A Curious Project Begins...

 A curious project is tickling my bodysoul these days, or perhaps irritating or goading it, me, into some old-new words. Rarely have I entered into a circle-way journey with a sense of ‘a project I want to work on.’ Circle has been a journey of healing for me. It opens me, returns me to myself, my feminine wisdom, my own receptivity and balance inside. An agenda or an outcome oriented approach to circle has often seemed incongruous to me. Like expecting to make applesauce out of oranges I'm about to peel. Yet here I am…

...with a deadening problem. A refused anger problem. A buried rage problem.

Before anyone gets nervous, do let me assure you that no one has been the victim of my rage but me. Not even my husband gets this fire unleashed, though there are times he’s certainly earned the right to receive it. :) I’m a connector, you see. A highly relational, honed-perceptive woman who has put these gifts to work in an establishment life. I’ve learned over the years that relational approaches to conceptual problems often work better than solely conceptual work that is not my forte anyway. I basically shamed my dissertation committee and practical theology department into a successful defense of my work, for instance, but that’s a longer story for later.

Deadening is when the lively energy you’ve been given cannot flow, for internal or external reasons. A lot of my energy no longer flows. Lots of reasons for that, I’m sure, but there are some that need speaking that I’ve not spoken plainly enough. For example, the primary mythology-theology I’ve inherited no longer nourishes, except in past tense, a memory or nostalgia. God became flesh, lived among us, dying and rising (being raised) again after the third day. I don’t disbelieve this now, but it’s no longer enough, if it ever was truly enough. Where is woman in this? Where is creation? And was Jesus one who desired worship or adoration? (ed note: No). A dream last year led me to explore earlier stories, origin myths from elsewhere...

Like the Nordic myth of Nidhogg and Yggdrasil, the serpent who gnaws at one of the nine roots of the World Tree. Of late, I can’t help but see bastardized, unconscious white masculinity as the serpent, and the World Tree shaking in that foundational root. Nidhogg’s venom poisons...decay rots the root...threatening the foundation of the universe. The foundation of my universe in these fifty-some years has been shattered into multiple fragments. I no longer have easy access to a personable-divine, God, or Goddess, given each has broken my trust from the very beginning. 

The protective-Father-Figure God “whose promises are supposedly never broken” has neglected and depreciated, demonized and discounted women’s bodies in sacred scripture, in daily life, for centuries. I’m a woman, abandoned, whose sisters have borne the brunt of these patriarchal horrors. I won’t be duped again, nor make nice and pretend we can all get along. Weekly liturgies--led by my husband, of course--are interesting for me, but his journey, not my own. And the nourishing-Mother-Figure Goddess? She came too late in life, having abandoned me as a little girl from as early as birth, or three months’ of age. So I no longer have much energy for the gifts of tradition or the rich liturgical history of the church that abandoned and betrayed me while I dutifully and creatively offered my entire life to it. 

One would think I’d have left by now, but it doesn’t work that way inside of me. I don’t disbelieve or find error in the doctrinal pieces. Sins of omission and commission of violence are obvious, but I’ve no less been guided, led, directed and nudged so care-fully, so clearly. I cannot deny the Sacred Center of it all. Yes, I’ve drunk this Christian chalice all the way to the dregs, and it’s been found lacking. But I don’t doubt the sacred ordering of the Universe in the least...too much sacred abundance, too many stunning examples of scandalous grace have been extended to me. But while I rest peacefully in the roots and branches of the World Tree, I no longer look to any foundations. 

So this curious project is about listening to my earliest scholarly self for clues about what drew me into all this in the first place. I’m embarrassed by her naivete, but I remember fondly her passion, her fierce devotion to stay with it. I’m angry that she--that I--got duped by masculinized tradition for so long, yet I know I could never have survived the feminine awakening until just when I did. It nearly tore me apart at age 45. I want to remember who this young woman was, who burned with sacred fire to do what she did, to know the Holy like she yearned so desperately to know.

