There is an informal Cirque Lodge Group on Facebook.  It is not directly affiliated with Cirque Lodge, but consists solely of former Alumni.

I have to admit to everyone that I have never written a blog and probably even more embarrassing I have never read one.  I don’t think I could tell you where you would find a blog to read.  I mean where do they pop up?  At any rate if my blog isn’t what you expect hopefully I will get better at them as time goes on.  I am a poor writer at best but hopefully in all of my verbiage there will be that message of hope that you can go forward with.  Kind of an electronic 12th step, carrying the message forth.

As you may or may not know this entire alumni web page came out of our closing meeting at the alumni reunion.  It was someone’s idea that we be able to communicate all year long not just three (3) days every September.  I hope you find it worthwhile.  I promise to check it and blog on it every week.  I hope you would all feel free to ask me questions, share concerns or forward comments. 

I don’t know that I have anything prophetic to share with you but last week I had the opportunity to pick up my 22 year chip.  One of the guys after the meeting where I picked up my chip asked me what the key to staying sober for 22 years had been for me and I said, “oh that’s easy, service to others.”  He said you sound pretty sure about that.  I have to admit I really didn’t think about it, the answer just came out.  But in retrospect and after much thought, it has been true for me.  When I began to understand that if I didn’t do it, you’d have to, I got into recovery.  If I don’t make the coffee someone else has to.  If I don’t take down the chairs, or set them up, someone else has to.  If I don’t unload the dishwasher, someone else has to.  I don’t volunteer to be a sponsor, someone else has to.  If I don’t help run the meetings, someone else has to.  And if I can do something anonymously the payoff is even bigger!!!  Don’t ask me why, just is!

It is funny but these years of feeling like if I didn’t do the work, you’d have to, have been the best years of my life.  It’s as if I got to the pay window!  I won’t kid you, at times it has been hard work, but it has never failed to satisfy to me.  The next time there is something out there that you don’t really want to do, the words, If I don’t do it, someone else has to, will make it a much easier task and the emotional payoff is huge. 

I want to leave you with something I have been reading every night for the last few months before I go to bed.  It is the long version of the 12th Tradition.  It goes something like this;  And finally we believe that the principle of anonymity has an immense spiritual significance.  It reminds us that we are to place principles before personalities; that we are actually to practice a genuine humility.  This to the end that our great blessings may never spoil us. 

I don’t have a Big Book in front of me, but that is how I remember it.  You are all blessings in my life!

So much for my first blog.  It will get better, I promise!

God bless you and keep you all!

Gary

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We have had a very warm and sunny fall season but as I write this we are getting the white stuff dumped on us.  The first storm dropped over two feet at the Lodge and it is coming down hard again.  We will certainly have a white Christmas.  We will be having our annual Christmas Eve bonfire again and it looks as though we will be shoveling out a fair amount of snow to get to the fire pit. This will be the ninth year that we have done this. We go up during the day and dig out the fire pit where we hold the reunion bonfire.  All residents, their families, alumni, and friends are welcome to come to our fire.  We have a nice big bowl of snow around us and a roaring fire to keep us warm.  It is a beautiful sight.  It is such a spiritual night for my family and we look forward to it each Christmas. It is by far our favorite family Christmas tradition.

One of our other traditions to is go to a production of “Forgotten Carols”.  It is a musical play about some of the forgotten characters in the Christmas story such as the innkeeper, a shepherd boy, and Joseph.  The last song that is performed is “Silent Night”.  That is my all time favorite carol.  The lead actor in the play has the audience interlock arms and sing along with the actors and then we hum the last verse.  Well, I always get a huge lump in my throat and leaky eyes.  The spirit is so strong in the room.

We had our Christmas Eve bonfire again and what a great night it was.  We had a great time digging out the snow bowl and we were ready for the fire.  We had a nice dinner and then everyone went to the mountain.  We had about 30 people around the fire and I invited everyone to share what was on their mind and in their heart.  I also asked them to think about a gift they would like to give. 

It was a peaceful evening and what an honor it was to hear what each person had to say.  Many commented that it was hard to be away from family but they felt so supported by the group and it would be a Christmas they would not forget.  At the end we locked arms and sang one verse of “Silent Night” then hummed a verse.  I got that lump in my throat again and my eyes leaked.    I was so grateful to have my entire family together again to experience such a powerful night. 

