_00: he said,
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SPEAKER_00: the first day he came to my place to drop off a pony.
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SPEAKER_00: It sounded like validation at the time.
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SPEAKER_00: I might be a writing instructor,
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SPEAKER_00: but I'm still human,
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SPEAKER_00: and I've accepted worse praise for lesser reasons.
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The city boys hauling the expensive horses in the semi-trailer
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arrive and I watch
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from the shadows of the barn as they alternately talk down to
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the cowboy and find
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SPEAKER_00: themselves unable to unload the horses and have to beg for help.
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SPEAKER_00: The horses are stressed, stoic statues on the trailer.
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The cowboy lets the haulers struggle a bit before he strolls up
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the big ramp and
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SPEAKER_00: flicks a lead rope.
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SPEAKER_00: The first horse follows him down the incline like butter.
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Soon he's transferred three horses from the big rig to his
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smaller stock trailer
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SPEAKER_00: that will handle the sharp curves up the mountain.
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SPEAKER_00: As I climb into the passenger seat of the cowboy's truck,
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SPEAKER_00: the movement of the horses behind us sways the shocks.
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The sun begins to set,
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spreading purple shadows across the worn brown of his farmyard.
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Rich or poor,
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farms smell the same in the dark,
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and the horses couldn't care less about lineage.
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SPEAKER_00: My genealogy is hard to rectify.
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SPEAKER_00: My love for the land is at odds with what people do to grab it.
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The grandfather who raised me was split between his love for
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the forests and his
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SPEAKER_00: fascination with cutting them down.
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The grandfather I never met took part in violence to prove that
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there were humans
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SPEAKER_00: more lowly than sharecroppers.
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The cowboy guns his truck full force up the mountain as the
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darkening hills rush
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SPEAKER_00: past us in a blur.
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He points out an unfinished tunnel where the agriculture school
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ripens cheese.
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SPEAKER_00: I point out the turnoff to my family's graveyard.
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SPEAKER_00: We talk about how we're probably distant cousins.
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SPEAKER_00: I ask him what brought him to horses.
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He tells me about his alcoholic father raising him alone in a
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town on top of the mountain.
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SPEAKER_00: how the population shrank in the winter, feast to famine.
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He tells me how two brothers found him as a kid at a livestock
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auction and saw that
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SPEAKER_00: he knew how to sit on a horse,
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how he gave the appearance that the horse was child-safe for
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the few moments it
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SPEAKER_00: took to earn top dollar in a sale.
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he tells me how the brothers took him home with them and how
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they hauled him with
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the horses across the country his world suddenly expanding like
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the way light hits
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SPEAKER_00: a clear stone how it's refracted and glorified into something else
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SPEAKER_00: He tells me how Ray Hunt and Tom Dorrance later found him,
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SPEAKER_00: and how they took him on,
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SPEAKER_00: teaching him their ways,
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SPEAKER_00: making him their rider as they spread the old vaquero practices,
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SPEAKER_00: working cows like the Spanish settlers,
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in a world with its trains and cars and airplanes that had
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forgotten horsemanship
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SPEAKER_00: was what created a rideable horse.
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He tells me how these men saw something big in him and how they
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brought it out.
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SPEAKER_00: These dusty saviors with gnarled hands that could tie tight knots.
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I feel like I need to prove my privilege of sitting in his
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passenger seat as his
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SPEAKER_00: truck roars up the mountain,
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SPEAKER_00: not slowing through hairpin turns,
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SPEAKER_00: the horses swaying in the trailer behind us.
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SPEAKER_00: The moon has risen bright and round.
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I tell him how I understand that the tools of natural
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horsemanship got caught in
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the Pacific Northwest while Texas was busy going large with its
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big flat lands.
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I tell him how we fed the modern world with faster methods of
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moving cows while the
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SPEAKER_00: slow way dropped off to sate the insatiable hunger,
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this country of strangers racing to fill the boundaries of
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opposing oceans.
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SPEAKER_00: I tell him how I've worked with horses every day of my adult life,
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SPEAKER_00: but I don't know much about them.
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SPEAKER_00: What I don't say is how equally less I know about myself.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm in a speeding truck flying up a mountain.
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SPEAKER_00: I came here on a whim, on a hunch.