So I’m returning to my Artist’s Way morning pages journals, beginning January 1999, to listen to who speaks to me. I will transcribe a couple lines, then write to them in the present tense. I no longer anticipate hearing the voice of God as I read, nor do I feel a strong seeking drive I once knew. But I am curious if there is a path of less anger, digested betrayal, relinquished abandonment. 

My sneaking suspicion is that Joy may be on the other side.

Pantoums -- Musing upon Marcus & the Herd

 #1

I’m full, I said. Now, I think I meant I’m sad, afraid, weary.

Marcus has a bubble, so do I. How do the bubbles intersect or play?

‘Pressure’ means he notices me, but I don’t know how I feel about ‘pressure’

My own capacity to know emotionally what I want simply wears out.

 

Marcus has a bubble, so do I. How do the bubbles intersect or play?

I loved him being in my bubble, until I didn’t, so pushed him gently away.

My own capacity to know emotionally what I want simply wears out.

I spent my life trying not to get noticed, always wanting anyway to be deeply seen

 

I loved him being in my bubble, until I didn’t, so pushed him gently away.

‘Pressure’ means he notices me, but I don’t know how I feel about ‘pressure’

I spent my life trying not to get noticed, always wanting anyway to be deeply seen

I’m full, I said. Now, I think I meant I’m sad, afraid, weary.

 

#2

 

You can play with anything in the barn that you’d like, she said.

Marcus drew close and welcomed a hug, even as he nibbled my paper and looked for crayons

He stood by the gate, nibbling and neighing, seeming to want to be ‘out there’

Is this where I began to feel afraid?

 

Marcus drew close and welcomed a hug, even as he nibbled my paper and looked for crayons

We did a bit of our dance together, he noticing me, me wondering at him

Is this where I began to feel afraid?

He has a bubble too, she said, nodding as I gave him space and he turned toward me again

 

We did a bit of our dance together, he noticing me, me wondering at him

He stood by the gate, nibbling and neighing, seeming to want to be ‘out there’

He has a bubble too, she said, nodding as I gave him space and he turned toward me again

You can play with anything in the barn that you’d like, she said.

 

#3

 

I walked to the opening at the end of the barn, leaning against the gate.

Marcus chewed some hay remains in the center of the space, behind me.

I felt afraid to want anything and shy in being observed or ignored. I couldn’t win.

I froze inside, like I do when I feel a yearning but am afraid to want anything

 

Marcus chewed some hay remains in the center of the space, behind me.

I know this dance with a man—moving to get noticed, hidden in plain sight, deciding to numb

I froze inside, like I do when I feel a yearning but am afraid to want anything

Does Marcus want for anything? Does he ever feel sad because he desires yet cannot be met?

 

I know this dance with a man—moving to get noticed, hidden in plain sight, deciding to numb

I felt afraid to want anything and shy in being observed or ignored. I couldn’t win.

Does Marcus want for anything? Does he ever feel sad because he desires yet cannot be met?

I walked to the opening at the end of the barn, leaning against the gate.

 

#4

 

A herd of horses held my tears one sunny afternoon in November

The mares drew close, eventually lying down around me, holding space

Something ancient touched me that day, in the way I’ve always known as Holy

An innocence too, being seen without needing to listen or learn or respond—just BE

 

The mares drew close, eventually lying down around me, holding space

Of course, I smiled, having held space for women for years. I am weary and sad, I let them hear

An innocence too, being seen without needing to listen or learn or respond—just BE

I feel like I can hide and be held in the herd, which is easier than dancing with just one

 

Of course, I smiled, having held space for women for years. I am weary and sad, I let them hear

Something ancient touched me that day, in the way I’ve always known as Holy

I feel like I can hide and be held in the herd, which is easier than dancing with just one

A herd of horses held my tears one sunny afternoon in November

Who's Skittish Now?

