Colorado trip & Raynie messages

Jul 06, 2024

Happy Saturday friends!

I thought I'd be telling you all what happened with Rayn going to heaven but I find I'm just not ready yet. I fluctuate between living life like normal and, well, not but the "not" is very, very private. No one, even family and friends sees the depth of it. I've told the story many times. I'm just not ready to delve into writing it. This is a weird kind of grief. Different than Mom but just as strong or maybe stronger? And that sounds strange but there it is. I'm only able to cry in bits. It's like the grief is stuck inside of me behind a huge balloon in my chest. There is a piece of me that says I'm being ridiculous, that grieving a horse should be easier than grieving a human.

But it's this horse.

And this is a true statement:

I was going through some of my blog posts about grieving Mom and found this one about The Ugly Stage:

"And I relate that all to the grieving process for my Mom too. I have abilities now that I didn’t have the last time someone very close to me died (her mom.) I trust myself to handle whatever comes up now.

It's not always pretty either. Sometimes it's an icky ugly stage in the day. But nothing bad happens because of the ugly stage. Sometimes something beautiful happens. And sometimes you come through the other side and just knowing that you can, and will, is enough."

I have to keep that in the forefront of my mind. Nothing bad happens because of the ugly stage, maybe the balloon in my chest will deflate eventually and more grief will leak out. Apparently each grief is very different and you just have to wait to see what it brings and work your way through it.

She's still around. She talks to me. The other day she walked with me while I did chores. She often stands with her head at my shoulder and blows softly through her nose. And of course I'm still grieving Mom and Rayn brings that closer to the surface. Grieving old deaths with the new one seems to be an absolute.

This week Rayn has been communicating with me through some of my oracle cards. I got this little intuitive hit on Tuesday that Rayn wanted me to open some of them so I picked up 4 different decks and sat down to see what she wanted to communicate through them. I opened an angel box and got a random card that didn't make sense to me. I sent her a, "Huh?" and she said, "Horse cards only silly." LOL oh, yes, of course. I opened my friend Katie's deck (which you can get here), shuffled, and the card that poked out the top was: Community (and I only just now realized that inside the flower petals are horses!)

There is a little book that goes along with the deck and you can look up each card's message. Here is the Community message:

From the horses: The good of the herd is a priority. We take care of each other and you need to as well. We need to survive and so we help each other. We look for where we can support, and we are willing to release what isn't working. Find your herd and be good to them.

From Katie: When we feel included and connected, we thrive. Community is crucial for our emotional and mental health and physical wellbeing. Relationships can shift and change but having a herd of like-minded and like-hearted humans is important. It is so helpful that it's worth our time to cultivate them.

Activity ideas from Katie: Host or attend a sharing circle (ie: women's/men's/teens, etc) and connect with others in a vulnerable and authentic way that feels good. Set an intention to meet new friends and stay open. Participate in one that includes equines as this may help you to connect more deeply through shared interests.

As you know I host Women's Circles here at the ranch (the next one starts this Wednesday evening and runs for 6 weeks, 6-9pm, details here! Only 2 more spots available!) but I remembered hosting free Open Studio times at my ranch in Colorado. It was fun to sit and play with art, a time for those who wanted to catch up or finish something they had created in a class I held, or to bring something they were working on in their own free time: other art or craft projects, knitting, diamond painting, coloring books, whatever. Basically it's a couple hours for women friends (old and new) to get together and do something with their hands while talking.

I think that was Rayn's message for me with this card, it was time to host Open Studio nights again! So, I had one this week on Wednesday from 6-8pm. It was fun and easy and nice to hang out ❤️

My next free Open Studio will be Friday, July 26th from 6-8pm. Let me know if you'd like to join. I have space for 8 people. Text me at 720-635-7015 or send me an email! It's free!

