Life is ALL About Circles... It's All Circles...

The American Indian talked about the circle of life. Even Christian theology, if you think about it is a circle = Dust to Dust, Ashes to Ashes...

Cowboys ride out each morning to make a circle on their gather...

You leave home to eventually circle back seeing it from a new perspective...

Back in 1967 or so I was a green kid cowboyin' in the Santa Rita's of Arizona.

I left Arizona three years later to do a hitch in the Army. Came home a screwed up kid with three stripes on his sleeve. Rodeoed and cowboyed and worked the mines. Rode my way through life.

Straddled the saddle of motorcycles, sold hardware, worked leather... you name it I probably did it for a while fumbling around trying to fit into where ever'body was tellin' me I had to fit. But that is the big mistake; Tryin' to please anybody buy yourself.

The more you drift off your true path... the more you'll be herded away from it.

What you give to others is what you feel in yourself. If You ain't right inside... you ain't passin' anything good on to anybody else.

There were a few "Right" places along the road... I just found ways I guess to tell myself; I was wrong, they were right and I had to do something else...

...and THAT... is Pure Wrong. The opinion of your choices that matters... is your own.

*Middle 90's on the ranch*

Looking out at the mountains and desert... wonderin' and ponderin' the complications of circles... a guy can come to see where it was that he always belonged... If he's honest with himself about it.

Then he can set about shaping the future to circle back to that proper place where he never should have left... I'm well along circling back along that goin' home trail...

*First sunset from Cochise Camp a few weeks back*

Down in Cochise County Arizona is a little five acre piece of dirt. $200 down and $200 a month and a guy's got a spot he can carve out a cowboy winter horse camp...

But to build that he's got to have quarters and a way to move horses in the 21st century (Where he's ALWAYS had difficulty fitting in... and the 20th too!)

So he lives on beans and ramen for a couple years shaping his outfit so he can fit in... The NEW outfit...

When all has been prepared as best he can, he takes a deep breath, and with wide eyes and a soaring vision he Cracks Out!

... he climbs in his old truck, hitches on to his son-in-laws race truck hauler to drag it to Missouri for him...



Doing that puts him half way to Newton, Alabama... In Newton... is where his own NEW rig awaits...

*Lakota Three horse LQ (living quarters)*

Hooya! Comin' full circle. Working my way back to who and what and where I was... And I like it.

Comin' back west from Alabama I hauled a horse to Albuquerque for a friend... So I had to find overnight stabling along the way...

Found a sweet place in Checotah, Oklahoma...

 Which proved to be a good stopping place for the night, since it...

... just happened to be just an hour and a half or so east of the Tornadoes as they Ravaged the area around Oklahoma City a few days ago.

Parked alongside the big arena with covered pens off the end for the horse I was hauling it was an excellent night...

Serenaded by frogs in the big puddles along the drive and the heilatious thunder storm that night... I even worked out a way to spotlight one of the singers with my maglight and capture his portrait...

From horses I began and to horses I return. A winter horse camp, at the least, in Arizona... a good dog... and of course, the horses of my own... I know where I belong.

I've stretched what I've got with strong hope, a bit of slick talking and the simple Let 'er Buck! cowboy mentality. I've taken the first steps without being able to see where the footing is to place my boot with the next step. That stops a lot of people... didn't used to stop me... but I got cautious... and for me, that's a sickly feeling.

You know what? That's who I've always been... Throw it all in the air and let things fall where they hit__ and I LIKE that guy. Not gonna hide him any more.

I believe that it'll compliment and nurture my writing... and feed much more. It works for me.

It's gonna be a hell of a ride.

Cowboyin' Up and Crackin' Out
Brian