16 Jul 2024 Aiming for New Targets
Six months and two weeks into 2024, I am aiming for new professional targets and noting accomplishments to date. The first few months of 2024 posed significant challenges for my husband and me. Diagnosed with a cancer thankfully detected early threw my family into a scary tailspin at first. Once we digested the diagnosis and the doctor’s treatment recommendation, we reverted to a tried and true method in times of crisis.
Take a deep breath and take one step and then another.
Horse people know that one of the most effective paths to calm a nervous animal is to redirect its energy. Forward movement is central to settling a horse’s energy. The rider’s goal is to reclaim a horse’s focus by using its brain. Horses naturally choose to move forward, and riders know that it’s a losing battle getting a horse to stop when its instinct is to keep moving.
Keep moving forward offered a space for all the nervous energy which follows a diagnosis, a truth that Marcy Bilynsky came face to face with after a life-threatening cancer diagnosis. A committed equestrian Marcy refused to give up riding, and when her health regained its footing, Marcy returned to the saddle with a bow and quiver of arrows in her hand.
Equine archery is a popular pursuit of women over the age of sixty and enjoys a colorful history. Read equine archery in my article published in Western Horseman.
My husband kept up his commitment to polishing two new photo portfolios and applied for an international photo review and was accepted.
I turned my anxieties to finishing a book proposal. The following Venn Diagram link summarizes the thesis of the book proposal. I applied for a writer’s travel grant and was awarded funding in April.
One of the most rewarding experiences for me this spring was teaching the Equine Journalism course at Guelph University. The course is online but the depth of creativity, equine knowledge, and quality of writing I am still witnessing is inspiring. If you don’t know about Equine Guelph click on the embedded link.
Fast forward a few months. My husband’s cancer was eradicated. He walks between three or four miles a day, and has returned to his studio with revived vigor. I received five awards in addition to the travel grant from at the American Horse Publications Media Conference and from New Mexico Press Women.
Horses understand the power of moving forward. Horses also understand the beauty of taking a breath and resting.
Summer 2024 is whizzing by with temperatures peaking at unhealthy levels.
Rest. Read. Ride.
(and eat ice cream!)
Stay healthy and horsey!
Anna
