Cowboy Yogi, Part 1- Krishna and the Rawhide Kid

Earlier this week I attended the first part of a meditation workshop at the Newington Yoga Center, which teaches Embodyoga, a modern style of tantric influenced yoga.  Throughout the workshop, I couldn’t help but draw connections between yoga traditions, the Rawhide Kid, and the Lone Ranger.

A large part of the workshop involved discussing the layers of human consciousness.  In classical yoga, the human experience is defined by a series of five layers, or Koshas, progressively moving towards our core being.  The first is Annamaya Kosha, represented by earth, which is our physical body.  Inward is Pranamaya Kosha, represented by water, which is the motion of our physical form.  Still further inward is fire, the Monomaya Kosha, the chattering thinking monkey brain that compels our body into motion.  Within that is Vijiianamaya Kosha, the air Kosha, which is the emotional heart that motivates our thoughts.  Finally, classical yoga has at its core Anandamaya Kosha, representing space, the central core of who we are, the perfect self that lies within us all that through leading a good and just life we are able to access.

In this understanding of the human experience, the Rawhide Kid (as seen in his modern interpretations) in touch with Anandamaya Kosha and achieved self-actualization.  He is the best.  Really, he tells people so all the time, and proceeds to consistently prove it.  The Rawhide Kid is the best fighter, best shootist, best horseman, chef, vinter, hairstylist, and military officer in the world.  Also, the snappiest dresser.  The Rawhide Kid, in the manner of a classical yogi, he has transcended this mortal coil and lives his daily life as the most perfect form of himself. The Rawhide Kid appears to have embodied the lessons of Prince Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita.  At each quickdraw duel you can almost hear Krishna whispering in his ear, “Do not yield to unmanliness, O son of Prithâ. It does not become you. Shake off this base faint-heartnedness and arise, O scorcher of enemies!”

The Rawhide Kid, however, has no personal connection with anyone outside of himself. He rides throughout the West righting wrongs and defending the defenseless.  The Kid does these things not because he cares for the townsfolk he protects from bandits, but simply because it is right to do so and is within his capabilities.  In one exchange with the Two Gun Kid in The Sensational Seven, Two Gun asks Rawhide, “No offense, but do you think it’s possible that deep down you’re incredibly self involved and not terribly interested in other people’s lives because you feel certain that you’re the most fascinating person in the world?”  The Rawhide Kid’s smirking response: “It’s not even that deep down, partner.  I’m the Rawhide Kid.”  Although he has achieved pure sense of himself and is able to actualize this ideal, he still lacks a greater awareness.  That greater awareness is explained through the deeper Tantric Koshas, and achieved by the Lone Ranger.

 Tune in next time for the thrilling tantric adventures of the Lone Ranger.

Teddy Roosevelt- Cowboy President

Image courtesy Sharpwriter @ Deviantart

I know that we have had self described cowboy presidents in the recent past, but Teddy Roosevelt was the real thing.  A rugged individualist, conservationist, environmentalist, he left his asthmatic childhood in New York to become a rancher and cowboy in the Dakota Badlands.  While in the Dakotas, he took a turn as a deputy sheriff and managed to capture and transport a group of three outlaws nearly a hundred miles to trial without carrying a firearm.  Later, having stolen the mistress of the French owner of a local ranch, he was challenged to a duel.  Roosevelt accepted, and per the European code duello chose sawed off shotguns at ten paces as the weapons.  The duel was soon called off, Roosevelt and the French rancher became lifelong friends, and he kept the mistress.  After a turn as the New York City Police Commissioner and Secretary of the Navy, he rounded up a group of cowboys and Ivy League classmates to form the Rough Riders and went to war in Cuba.  Later, he became President of the United States, and once he got bored of that he went on epic expeditions exploring Africa and South America.  Awesome.

“Aggressive fighting for the right is the noblest sport the world affords”- Teddy Roosevelt

Here Comes the Space Cavalry: Seeking the link between Westerns and Military Sci-Fi

Since I started exploring westerns through this blog, I have tried to keep my reading to books related to the genre.  Turns out it is not too hard to do.  The western mixes well with practically every other genre or type of novel out there.  Looking for a mystery?  Try the Holmes on the Range novels.  Eco-fiction?  Anything by Edward Abbey.  Romance?  How about the Hell’s 8 novels.  Crime stories?  Practically anything by Lauren Estleman.  And there is almost an embarrassment of cowboy erotica available on e-book.  I was therefore surprised when last week I couldn’t find a western version of one my other favorite genres, military science fiction. 

My interest in military sci-fi started a few years ago at the same time that I started running.  I was looking for an audio book about a long, adventurous journey, which seemed fitting for the miles and miles I had ahead of me.  I had just listened to Lonesome Dove, which fit the bill quite well, then stumbled upon the March Upcountry series from John Ringo and David Weber.  Over years and miles I have listened to the four book series at least twice, enjoying being immersed in a military language and culture that I have never experienced myself.  Since finding Ringo and Weber, I have gone back and reread Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, Jack Campbell’s Lost Fleet series, more Ringo, and a handful of others.

