We make complicated what is simple, and the powers of darkness rejoice.

- Madeleine L'Engle, The Irrational Season

All men need enough silence and solitude in their lives to enable the deep inner voice of their own true self to be heard at least occasionally.... For he cannot go on happily for long, unless he is in contact with the springs of spiritual life which are hidden in the depths of his own true soul.

- Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

- Hebrews 11:1

                                         1

The canter has two stride patterns, one on the right

lead and one of the left, each a mirror image of the

other.  The leading foreleg is the last to touch the

ground before the moment of suspension in the air.

On cantered curves, the horse tends to lead with the 

inside leg.  Turning at liberty, he can change leads

without effort during the moment of suspension, but

a rider's weight makes this more difficult.  The aim of

teaching a horse to move beneath you is to remind

him how he moved when he was free.

                                        2

A single leaf turns sideways in the wind

in time to save a remnant of the day;

I am lifted like a whipcrack to the moves

I studied on that barbered stretch of ground,

before I schooled myself to drift away

from skills I still possess, but must outlive.

Sometimes when I cup water in my hands

and watch it slip away and disappear,

I see that age will make my hands a sieve;

but for a moment the shifting world suspends

its flight and leans toward the sun once more,

as if to iterrupt its mindless plunge

through works and days that will not come again.

I hold myself immobile in bright air,

sustained in time astride the flying change.

- Henry Taylor, "The Flying Change"