Cirque Lodge is such a blessing in my life, what a privilege it is to rub shoulders with those in recovery.  We had some long time alumni join us and it was so great to see them.  We were told a storm of epic proportion was supposed to hit in the late afternoon.  Many asked if we would be able to have our fire and I said we would exercise faith and go do it.  Once again the heavens smiled upon a Cirque Lodge activity and the weather was perfect until we left then Mother Nature flexed her muscle and it was a furious storm indeed. We did have a very white Christmas. The picture is of our nice Christmas fire with visiting alumni keeping warm and with big smiles; that’s Gary adding in his smile for good measure.

 I wish you the best for this upcoming year and I hope that all of your wildest dreams come true, you deserve it.

God bless you,

Dave

I have moved into the cyber wor...]]>

I have moved into the cyber world and this is my first post to a blog. I think this is a great idea and I look forward to posting here to let you know what is going on in my little part of the Cirque Lodge world.  I will post regularly and include updates, stories, or thoughts that are meaningful to me.   I will include pictures of horses, the mountains, and anything else that might be of interest.

First I want to say how good it was to see so many of you at the reunion.  It is always a humbling experience for me to see so many people come back to a treatment center to spend a weekend.  What a privilege it was to rub shoulders with you and feel of your spirit.  That moment where we sound a bell toll to honor those who have passed is such a stark reminder of the reality of this disease.  Contrast that with the bon fire where we see so much experience, strength, and hope in such a beautiful place.  It is always a blessing to be part of that event.  I look forward to the reunion each year and hope to see even more of you around the fire.  You are always welcome around the Cirque Lodge fire.

Much has happened in the last year or two here at the Cirque Lodge ranch.  We now have our own beautiful indoor arena and stalls.  Some of you know this and we have laughed together as we remembered going to the fairgrounds for all those years or working outside at the studio in the snow and cold or the blazing sun.  We still go outside when the weather is just right but we can always work inside and adjust the temperature to our liking.  We are a fair-weather horse program! We keep six horses here at the studio.  We bring them in at night and turn them out in pasture during the day.  Rest assured they have a great life here.

At the end of each day we have the Cirque Lodge roundup. The stalls are at the back of the facility and there is a loading dock there with stairs leading up to the stalls. We open the gates to the pastures and let the horses go loose.  They walk through the gates, across the parking lot, up the stairs and into their respective stalls.  Sometimes the young ones dash ahead and try to get a free bite of grain from the stall of an older horse.  The older one is patient and when he gets to his stall to find a young one he immediately exacts due discipline.  The young one flies out of that stall and tries another one.  He is duly reprimanded until he finds the right stall.  The horses have an uncanny way of teaching herd respect and etiquette. They are very efficient and effective.

I am often asked how many horses we have.  We have nine currently.  We rotate them every week.  If they are not at the studio they are turned out at my farm.  How did we get nine?    Well, that is a good story of a weakness for nice horses and a complete lack of self-control on my part.  I have had three for some time now and I thought it might be a good idea to get one or two more. I have always wanted to get horses from a particular ranch in northern Utah.  They have very nice horses but in my opinion their horses were priced too high and they have not been willing to negotiate. This year was different.  I went to look at their horses, just look, thinking maybe I would get just one.  I saw several that were very nice.  They were just over a year old, just the way I like them.  They had been living on a mountain and were untouched.  I came home with two.  As the days passed my mind went into quite a spin.  I drove up there again just to look.  I realized as I left that my horse trailer was hooked to my truck.  What a break!  I came home with two more telling myself that was it and I must control myself.  I could rationalize four but that was it.  I then got an email from the ranch about a special sale they were about to have.  This sale featured two horses that I had not seen and included pictures of the two horses. I got right on the phone with the woman that I had been dealing with and asked her why she had been holding out on me with these two.  She told me they were keeping these two for themselves, as they were the picks of the litter, but financial constraints required that they now sell them.  They had committed these two to a special sale and I could not have them.  Well you know how that sounds to an obsessed recovering guy.  Game on!!   I went to just look and we now have nine.  One must be committed.

I hope this message finds you well.  It is about taking one day at a time.  I watched a movie clip recently about seizing the day.  None of us know how many days we have left so let us take full advantage of each one.  Do something good for yourself today.  You deserve it.

God bless you and may the power of the horse be with you.

Dave