My visit with Marcus at Divine Equines on Saturday was complicated, to say the least. Playful, beautiful, curious, exhausting, triggering, instructive… The holidays were clearly restful because I drove over to Columbus in complete quiet, without music, radio, even a window open. The silence was lively and nourishing. I arrived a little on the early side, pausing in the driveway like I do to observe each of the horses I can see. The field to the right, where I first encountered the herd, held several familiar faces, grazing and pausing. Olive looked up at me from her grazing, pausing to watch for a bit. I got to the barn on time for quick biological body break--restroom!--and to pull on the boots Brian lent me for barn visits. They are more sturdy, stiff, protective of my feet around horse hooves and deep muddy fields.

My first invitation was to return to pastures of choice to observe, to re-enter ‘being a horse’ or seeing the world through horse-eyes. A playful exercise, actually, which offered much fruit of how I was arriving. Beckie handed me what looked like a coloring-book page of a human figure with arms outstretched, facing a horse who rests at the crest of heartlines. My attention was drawn to the running stream--usually a creek, which recent rainfall had turned into a flooding stream. Then phrases of invitation, horse-speak: Graze on what you’re given, or find in front of you. Draw closer slowly. Rest easy. Be beautiful. My mind and bodysoul simply unclench when I draw near to a herd of horses. So much to breathe in, to observe, to receive. I meandered back into the barn, where Beckie invited me to sit wherever I chose. She brought Marcus into the covered open barn space. She invited me to continue to observe, to become present with Marcus in this space, jotting down observations or coloring into the sheet she’d given me. 

The first thing Marcus did was sort out a place to drop a load, not far from where I was sitting. It made me laugh aloud. Beckie too. “You may want to sit somewhere else,” she said smiling. I considered it, but it didn’t smell that much and moving felt bothersome. I wrote onto my paper, “Drop a load when and as you need to.” Not bad advice, actually, for human beings leaving 2020 and heading into the New Year. “Trust others can sit with your shit” was the next one I heard in my head, though I wrote “droppings” instead of “shit.” Something about writing “shit” in crayon on a coloring book page was too much for me. Another truism I’ve needed to learn in my life there, though always difficult for me to practice. Letting others sit with me in my shit, not the coloring book page with profanity on it. :) Beckie continued to care for him, removing some leg-pads he had on and working some of the muscles and skin around his mane, up to his ears. I wrote down on my sheet “Let others care for you.” “Enjoy neckrubs.” As she did so, I noticed a change in his body I didn’t quite know how to observe or name. “Let your sex be seen” were the words that arose. Part of his penis had extended for a time. I smiled and decided the words fit well for a human being awakened as feminine in midlife, with an inherited bodyshame history and conflicted experience of the beauty of human sexuality. Let your sex be seen. Marcus let out a neighing sound, almost a playful laughter. I noted, “Speak freely.” He noticed some distant sounds for a while, turning his head toward the road to learn more. “Notice distant sounds.” Then he turned his whole body, facing me. I gazed into his eyes for what felt like a long while, he standing about 15 feet away. “Face new friends.”

Beckie and I began to listen together to all that I had observed. I offered up the phrases, with some playfulness about what I was receiving, observing. We laughed easily and mused with what I had noticed. At one point, Marcus walked directly over to me, putting his head into my lap, nibbling at the paper (and crayons), moving clearly into my space. It was a welcome way of being with him for a while. I embraced his large head and smiled into his eyes. I breathed in his scent and enjoyed his grounded energy. Not sure when or why, but something in me then needed my own space again. Smiling and with a gentle tone in my voice, I pushed his chest back and said something like “Alright then...that’s enough.” It felt good to push his strong body away and he moved easily away from my chair. He may have walked over to one of the empty hay-bins in the center of the covered space. Something in me smiled to have learned how to hold my own space like that, remembering a training exercise Paula Jeanne Teague had invited me into during a CPE group session.

