The moment I heard a warrior’s cry and saw a girl standing on two
horses come barreling into an arena, I lost my breath. The horses galloped full bore up and over a mound
of earth, as though running on level ground.
I bet the girl
felt as though she was flying.
According to Larry
King and Joyce Davis, Calvalia is the greatest show on earth.
White
Andalusians with manes flowing past their shoulders played with humans; then the
group splashed through a pond in the center of the sand-filled arena.
Soon the pond was
gone, mysteriously drained away, and a troop of horses and acrobats flooded the
arena.
I touched the
sand on the way out of the enormous white tent to see if it was real sand or
what.
It felt like
sand.
Daughter number
two and I saw Calvalia a few years
ago in Dallas Texas, and Saturday while sorting through boxes in our Wayback.
(axillary building) I came upon a magazine I had bought while attending the spectacle
of horse and human.
According to Calvalia’s Director Erick Villeneuve,
“the horse is pure and raw.
On stage, he is authentic, true to
himself, with his impulses, moods, and passion. He can’t be forced to do what
he doesn’t want to do. You have to respect him and let him be…this is precisely the spirit behind the show, to offer the horse the
opportunity to experience, if only for a
moment, his freedom.”
Calvaria's training approach is the opposite of the relationship based on the
dominant/submissive method common to trainers for centuries. The horse isn’t
doing “tricks,” rather, the rider and the horse are playing together.
Being in awe
touches the soul and makes us happy to be a human being.
And then
sometimes embarrassment takes our breath away:
“Sorry losers and
haters, but my I.Q.is one of the highest—and you all know it! Please don’t feel
so stupid or insecure; it’s not your fault.”
--The
president of The United States.
When an
interviewer asked Steven Hawkins what his I.Q. was, he answered:
“I have no idea.
People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.” –Steven Hawking to the New York
Times, December 2004.
As I continued
to dig among the stored boxes, I found this drawing created on a napkin. I know
it came into being when my children were young.
I have seen adults try to match the essence of a child’s drawing
and they can’t do it.
It has the purity of folk art.
Daughter
number two said she didn’t draw it. Daughter number one said it didn’t match
her style.
I bet Ellie
drew it. It looks like the sort she would draw at maybe age 6 or 7.
Ellie was Lisa's best friend from elementary school and on through High
School and college. Both attended each
other’s wedding, Ellie traveling from California to Oregon, Lisa from Oregon to
California.
Ellie and Lisa were artists and when around 12 years of age they made a stop-action movie with toy mice.
About a year
ago Ellie didn’t feel well, and so that afternoon she laid down in bed to rest, and
never got up.
These are
moments that take our breath away.
