Meetings... Cody & Cappy

Cody raised her equine head

Four of them formed a circle with an opening for me

Wide perimeter, three horses facing me

One behind me, sentinel-like.

I was drawn to the first one, the first-responder,

but the circle invited me more.

I have held circles of women for years

These mares, tending the grass, held me.

Unsure of this language, I inched closer to Cody,

curious, grieving, feeling my way

She let me touch her, and then walked ahead,

but it did not feel 'away' somehow

I moved back to center, standing sentinel myself

Beckie asked, "Is she the one?"

I felt relief to know more about 'her,'...She.

Yes, I said. "First responder."

"Like you?" she asked me. "Yes...like me."

Cody moved her large body down to earth.

Beckie and I sat down too.

"Lying down is the most vulnerable thing

a horse can do," she said to me.

We sat while the horses drew closer.

Later, Cody even laid her head on the ground.

We did too, learning from her as we went.

"Do you pray?" Beckie asked me.

I smiled inside. "Yes and No," I said.

"I don't pray as I was taught to pray anymore.

More opening my belly and heart with intention..."

But then I remembered how I pray in a circle of women.

Or mares, in this case. 

I sing. So I sang. 

"Woman...Woman...Thank you for showing up..."

The world shifted.

**********

"You can take pictures," she said to me as she led Marcus to be groomed.

I left the engine running and approached the fence with my iPhone camera

Velvet looked at me, walked the fenceline between us

Close, yet bounded. Olive followed her.

Cappy, standing further behind them

waited for them to pass by.

Then he walked directly toward me,

his dark eyes finding my own.

He put his nose close to the fenceline,

within reach. I brushed his face with my fingertips

He gazed at me, into me, for a long time.

As tears welled up in me, I whispered

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

He looked into me some more.

I wondered if he was smiling at me.

Do horses smile? I don't even know.

He shifted his hooves and meandered over

toward Olive and Velvet.

I may have bowed. I'm not sure.

I returned to my car and shifted into gear.

Fifty yards up the road homeward, I stopped, 

weeping deep belly tears of long years gone by.

Home.

Something in me had been welcomed Home.

Crossing the Bridge...A New-Ancient Journey

“I’m going to meet a horse!” I called over to my CrossFit buddy. “Beat?” she asked, with an impish grin. “No, for Pete’s sake. Geesh. MEET.” She laughed, having successfully teased me before our workout began.  Driving home from my experience at Divine Equines with Beckie Boger, I realized how remarkably incongruent my opening gambit was that morning. Horses are first and foremost herd animals...to really meet a horse, you need to sit with her herd. I got to meet Cody, Olive, Velvet, Cappy, Marcus, Mosey, and Regal. There may have been one more whose name I no longer recall, if I ever knew it. I’m mostly wordless and blessedly overwhelmed by my first encounter with new spiritual companions, and their translator, Beckie.

A frame-drum opened the space for us to slow down, as we walked toward the pasture.

Beckie and I sat in light but sturdy camp-chairs, becoming present to one another and the space around us.

She began with a poem, first line “I am a horse…”

I was in tears by the second stanza,

Feeling the words deeply, but also something more

Something ancient

Something sad and opening for me…

Not a fearful or fiery sad like I sometimes know in my belly these days

A gentle grief unlocking something deep within me.

I have had a deep longing for horses, for as long as I can remember, I began. My parents couldn’t hear it, or see it, amidst our suburban life of church, school, achievement. I would press into it, naming my desire. I would get plastic models of horses, or a placemat for the dinner table. ... None of which touched the hunger, of course. Whenever we’d go on camping vacations as a family in the summer, though, we’d always go horse-back riding. “Lisa loves horses,” they’d say. I’d look forward to it every summer, my one chance. Yet I would always come away so very sad. The horses were usually bored and sad. I didn’t have someone tell me that. I just knew it. I could feel it. And we would leave after the hour long trail ride, and I would feel this sadness I did not understand. By the next year, I’d have forgotten the feeling and could only anticipate the opportunity to be around horses. 

Over the years, I have drawn close to this yearning in the ways I knew how. I have read a lot about the relationship between women and horses, in particular. I’ve read up on horse whispering and explored horse things at State Fairs. I even got as close as ‘taking lessons’ when we lived in New Jersey, but that didn’t touch the yearning in me, really. I visited with a ‘barn-rat’ she called herself in maybe 2010 or 2011, someone who knew someone I knew from Brian’s church. I felt the yearning but nothing that could reach it there.

As Beckie invited us to meander into the pasture, as the horses had begun to draw closer to us, she asked me, “Have you ever wandered into a pasture with horses roaming freely?” I smiled. “Nope. Never have, to my recollection.” “What are you feeling?” she asked me. I paused, checking in with myself. “Curiosity, for sure. But more strongly, a sense of finally. There is a relief in me right now. I’m not afraid or anxious, but simply feel a curiosity and a relief. Finally.”

Poetry is becoming the language to point to the overwhelming and blessed hour I had there in a new circle. But I was deeply moved, with lots of tears. I didn’t know what all the tears were connected to, but I’m getting better at letting them come without needing to know. I did have a refrain rise up in my awareness, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” I spoke it aloud to Beckie, along with my unknowing of what it referred to. She invited me to consider the horses saying that back to me, as they were drawing closer and closer. More tears...