I reminisced with Beckie about that day 20-some years ago. Paula invited the only man in the group, Jeff, to walk slowly toward me. My task was to tell him to stop when he was ‘close enough.’ Seemed easy enough, particularly as I liked Jeff and felt easy with him. He walked slowly, but he got too close before I could say “close enough.” A deep belly sob arose in me as my arms flew up to push him away. I hadn’t been able to discern my own body space and the distance I needed to feel safe, even with a safe man. 

The experience with Marcus was reminiscent but different. As Beckie and I explored it a little bit, I realized I have a basic, unadulterated trust of horses. I trust their being-ness somehow, even if I don’t know horsespeak as well as I eventually will. In other words, I may not understand their body language well enough yet, but I trust that they are ‘speaking’ honestly and openly, without malice or hidden agendas of any kind. I may even get hurt in an exchange with such a large animal, being a prey animal and startle-able with unexpected sounds or interactions. But even that prospect doesn’t feel disingenuous or deceptive in any way. Unpredictable, yes, but untrustworthy? No. Marcus came right into my space and it was incredibly welcome...until it wasn’t. And then he moved away when I pushed. It was a beautiful moment for me.

Curious, isn’t it? At some most basic level, I live with a skittishness around human beings that I don’t experience inside myself with horses. Or animals in general, perhaps. Nala, certainly. Part of her gift to me is this sense of unconditional presence, being-close, simply for being. As Marcus moved into my space, I mean really close into my space, I experienced no fear or threat, just drawing close. A beautiful gentle feeling. For whatever reason, I then reached a need to redefine my own bodyspace away from him, so did so. No energetic charge. No sense of boundary-crossing. A simple dance of two sentient beings, drawing close then creating space. 

I now see how skittish I am inside all the time around human beings, with whom I yet seek to belong, to be connected with, to know and be known by… I see more clearly how prone I am to distrust, how I am constantly seeking signs of what someone is really feeling or thinking or intending...or signs that we are really connected, that they are thinking of me, that I matter. A restlessness resides deep within me somehow...but not around horses. Or Nala. Is it possible to release a soul-posture like this, to relax around human beings like I can around horses? Nala? I wonder…

And there was so much more...but I think that energy might best be named in more poetic form… Enough for now...

Drawing Close...

 What do you want or need from a relationship with Marcus? She asked me. I was sitting in a camp chair in the spacious stall of a horse named Marcus, stewarded by a woman trained in sacred listening and translation. I first noticed embarrassment with the question, which was interesting. Like to want or need something was something to be embarrassed about, even ashamed of. My mind raced into practicals, probably out of safety. I don’t know how to care for a horse, I began, even to groom or be safe with… I faltered a bit. Something in me shifted in the awareness that the practicalities of horse grooming were perhaps not the sacred invitation here. I could access that stream of knowledge in other ways, most likely. I guess I want to practice drawing close, honing connection and freedom, and offering space, I said finally. (Or some words to that effect…)

The time with Marcus up to that point had been gentle and sweet, uneventful even. We entered into his stall while he was munching hay out of a net-hay-sack. His beautiful brown eye caught sight of me, and he paused a little bit, assessing this new person coming into his space. Beckie invited me to put the camp chairs wherever I wanted to in the stall, but I didn’t know how to do that! Never walk behind a horse, I had heard or learned somewhere. Walking in front of him would interrupt his midday meal. Come behind, like this, she said, showing me how to keep my hand on his back and then haunches while I walked around him to the corner of the stall, closest to the window, the wintry sunlight coming into the space. She wrapped some warm pads around his legs, to soothe some of his own discomfort she had noticed. I sat and watched him, them, content to be close but not too close.

