Kip Mistral
Cultivating legacy and posterity for classical horsemanship and traditions

Moving Sabbatical!

Moving Sabbatical!

(Costume design for a carrousel of King Louis XIV from the studio of Jean Bérain 1640-1711)

Kipmistral.com is going on a short sabbatical while Kip and Val are moving to Tucson in the beginning of July **AND** expanding the website platform to include regularly scheduled articles, book and video reviews, short film creations, recordings, podcast interviews with today’s classical masters and other persons of the highest calibre of expertise, and new products. If you are not sure that you have joined the email list, please do! Your entry will not be duplicated in the event you have joined previously. I will soon have lots of news for you. Happy Trails for now!

When Only a White Horse Will Do

When Only a White Horse Will Do

(© Kip Mistral 2019. Detail from the “Apotheosis of Kaiser Wilhem” by Ferdinand Keller, 1888. National Gallery, Berlin)

Everyone knows, on an archetypal level, that anyone riding a white horse in a movie is a good guy and anyone riding a black horse is a bad guy. Why is that? Why is Pegasus white and why is the Unicorn white? Why is the horse the King rides so often white? Well, white is the color identified with the qualities of purity and nobility, and also it just so happens that real white horses are extremely rare…literally, the pearl of great price.

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Where Did the Wild Things Go?

Where Did the Wild Things Go?

(© Kip Mistral 2018. “Water Sprite” by Theodor Kittelsen)

Almost all of us riders met the horse first in our childhood imaginations. We took our seats on the gleaming black stallions, or the feisty red mares, or even the luminous winged white horse, and they carried us to…wherever we wanted to go. And we flew together with them in a gallop so fast that we conquered space and time.

Some of us children were so lucky to find our way to the horse in the real flesh. We learned to love that wonderful smell of their coats and their sweet hay-scented breath. We groomed them until they shone. We sat on their patient backs for hours while we talked to our friends in the barn aisle. We rode freely out in the country, perhaps, with no rules except to be home by dark. We were unconscious of anything except the moment, the freedom and its joy. We—and I am one of these fortunate ones—know now how extremely lucky we were to have this gift of innocent time with the horse. We could be Wild Things together.

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Hovering Lightly and Burning Brightly

Hovering Lightly and Burning Brightly

(© 2018 Kip Mistral. Illustration “Holiday Time” by Heywood Hardy [1842-1933])

I dreamed this morning, literally, that I am wandering through a busy outdoor market. It is an old country market with much tradition, animals and all kinds of rustic things for sale by generations of people who know each other. They are friendly and chatty, and I find myself talking to many women who have spent a lifetime with horses. They all have different stories about their experience and I am struck with the richness of their memories. Naturally, being a journalist I start thinking what a fabulous article it would make to bring these conversations together in one place, woven together in a sort of tapestry.

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Riding the Labyrinth with Valentín

Riding the Labyrinth with Valentín

(© Kip Mistral 2018)

The labyrinth is a archetypal symbol that has appeared in pan-global culture, art and literature for thousands of years. A formal labyrinth created for meditation appears to meander in circles, but in reality is a purposeful path that focuses our attention in a powerful way on a personal pilgrimage experience. The word labyrinth can also describe a place, as in a garden maze, full of intricate paths and blind alleys, or as in the myth of the Minotaur, who is found in a labyrinth of tunnels and chambers on the island of Crete in Greece. Finally, it can be used to describe something extremely complex, intricate, confusing, and even tortuous. And why would I use that word in the title of a blog post that also includes the word “riding” and the name of my beloved Valentín (Val for short)?

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