When the ‘first responder,’ a mare named Cody, laid down on the earth close to me, Beckie invited us to sit down with her. Another horse about 30 feet behind me had already laid down. I sat, held between two mares, resting. The sadness shifted in my own body. It didn’t disappear, but it was different. Held, somehow, between all of us. Another mare approached us from behind, coming to stand directly over Beckie’s shoulder. “What is she doing?” Beckie asked me. “Well, she has your back,” I said with a smile. “This is Velvet,” she said. “She has the most difficulty with humans, but she wanted to draw close here.” 

Slowly, Beckie began to interpret the body language of the herd, now gathering around us both, sitting on the ground. She invited me to name was I was observing. I was mostly overwhelmed with the beauty and size of these companions. The gentleness. The coordination too, between them. She began to interpret what she was sensing, seeing. “The mares have all gathered around you,” she said with a smile. I almost giggled inside. “Of course,” I thought to myself. “Of course.” “And lying down is one of the most vulnerable things a horse can do. There is an ease and a presence here with us...and for three horses to lie down?” She smiled at me. I got a sense that this was rather unusual, though I don’t know horse-speak yet. 

At one point, Beckie asked me if I wanted to draw closer to Cody, resting there on the ground. I considered it, but I realized I didn’t want to move away from the horse lying on the ground behind us. “I wanted to move closer,” I responded to her finally, “but I didn’t want to move further away.” Beckie heard something in that rather paradoxical confession...she mirrored it, expressed a bit of wonder about it.

When Cody moved even further to resting her head on the ground, Beckie moved to lying down as well. It was wonderful to lie down on the ground, my head resting on the crook of my elbow/arm. “Do you pray?” Beckie asked me. I smiled, though she couldn’t see my face. We both were attuned to Cody while speaking softly to one another. “I suppose the most honest answer is Yes and No,” I said, laughing a little. “I don’t pray as I was taught to pray, if that’s what you mean. Sometimes I’ll listen to Pray as You Go when I’m driving to CrossFit.” Beckie laughed. “Me too! I just listened earlier today!” I also laughed. “St. Josaphat!” I said. “Who knew?” We both laughed. I mused aloud about how my prayer life has changed over the years, and how I am sometimes envious of those who seem to have more traditional habits around prayer. “I’m envious,” I confessed, “I often wish I could return to the practices that seem within the mainstream of things...but I open my belly and heart with a sense of intention...I listen more than I speak anymore. I don’t have a ‘name for God’ anymore, mostly because every name of God I’ve gotten attached to gets broken open. So I trust in the hum of things…” We laid there a while longer, and I could feel tears come in waves. 

As we stirred, needing to move this time toward a close, I remembered a way I do pray when I’m in a circle of women. Or in this case, mares. I sing. So I sang Woman, a prayer of gratitude for women who show up for one another. Back by the camp chairs, I chose a ‘horse card’ whose picture I really didn’t like--a horse in a wagon’s harness, with blinders on. The prayerful musings on the back spoke of this being a time to pull, not push. The words helped me bear the image. And we meandered back to the barn, where my car (and the large tabby named Frank) was waiting for me. Beckie and I said our goodbyes, too briefly for her taste but fine by me. I already knew I’d be coming back.

As I drove down the lane, Beckie was walking with Marcus, for him to get groomed. “You can take pictures if you want...” she called to me. I was glad for the permission, as I had already realized I needed pictures of my new friends. They drew close to the fence, and I took pictures of them in pairs and groups. 

Then one of them I’d not had much interaction with--Cappy, I’m told his name is--walked directly toward me, his deep eyes finding my own. He raised his head close to the fenceline, within my reach. My fingertips brushed his nose, his cheek. He gazed into my eyes, into me, for a long time. I could feel the tears well up within me… Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, I whispered, my eyes not leaving his. He looked into me some more. I’m not sure but he smiled. (Do horses smile? I don’t even know). He eventually shifted his weight and began to move toward Olive and Velvet. 

I returned to my car, engine running, and closed the door. I paused a little while longer, then drove up the lane to the County Road. About 50 yards away from the farm, I pulled over to just stop, pause, weep. I made a phone call to a spirit friend out West, simply wanting to name it in my own voice, even with the wordlessness I had. I texted another spirit friend, in case she had time to call before her appointment I knew was shortly ahead. I wept some more, and then I smiled.

As I drove home, mostly in silence, I checked in with my body senses, my bodysoul and spirit. I felt a fullness I’ve not felt in a long, long time. My life is different now because I know Cody, Olive, Velvet, Cappy, Marcus, Mosey and Regal are in this world with me, with us.

I think I’ve been led into a new time of sacred listening, though a rather non-traditionally-styled sense of it. Can a herd of horses be a spiritual director, if they have a willing translator? And to the Universe then: why show me this when I've never been a horsewoman or had access to such a life? Why "remember" a life with horse-people in this life, a suburban Ohio seminary professor in 2020?