Midwest Furfest panel help?

[altivo]

OK, dear readers, I agreed to this almost a year ago. I am helping out with animist's spirituality track at MFF, and will be on a panel for "Hoof and Horn" kin. That's horse, donkey, deer, elk, and other hooved kindred. No expertise is required, just a willingness to talk about your own feelings and experiences. All spiritual aspects are fair game for discussion, including but not limited to therianthropy, totems, shamanism, or other symbolisms or just plain gut feelings. What does having hooves (or wanting them) mean to you?

I'm particularly tapping you on the shoulder, moose_93395, because I'm both hoping you will be there and hoping you will join us with your insights. But the more the merrier. Who will be at MFF?

(cross-posted to erotic_equine, sorry for duplication)

Comments

[doc-moreau.livejournal.com]

I'd be happy to stand in with you folks... if i were attending. Maybe some year. :)

Hmmm... And I'll try not to steal Moose away, heh. <.< >.>

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I wish you were planning to be there, I'd definitely like to have you on the panel. Not only are your views and experience rather from a different angle than my own, but you are very articulate and would be interesting as a speaker I'm sure.

No need to keep Moose from us, you'll get him back whole if you want him. We just need to borrow him for a couple of days. :)

[moose-93395.livejournal.com]

I'm being lent out now? Moose rentals? :P

[altivo.livejournal.com]

*puts in his reservation now*

[moose-93395.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I'd love to come to it this year so I'm gonna have to try and save up after this trip is done and see how that goes and all. I'm not entirely sure what insights I'd have to share on things but maybe I'll have something to say..

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, for one thing, I know you've been in close contact with zebras. That alone is an interesting factor. And the connection with the really big cervine types (moose, elk) is another. :)

Besides, if we can get you to talk, I just know it will be fascinating.

[songcoyote.livejournal.com]

I can't be at MFF, but here's a little offering:

I see them in the golden meadow
Standing, eyes and ears awake
To each passing shift and shadow
That a hunter's movements make

From sturdy feet to branching crown
Stately stand they, showing strength
Head held high their muscles ripple
All along their sun-warmed length

Suddenly the peace is broken
Sentries' ears have heard a sound
Thundering they turn and scatter
Soon no sign of them is found

I curse my clumsy step, and sigh
Their beauty shining in my mind
How I wish that I could join them
Running free, with hart and hind

There's more in my head about how very beautiful and compelling such creatures are, but it's not coming out at the moment. Thanks for listening!

Light and laughter,
SongCoyote

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Very nice. Thanks.

I plan to put together a little handout with some bibliography and probably web sites mentioned. Would you be willing to let me include that? If so, how would you like it credited?

[songcoyote.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it! I'd be most pleased if you included it whatever you'd like to. You could just credit it to SongCoyote.

Oh, and if you'd be willing to send me a copy of whatever includes it I'd love to have one. That would be shiny!

If you don't use it, though, no big deal. It was just something off the top of my head.

Light and laughter,
SongCoyote (at yahoo if you want to reach me)

[songcoyote.livejournal.com]

Say, 'Tivo...

Did this bit of poetry ever get put into a handout or something?

Just wondering....

Light and laughter,
SongCoyote

[altivo.livejournal.com]

No, because I never did the handout. The convention programmers moved my panel from the "Furry Spirit" (spirituality) track into the "Fandom" track. They had reasonable arguments for doing so, but I was left at a loss for what to present because I had no idea who the audience would be or what they'd want. Instead I went with a series of discussion questions and just let everyone talk. That worked, but it wasn't what I'd had in mind originally.

[songcoyote.livejournal.com]

Ah, thankee kindly for the update. Glad it was fun anyway. Maybe another time it can be included somewhere.

One does like to see one's name in print, after all :)

Light and laughter,
SongCoyote

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh, I wouldn't have forgotten my promise to get you copies of it had I been able to use it. :) I've saved it here in case I can use it in the future, and that promise still holds. I like it very much.

Perhaps I'll substitute it for the musical introduction (or combine it with music) at the start of the next podcast that has hoofy characters. I'll certainly let you know.

I did use a reading to start the session, taken from Gerald & Loretta Hausman's The Mythology of Horses. After explaining the terms on which the dog, the cat, and the horse made their pacts with humankind, it goes like this:

"On horseback--so say our myths--we shall live forever.
"Equine tales remind us to 'let go of the reins, and fly!'
"For it is then, in that instant of letting go, that we are finally freed of our burden to enter our destiny, that which is indivisible from that cosmic horse. Long ago, mythology says, we were once joined in bone and sinew, in spirit and flesh to all that is equine.
"In the long ago--just a moment ago--we were born in the body of a horse. Big-hooved and bighearted, we trod upon the Milky Way, kicking hot sparks at the cold moon.
"Moments ago, we were four-footed gods."

[songcoyote.livejournal.com]

Oooohhh... pretty!

I was very lucky for a city kid - my grandfather, who lived in Gilroy, had a ranch, and I visited him once or twice a year, so I got to be around horses from time to time. Since I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, an enormous suburb of LA, I was one of relatively few who could ride. Then life changed and he sold his ranch and I didn't see horses for a long time.

As it turns out, my sister-in-law boards horses and has two of her own, and we visit her about once a year, too, so I at least get to see them and touch them. It's not the same, but it's nice :)

Light and laughter,
SongCoyote

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Touching horses is a special experience. :)

I don't know anything about Gilroy, except that every time it's mentioned I think I smell garlic.

[shadowtxhorse.livejournal.com]

Tapped out after going to MFM or I would make the trek up to MFF. *sigh* I always seem to miss the discussions I would like the most.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, if I have any say, we'll be doing it again next year, so mark your calendar now. :) I'd really like to see you there.