Because Shannon is badass, she bought me horseback riding lessons as a combined Christmas-birthday gift.

I love horses.

I love them with something approaching the ardor of an 8-year-old girl.

You spend time with horses and you realize that they have a connection to humans that no other animals save dogs can claim.  The history of their existence is inextricably tied up with ours, and you can sense that when around them.  Learning to work with a horse can open a window into the ways our species is and has been connected to the natural world all around us, a window all the more important given how rapidly we are burying our sense of that integration under bells and whistles and hustle, hustle, hustle.

I wanted some of that, and Shannon hooked me up.

And soon I found myself hooking up the horses. Continue reading →