Later in the week: I was straightening up my office for the day and putting some oracle cards back in their basket when I heard, “These.” As I was touching a box. These cards are called Within Reach mediumship cards. The two that popped to the top of the shuffle were:

It’s okay to cry. That was a gentle reminder. 🥰 I had woken up earlier in the morning and felt Rayn and started to cry. Several deep breaths later, knowing I was getting up shortly and doing chores and didn’t feel like I had the time to have those emotions, the feeling passed and I “had it under control” again. Haha, as if that's a thing. The more often I allow the tears, the shorter the crying jags. Funny how that works. Just allow the feelings and they come and go more easily but years of practice of holding my feelings in occasionally get in my way.

And:

Stop the clock. They always hit the nail on the head on the other side of the veil. Waking up and listing my day instead of waking up and enjoying the moment. Silly Julie. We all know how much I love to stop and smell the roses, or at least take pics of them. Crazy when I get a little overwhelmed by…whatever…loss, work, farm work, life and stop looking around me and enjoying the moments.

I love these reminders so much :-)

Other blog posts I wrote this week:

Rayn said: We are waiting for an opening.

I wrote about befriending my anger here!

COLORADO TRIP:

ManChild and I went to Colorado for a week to see old friends and eat our way through our favorite restaurants in Longmont.

Here are my ah-ha moments, while I can't have the same weather and mountain views here I can:

1. Make the same quality of friends.
2. Find delicious restaurants (that offer really good gluten free options.).
3. Work toward having my business thrive the way it was in CO
4. Ok, this is a strange one! I realized that it felt so homey when we landed in Denver and I knew how to go "home" back to Longmont. I didn't need GPS to get anywhere! One of the ways I feel at home is to know how to get around and I didn't realize that until I went back!

My family moved to NC from southern California in 1983 when I was 14. I lived here 20 years and learned to drive here. No GPS back then, you had to use maps and memory and landmarks. B-Rad and I moved to Colorado in 2003 and didn't have GPS then either so we learned to get around the same way, plus the mountains are always visible and a perfect landmark to the west. When we moved back to Apex in 2021 the phone and the car told me where to go. I never had to rely on memory! No more! Time to wander and put together the map in my head!

At one of our favorite breakfast spots the first day, LePeep:

It's not hard nowadays to make gluten free yumminess, why don't all restaurants offer it? This is a bacon, arugula, tomato, avocado, and balsamic reduction Eggs Benedict. Gawd...

I'm on the hunt for the best gluten free restaurants in the whole Triangle area—if you know of any, send me an email!

The Flatiron mountains in Boulder, aren't they beautiful?:

One more that's not a panoramic view, just the perfect shot:

Went to see Mary and Finn and took a walk on day two:

Finn is the most beautiful Border Collie you've ever seen:

Milkweed on the trail, this is what Monarch butterflies eat:

Our view while walking:

That big sky makes my heart happy:

Always cool to see what the clouds are doing:

And watching the rain fall in the distance:

We stopped by a couple of our whitewater kayaking spots, this is Clear Creek Whitewater Park in Golden:

And Black Bear Hole in Lyons:

And we stopped by the Boulder flying hill, where B-Rad learned to paraglide and caught someone "kiting" their wing (practicing wing control while on the ground.)

We did drive by our old ranch but the big 6 acre front pasture was so long and full of weeds that we quickly drove away, deciding we'd rather remember our happy memories from when we lived there, like this spring photo:

MEMORIES:

While we were gone we hit a couple of farmy milestones:

•3 years since we moved to NC (6/21/21)
•8 years since we bought our CO ranch (6/29/16), this photo is always going to make me smile just like I did then:

THE MEMES:

Actually I have been painting a bunch and it does make me feel better:

I tell people this in coaching sessions all the time👇🏽. Please don't think you're hiding yourself from the horses and donkeys. You can try to push your emotions down but that just feels weird to them. It's been interesting to see the reactions to that disconnect—body saying one thing and mind saying another. Wynter and Rayn typically stay/ed away. Sweetness often comes over to help balance the client out. The goats almost always bring silliness and joy.

On Friday, as I write this, the heat index is making it feel like 110º and they are telling everyone to stay inside. We have our smaller fan running for the goats and the big 4' industrial fan for the Wynter and the donkeys. The humidity is brutal.