I don't know about you, but I think of bulldogs as being a bit stolid, doing things their own way. Ted Hoff of Cottonwood Ranch and Kennel tailors his training to the breed and the individual personality of the dog, but the same general...
September 22 to 29, 2011
Visible Planets: Morning: Mars and Jupiter Evening: Venus and Saturn
Autumn Equinox and the Libra New Moon of Peace and Grace
The 2011 Autumnal Equinox takes place this week on Sept. 23rd @ 3:04 am MDT and initiates the season of brilliant yellow, flaming orange, burning crimson, passionate peach and imperial purple. As the Sun exactly aligns with the Earth’s equator, we experience a day of balance and equilibrium, a day in which the hours of light and dark are equal. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, we are passing into the time of increasing darkness, as opposed to the Southern Hemisphere, where this day heralds the birth of spring and the season of increasing light.
The zodiac month of Libra begins at Autumn Equinox and is characterized astrologically by the energies of peace, harmony, beauty, equality and balance. The astrological symbol, or glyph, for Libra is the linear depiction of the western horizon and the setting sun – an omen of impending twilight and approaching darkness. As the 7th sign of the Tropical Zodiac, it marks the halfway point in our Earth’s annual cycle around the Sun and a time of natural transition and metamorphosis. As leaves change color and landscapes transform, we also change. Cooler nights and shifting light stimulate yearnings to connect and bond, we instinctively look for partners and feel the desire to share and pair.
Susan and I are on the road again. That means that Gina the Dog is on vacation at Cottonwood Ranch and Kennel. I no longer wonder why she has to sleep for a few days when she gets home from "Uncle Ted's." I've seen...
September 15 to 22, 2011
Visible Planets: Morning: Mercury, Mars and Jupiter Evening: Saturn
Mystical Musicians and Magnetic Magic
The last week of summer in southwestern Colorado is one of exquisite beauty and grace. The shift from hot days and warm evenings to cool, crisp mornings and chilly nights awakens instincts and stimulates desire. Pastoral lowlands transform from verdant greens to autumn blondes, rusty auburns and burnished golds. Up high, emerald aspen surrender to shades of vibrant yellow and crimson peach. It’s magnificent and poignant, a time to embrace Mother Nature’s magic and feel the powerful, metaphysical flow of seasonal change.
In Telluride, this week translates simply as Blues & Brews. Headliners include legendary master musician and mystical maverick Willie Nelson – the man and voice responsible for more than one ecstatic night in the 1970’s Sheridan Bar- blues great Robert Cray and locals favorite Big Head Todd and the Monsters. The weather looks far from last year’s perfect, but, c’est la vie, it’s gotta be good, regardless. Whatever comes, it’s time to gather the tarps and umbrellas, endure the rain and hope for rainbows. One never knows…everything’s possible and anything can happen.
Visible Planets: Morning: Mercury, Mars and Jupiter Evening: Saturn
The Medicine & Magic of the Full Harvest Moon
Golden grasses, heavy with seed, bend and sway in the slanting sun. Fields are painted with swirling colors of autumn blonde, brown and green. Sweet peaches are on the table and crisp red apples hang in clusters on the trees. Tomatoes ripen on the vine, peppers are picked and pickles are pickled. Nights are noticeably cooler and the days, while still lusciously warm, are touched with the magical, transformational hand of Indian Summer.
As Autumn Equinox approaches, the Virgo lunar month gifts us with the fruition of the Harvest Moon, one of the most magnificently beautiful and bountiful full Moons of the year. It’s a time to take pause, to be thankful and grateful, count our blessings and say our prayers. Virgo is all about health and healing, daily practice and self-improvement. It’s about work and service, being helpful and assistful, cultivating humility and making our world a better place in which to live and thrive. The vestal Virgin, the goddess of the harvest, medicine women, healers and herbalists, dieticians and exercise gurus come together under the Virgo mantle. And when the Moon grows full under the Virgo sun, we feel the earthy, medicinal power of the Mother Earth in all her harvest glory, coupled with the transcendental power of spirit - the divine cosmic will to which we must ultimately surrender.
When training dogs, Ted Hoff of Cottonwood Ranch and Kennel pays a lot of attention to the individual dog: What is the energy level, how old, what is the attention span, etc. Taz is a German Shorthair Pointer, and in the video we can...
Cottonwood Ranch and Kennel has become a favorite place for boarding dogs and general training of all breeds. But Ted Hoff originally made his reputation training hunting dogs. In this video, Ted brings his two year old female Lab, Mae, along to provide a...
Labor Day Purple, Peach and the End-of-Summer Harvest
Visible Planets: Morning: Mercury, Mars and Jupiter Evening: Saturn
The time has come to say good-bye to summer. Sad as it seems, and reluctant as I am to write these words, August has ended. It is now September. This coming Monday is Labor Day, the traditional end-of-summer holiday. This translates as Film Festival time in Telluride – historically the town’s first and arguably most prestigious festival of the year. Hollywood affecionados, movie buffs and critics, editors, actors, directors and producers gather in one of the most dramatically beautiful geographical corners of the world – stunning flora, iconic waterfalls, magnificent mountains, majestic wildlife and shimmering rainbows – all a backdrop for fairy tale perfect Victorian architecture and state-of-the-art cinema. For many years I watched the crowds and observed the magic. Welcome to TFF #38.
Ted Hoff, owner and trainer at Cottonwood Ranch and Kennel, spends a lot of time with the dogs in his care, and he knows when it's a good time to have the camera ready. Check out this video of two young pups playing in...
August 25 to September 1, 2011 Visible Planets: Morning: Mars and Jupiter Evening: Saturn
“This month’s New Moon shifts attention from the creative fires of Leo to the earthy pragmatism of Virgo. The last Full Moon urged us to follow our heart and soul; this New Moon calls us to use our head and hands.” Stephanie Austin, The Mountain Astrologer, Aug/Sep Issue
The Virgo dilemma: Perfection is an ideal, rather than a reality. And practice is a means of manifesting dreams, visions and ideals. Is perfection thus an attainable goal via practice?
Virgo is all about work and service, health and healing. Its function is to make the self and the world we live in better – moment-by-moment, day by day - by living a life of attention, sacrifice and humility. Order and organization, efficiency and productivity are avenues of progress in the Virgo journey; integrity, right action, virtue and purity are companions on the trail.