We began our conversation, both of us attuned to his movements as they arose. He stepped over to draw close at one point, when I had named my fear of not being present enough to be with him as I was this day. I became increasingly aware of the socialized voices rising in my head, my body: I’m not enough. I won’t do “this” right (whatever ‘this’ is), I’m too much. Entering into the herd of horses had become a familiar thing to me (which is worth noting, with raised eyebrows, actually), but beginning to be present and connected with just one horse felt vulnerable, fearful. I could feel the old energies of fear and unsafety arising…

...found myself reflecting on times when my mother had been angry with me, when I had been scared of her anger. Times when I felt alone and unprotected...so heightened all powers of perception and awareness to provide for others’ needs, so to be safe myself. Little girl energy, to begin. But then it wasn’t just little girl energy…

I could also feel some movement connected to my relationship with Brian, some of our recreating marriage and being-present-with one another in this pandemic pause. Both of our habits of busyness have been shifting in the extensive time we now have with one another. Windows are opening for different kinds of intimacy, which still continue to surprise me (probably us both) in our 21st year of dancing our dance of marriage. But I could feel some of the grown-woman wonderings about ‘doing this right’--being myself, being a good wife, being a preacher’s wife, blah blah blah. Approaching a relationship with a horse brought up both little girl and grown woman stories within me…

What do you want or need from a relationship with Marcus?

I guess I want to practice drawing close, honing connection and freedom, and offering space…

What do you sense Marcus might want from a relationship with you? Came the complementary question. I could feel the bomb go off in my stomach. A sense of overwhelm and inability to answer a question of what another might want, or what I might offer another… She invited me to draw close, to listen in for an answer… I appreciated that, as it brought me into my body more readily.

I drew close to him again, putting my hand on his cheek, his neck. I felt gangly, like I didn’t know how to draw close but wanted to listen to what I might learn. “You can move closer in, you know,” she finally said. “You’re safer, the closer you get to a horse…” She encouraged me to put one foot on either side of his foreleg, which put more of my body against his, like a big hug around his neck. I could feel the tears come… The slightly sour smell of his mane was yet like incense. I felt my tears and snot connect with his mane, feeling a little bad about that…

...what could he possible want from me? What could I possibly offer him? Began the words in my belly. I felt once again the deep woundedness within me, which I have held and honored for so long these last several years--I am not worthy, I don’t have much to offer, I’m not enough, I’m too much, I won’t do this right anyway... Marcus stood gently by, steady, receiving, relaxing… “He’ll move away if he doesn’t want to hold it, or cannot hold it. He’s not moving away…” she translated. More tears… I just laid my head on his mane, arms around his neck...connected, connecting…

Finally, I stood up straight again, looking into his right eye. He arched his neck in a big stretch, and licked his lips, moved his mouth to chew a little, and farted. Beckie laughed, translating: “He rarely does that, so this is what he wants. Authenticity. Being with you.” We both laughed gently, and I nuzzled his neck a little more. 

It was time to take off the heating pads and walk him back to the pasture, with his herd. We moved slowly, and I felt my energies rise and fall with anxiety about walking too close, not walking close enough, looking at him, looking ahead… It was beautiful to see him walk into the field, nuzzling and munching, gentle in his horse-ness so graciously shared with me.

I’ll see him in a couple weeks, or maybe sooner, after the holiday at least. I’ll be listening for this invitation to draw close, to stand connected, to give and receive space as we may. I took a picture of the herd once again, on my way down the drive. I narrowed my focus in, to get a picture of him, too far away for a good picture, but one good enough for now. 

I find myself wondering if I might dream of a Marcus in the next days… Wouldn’t that be a sweet gift to invite...

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?

'Tender' -- She Hears Me Well

I love that she hears me so well in the word ‘tender.’

 

We had a beautiful, gentle, spacious day of being together. We rested with one another, which is often hard for both of us to do in our actively inner and outer lives. She named her own reminding, how busy inside and out she can be, can love being-doing, and how delightful it is to land with me, to stop, to breathe deeply and be.  It was a smiling, listening pause for me too, in which I felt a release or an absence of my ceaseless fretting, have to do more in the world so on fire, need to do more to confront all the suffering around us. I loved feeling her body relax as we hugged hello. So familiar, so oxygenating within, even as there is usually a deep exhale too.

