In Arizona: Press Conferences, Protests and a Festival of Love

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Press Conferences, Protests and a Festival of Love

Straight from the Horse's Heart

(In My Humble Opinion) by R. T. Fitch ~ Author/Director of HfH Advisory Council

The Wild Horses Thank You!

It’s been one helluva week. Many thanks go out to those who took of their own time, and resources, to plan, travel and execute activities during the BLM Advisory Board Meeting of this past week. My head is still whirling but then again, it does not take much to make that occur. But overall, the question remains…did we make a difference?
My answer would be a resounding YES! From the quality and professionalism of our press conference’ the in depth and quantified remarks and recommendations to the Boar and the demonstrations the advocates were on the mark and stated their case, clearly.
I reserve the right to discuss the meeting in further detail, later, but everyone made a sincere and dramatic impact. I would have liked to see a couple of hundred more folks there, or maybe a couple of thousand, but considering the economy we were lucky to have the participants that we had. But here is the point…whether you were behind a microphone, holding a banner, calling your legislator or faxing the White House…you made a difference and that difference was a profound one.
It is difficult to ascertain from within the battlefield the progress of the war as you are, personally, grappling with the enemy face to face and one on one as your entire universe implodes down to a live or die confrontation with the enemy of choice. But a far broader view will reveal that the collective efforts of the army, of which you are a member, has made a significant advancement into the weak, untrained and ill informed opponent who may out number us but by no means has the mental capacity to strategically defend a position that is founded in a lie.
It came home to me for a brief moment, tonight. I just stepped off from a jet plane, today, but will step onto another one tomorrow, then again another the next followed by another one the day after and so on and so on, so late tonight I took a sip from the goblet of life and pulled up a chair to watch Terry interact with our horses in our front pasture. Life is fleeting, we must stay centered and draw strength from all of the “life moments” that we are given and I received a potent and poignant one this evening.
I simply sat in the shade with two geriatric German Shepherds flanking me and together we watched a dance of love in the lush grass of the pasture. Terry rubbed and stroked the ‘boys” as they gathered around her to give her hugs with their eyes half lidded. There was so much love in the air that you could have cut it with a knife, it was as thick as was the humidity. But as I watched the slow dance of mutual regard and respect it became apparent what the horses were doing, it was obvious in both their behavior and their domineer. They were saying thank you and their kind regard did not fall upon deaf hearts.
And as my eyes welled up in preparation to begin leaking, I heard a soft sigh behind me and felt the warm breath on my ear, even the dogs turned around but I did not need to, I knew I was not alone, I was alive with the essence of the spirit of the horse so I simply whispered:
“We are not there yet, Ethan, but we are closer. I made you a promise and that I shall keep, we will win as we will never quit…and, I miss you so very terribly.”
I know not how long I sat there basking in the warm glow of my past friend’s presence but it was a soft kiss on my forehead that brought be earthward. Terry was leaning over me, smiling and gently she whispered;
“The boys said thank-you, they knew R.T., they knew.”
I smiled back and replied;
“They all know, Terry…we have much work to do.”
And we walked to the house, hand in hand, for the last time in many weeks.
My heart is heavy yet still it has wings…there is much work to do.
Thank you, all!