So where is the western version of military sci-fi?  Or the techno-thriller?  I hate to think that the two genres are mutually exclusive, but I am having a hard time making the match.  Something about the US Cavalry would work, especially something with the attention to military culture and tactics that you would get in a John Ringo or Larry Bond book.  There are plenty of cavalry movies out there (I recently watched She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, for example), and one astute reader pointed out that the first half of Star Wars is pretty close, but I am having a hard time finding a novel that fits the bill.

Any recommendations?

Bad Wind Blowing- Epically Awesome Trashy Western

Peter Brandvold holds a special place in my western shelf.  When I first tried getting into westerns almost a decade ago Brandvold had just published the first of his Lou Prophet: Bounty Hunter novels.  Funny, well written, and action packed, with at least one tawdry romance per novel, this series has been one of my favorite guilty pleasures.  Brandvold has written a number of other books under his name and the pen name Frank Leslie.  I have avoided them, though, they always seemed much grimmer than the Lou Prophet books.  A few weeks ago I stumbled upon Brandvold’s own blog, where he talked about getting a long shelved weird western, Bad Wind Blowing, published as an e-book.  I definitely need to read more of his books.

Bad Wind Blowing tells the story of a gold prospector, a school marm, and a female town sheriff fighting off the evil presence haunting the Poudre River Valley in 1800’s Colorado.  I am not sure where to start with this book.  Gunfights?  Check.  Demons?  Check.  Crazy Indians?  Check.  Hot sex scenes?  Got that, too, but less than you would think from trashy cover (in fact I am not sure how the cover is related to the book at all).  By his own admission, Brandvold has given up writing anything that would look like great literature in favor of writing great campfire stories.  He is dead on with this book.  Always riding the rim of being over the top, but never quite crossing it, Bad Wind Blowing is consistently fun page after page.  I am not sure if there is a literary category for brilliantly written trash, but Brandvold owns it for the western genre. 

Cowboy Valkyrie 2- Electric Boogaloo

A few days ago I made a blog post about my musing over a Cowboy Valkyrie, deciding that Nancy Callahan from Sin City fit the bill.  Minutes after making the post I mentioned the topic to my wife, who said “Oh, you picked Salma Hayek, right?”  Despite my cogent arguments that Jessica Alba’s turn as Nancy Callahan has certain operatic majesty that fits the bill, my lovely wife was certain that I had made the wrong choice.  What do you think?

Cowboy Valkyrie

A few weeks ago I made a post about the Lives of the Cowboys radio show on National Public Radio’s Prairie Home Companion.  The episode that I listened to that day involved Lefty and Dusty on their way to renew their cowboy licenses, leading to Lefty testing his bar fighting skillz against a genuine Valkyrie.  Since I started this blog, I have spent some time considering the shared roots of both the modern western novel and the modern fantasy novel in Germanic folklore.  In time, I will dedicate a series of lofty and intellectual posts to that very topic.  For now, though, the notion of a Cowboy Valkyrie and a Wild West Valhalla have captured my mind, particularly coming on the heels of my own recent brush with mortality.

So when cowboy meets his maker, is thrown from his horse, meets the wrong end of a noose, is snake bit, scalped, shot in a range war, stabbed in a saloon brawl, freezes in Blue Norther, succumbs to a case of gentleman’s complaint after engaging the wrong soiled dove, or any of the other honorable ways that a cowpoke can pass, who descends from the heavens to measure his worth? 

Clearly, the only answer is Nancy Callahan from Sin City.  Not surprising to find the Valkyrie here, as Viking references are spread throughout all the original comics.  Normally I would choose the visual of the comics versions over film versions, but Jessica Alba really defines Nancy Callahan.  If I lay dying, breathing my last breath out on the prairie, let’s hope its Nancy Callahan who ropes me and guides me to Valhalla.

Confessions of a Wounded Cowpoke

I have stated a few times in this blog that the period I like best in the western genre is the first half of the 19^th century.  Part of it is that the tropes standard western (the sheriff, the saloon, the school marm, etc) have yet to be set.  Another attraction is that the frontiersman moving west did not always walk into the middle of the continent wide race war that described most of the cross-cultural interactions in the latter half of the century.  In history, Jim Bowie married into a Mexican family in Texas, and Sam Houston was married to a Cherokee woman.  In fiction, mountain man stories often reflect the reality of romantic entanglements between hunters and natives, perhaps best demonstrated when Boone finds peace and emotional solace with Teal Eye in The Big Sky.    Conflict and violence are always possible in these stories, but they are not inevitable.  Sometimes love, friendship, and family emerge.

What has put me in mind of this?  I live in New England, in a region that is not just white and black, but also almost equally made up of Puerto Rican, South Asian, and Eastern European immigrants.  I have spent most of the year so far getting ready for open heart surgery, and have spent the last week in recovery from that surgery.  Some of my doctors, nurses, and medical techs were from the United States, but others were from Poland, Russia, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Italy, Tanzania, Trinidad, India, and Japan.  I feel as if the world came together in the last few weeks to help me heal and get through this.  The western world that captures my imagination is one where such things are possible.  You never know what you will find across the next ridgeline, but there should always be the possibility of love, hope, and salvation.