Conquer without any sword

First of all, I want to draw everyone's attention to this clip. It is from Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling. It is called "Be Yourself". It is wonderful seeing Klaus playing with a horse the way he did with Janosch many years ago. Their connection is evident.

I am lucky to have a housemate with a passion for gardening. This morning as I walked to the front door, I saw these beauties. I have seen California poppies all my life, but I had never seen one emerging like the one below, still wearing its cone of green protection.

When I walked by a couple of hours later, the cone had popped off and the poppy had popped open! You can see the discarded green cone slightly below it to the right. I wished I had been slowed down enough to sit and watch the process happening.

Here are the mystery plants bursting forth. They are about knee-height to me now. If you think you know what they are, email me at stormy@stormymay.com and the first three correct guesses will get a Path of the Horse DVD mailed to you. Don't post your guesses here!

Here are the manzanita, now past their blooms and into their growth period.


Walking down the hill I saw a beautiful skyline of sheep and goats.

And here's a friendly fellow I met this afternoon. We spend a lot of money and brainpower figuring out how to explore alien galaxies, but this little guy looked like an alien right on my arm. And it didn't take anything except slowing down enough to examine him instead of reactively shooing him away. The little mouthpiece probing my skin pores looked like something from Star Wars. I hope everyone here has read "Kinship With All Life" by J. Allen Boone. I consider it required reading for this path.

Here is an apparently rare plant called scarlet fritillary. From what I found online, I see that Native Americans would cook and eat the bulbs of these plants as well as possibly use them as a decongestant and to reduce swelling.

I know this is the Path of the Horse but as I see it, this is all related even if we don't see horses in these pictures. Do others see it this way? I'm curious to know if others can see the relationship.

Here is something of a religious nature to contemplate today. Think of it in terms of this path of relationship with horses.

When God created the horse, he said to the magnificent creature: I have made thee as no other. All the treasures of the earth shall lie between thy eyes. Thou shalt cast thy enemies between thy hooves, but thou shalt carry my friends upon thy back. Thy saddle shall be the seat of prayers to me. And thou fly without any wings, and conquer without any sword.

- the Koran