In the mid-1990's I began a career working with horses, studying farriery (horseshoeing) and natural hoof wear as a science at Montana State University, and apprenticing in blacksmithing and equine veterinary medicine. Before that I was an academic, a professor of poetry and literature. But the horse touched me too strongly, like the inward pounding of the real world. I needed an earthly life—and the horse to me was the mood at the heart of the Earth. The first iteration of that vocation spanned continents, between America and Italy, and included all manner of horses, from elite competition horses to beloved backyard pets. Now, in Northern New Mexico, I am joyously returned to my work as a horsewoman, a barefoot trimmer, and a blacksmith. I work with horses because their very being is what in the realm of philosophy I have tried to describe as "a religion of sensitivity." Their kinetic power, beauty, and fragility, and their locus of emotion as communication justifies for me the deepest and truest purposes in life.