Page Lambert: All Things Literary & All Things Natural

Farside's first day  Five years ago, I could barely walk up a flight of stairs, and in April of 2008, I was literally about to get back in the saddle again. In many ways, I was coming home. I had first learned to ride in this mountain community fifty years ago, and this picture was taken the day my friend Sheri Griffith trailered her handsome gray Arab endurance horse Farside from his home in Moab, Utah, to Colorado, where I had just returned. Riding my first horse Bingo "Farside just doesn't seem to have his heart in racing like he used to," Sheri told me. "He'll be perfect for you."   And so Farside was about to become mine.  But he was leaving behind his stablemates back in Utah.  Would he miss the younger horses who looked to him for leadership? Rio? And Dakota and Diego? Of course, but I didn't give it much thought the day I watched Sheri lift my heavy old western, hand-tooled saddle onto Farside's back. I was too overcome...

The other night, I had a conversation with a doctor who wants to come on next year's "Weaving Words & Women" retreat in Peru. She confessed, though, that the idea of "being creative" intimidates her. A doctor? Now that's an intimidating profession. Why is it that the word "creative" causes the pulse to race and palms to sweat? The words "create" and "creature" are rooted in the same Latin noun: "creatura." Like procreate, or bring to bear. Yet the word 'creature" isn't especially intimidating (unless its the Creature From the Black Lagoon). But we seem to think that "creation" is more about how the world was formed, than about how we desire to shape our own dreams, more about making ART, than leaving a simple track along life's path. What if we put a new spin on creativity, and on all the ways we, as human beings, express ourselves, all the ways we bring our vision to b...

Sometimes, the most memorable moments for an artist or writer are hidden. Sometimes our work itself is hidden. Several weeks ago Roxanne Swentzell told me over dinner and a glass of Blue Moon that she had inserted a PVC pipe into Mud Woman’s center to stabilize the 10-foot-tall sculpture. “But now I have this space that runs from her head to her heart,” she said. “I need to put something special in it. Maybe you have a poem about Denver?” Mud Woman is monumental—certainly not hidden.   The Denver Art Museum commissioned Roxanne to create the piece for their new Native American exhibit and, after months of planning, Mud Woman is coming to life.   The sculpture, officially named Mud Woman Rolls On , is the first thing that greets visitors when they step off the 3 rd floor elevator of the DAM, Denver ’s world class art museum.   Roxanne, a world class sculptor, will be working on the piece all spring and summer .  Rox  is from the Santa Clara Pueblo in N...

Bull elk on Lookout Mountain  in snowstorm Writing is not just about what we already know.   It's also about what we wish we knew.  At this juncture, where facts and experience meet curiosity, inspiration takes root.  Passion and our emotional connection to a story may form the heart, but research gives a story legs; it keeps the story moving forward and keeps writer and reader engaged.  Research is exploration.   It is venturing into unknown territory, and the tension created between knowing, and not knowing, like a taut rubber band, can catapult us into someplace new. Take this elk, for instance.   Large antlers serve bull elk  well during the rut, when they're sparring to test strength and endurance and hopefully gather up a harem of cows. But twice this winter, my neighbors and I have seen big bulls tangle with the orange plastic mesh fencing used on construction sites. This particular  bull is...