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SPEAKER_00: I need the cowboy to show me the missing links.
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SPEAKER_00: I know the theory, I know the history, I say.
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SPEAKER_00: I see how we got from there to here.
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SPEAKER_00: But I need to know what the horses want,
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SPEAKER_00: to understand why they do what they do,
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SPEAKER_00: why I do what I do,
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SPEAKER_00: and how to make my language cleaner when I talk to them.
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SPEAKER_00: Then you'll need to start over at the beginning, he says.
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The truck banks hard down a twisting dirt road that follows a
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stream deep into a cove.
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SPEAKER_00: The destination is a farm tucked into the trees.
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The warm glow of the lights around the barn flicker like
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candles in the cool summer shadows.
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SPEAKER_00: The horses unload without a fuss and,
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SPEAKER_00: like it never happened,
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SPEAKER_00: we're back on the road,
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moving slower as the truck breaks and winds down the steep
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grade on the return trip
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SPEAKER_00: down the mountain.
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SPEAKER_00: We're quiet as we go,
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my skin still vibrating from the fast pull of the engine when
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the trailer was
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SPEAKER_00: loaded with heavy flight animals.
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The cowboy and I stare ahead at the forest cave of trees framed
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in the headlights,
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SPEAKER_00: illuminating just enough to inch steadily forward.
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I'm turning to him with a question when he slows the truck to a
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halt in the middle
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SPEAKER_00: of the empty road.
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SPEAKER_00: He motions for me to be quiet and to look.
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In front of us,
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a black bear and two small cubs amble from one side of the road
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to the other.
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SPEAKER_00: Unbothered by the light,
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SPEAKER_00: our presence,
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SPEAKER_00: the moving thread of progress and civilizations,
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they follow the same ancient path their ancestors have carried
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them since these old
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SPEAKER_00: mountains were just a dream that read like a vision.
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We are simultaneously held by and are complete strangers to
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this land in this place
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SPEAKER_00: where three states converge and my people set up shop with a land grant.
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SPEAKER_00: We brought the horses with us to this place.
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We fed them with foreign grass and wondered why the richness
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made them sick.
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SPEAKER_00: They traveled here with us, but we still don't know them.
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These horses that we've kicked into a semblance of wildness
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that feels safe for us to digest.
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SPEAKER_00: Stepping into my knowledge of them,
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SPEAKER_00: growing it,
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SPEAKER_00: expanding it,
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SPEAKER_00: is almost like moving into fear itself,
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SPEAKER_00: the unknown,
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SPEAKER_00: the things I might uncover.
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SPEAKER_00: I am the black bear in the headlight.
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SPEAKER_00: Or maybe she is me.
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Either way,
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I will follow the soft pause of my questions slowly toward
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higher ground.
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SPEAKER_00: These writings may be in two parts or 12.
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SPEAKER_00: I'll be back next week with more horses and less backstory, maybe.
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But it feels right to write about this journey because so much
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of it has shaped who I am now.
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SPEAKER_00: If my story calls to you,
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SPEAKER_00: or if you've been walking similar roads,
16:31
SPEAKER_00: consider subscribing to Stable Roots.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: Free or paid,
16:35
SPEAKER_00: it's how I keep sharing these stories about horses,
16:37
SPEAKER_00: land,
16:38
SPEAKER_00: and the questions that don't have easy answers.
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Paid subscriptions also help support the horses and the farm
16:45
that give back to our community.
16:48
i also host a podcast called relatively stable where i talk
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with people about the
16:53
roads they've taken the ones they've left behind and the
16:56
lessons they've learned
16:57
along the way if you're curious you can listen to past
17:01
conversations like my recent
17:03
SPEAKER_00: deep dive with poet jason chambers u s equestrian team great kim walness
17:09
SPEAKER_00: creative visionary Jane Pike, and my wise sister Tamar Reno.
17:15
Upcoming,
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I'll be sharing a conversation with equine body worker Sue Lomenzo.
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And you can find Relatively Stable on all your favorite podcast platforms,
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SPEAKER_00: or you can keep up with it from my blog,
17:28
SPEAKER_00: Stable Roots,
17:29
SPEAKER_00: which will click over to Relatively Stable.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being here with me.
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SPEAKER_00: Love, Kim.