 

About an hour after she left, I realized I was in a wave of something, a tenderness inside. Was I sad she had left? Maybe a little, but I had had United tasks that had arisen that I really needed to tend. So I was tending to them before Brian arrived home. Had I not received something I had hoped for? Not that I was aware of… Yet I recognized the tenderness and sat with it, tried to listen it into speech somehow.

 

With Brian, I could name one paradox that touched the tenderness deep inside. I miss the generative, collaborative rhythms Lis and I shared for so many years. A shared task. A community birthing and our similar yet different relational energies brought to it, in tandem, in distinction too. We lived a richness together that nourished and stretched my own life so very deeply, broadly. I miss seeing her leadership presence, offered without thought or self-consciousness, being who she is in a circle. (Of course now I know there was a whole lot more thought and self-consciousness than was apparent to me, but we both nod to it as a natural and even beautiful part of this journey…). The paradoxical part of this is that I also don’t want to be holding circle twice a week, in addition to everything else that is active in our lives. I am leaning into the silences in my life right now, the open spaces, the uncertain “fallow” that these weeks seem to be for me. I am (largely) free of the fear of disconnection or being left behind, more content to be ‘in the moment’ than I’ve been in a long time. Perhaps ever.

 

Maybe I want the generative, collaborative rhythm feeling and connection without all the practical tasks and energies it took to live our circle lives into being, in the world. Except I do have access to that, I do receive it, seen clearly in how quickly Lis hears me in the word ‘tender.’ She called on the way home from her vespers offering, and it was a gift to breathe into what I was becoming more aware of...gently...inside me.

 

I think, at first, she was woven into a fear of ‘not being or doing enough’ presence with me while feeling the weight of her Facebook Live Vespers leadership that night. I smiled as she found words for her experience, wanting to assure me she was there, present…in which I had not experienced her as ‘not present’ or lacking in any way. I was touched deeply that she carved out the spacious time for us to be together. I thoroughly enjoyed our easy being time, landing on the porch, tending to a couple things as necessary, meandering over at the preserve. I cannot find my way so immediately, so quickly, to that kind of soul-space, that depth of breathing time with anyone else in my life. I receive this as pure-gift, at least when I am most present to my Self.

 

But she heard something I did need to come to speech about in the word ‘tender.’ And it did take some excavating that a voice-touch with her could provide.

 

For the first time in a long while, I was entangled in a self-defeating, fearful voice that I don’t often allow to come to speech in me (anymore?). You are no longer interesting enough, or good enough, or attractive enough for her to want to be with you. Our lives are so very different, with different choices and landscapes and experiences...why would she want to be around me? Or Do you think that she’ll love you if you don’t insure she needs you? Provide for her? Tend her needs?  I was aware of the accusatory fear, the internal judgments. I could hear the early-ness of them, of a little girl constantly insecure and uncertain whether she would be safe or seen unless she tended, served, insured… I knew the taunting tone and harsh words were unfounded and coarse for who Lisa and I are, who I am now in my more whole, tender, raw self. But wow, the power of the voice, the fear, the feelings of ‘not enough’ had me bound all the same.

 

One of the hidden gifts of this time, I’m coming to see, is learning, over time, that Lisa and I stay connected without my providing a function or reason for connecting. I don’t have to do anything to insure this connection, to earn her affection, her love. As a matter of fact, there really is nothing that I can do to fill any perceived gaps. Her life is full. My life is full. We are in a season of richness I cherish for us both. I have always valued this unearnable-anam-cara-spirit-friendship way of us. This way of knowing in real-time that I am worthy of love and belonging regardless of what I may or may not provide for another.

 

But still it is a tender and tough thing for me! (Us? Human beings in general?) The ego can so easily slip into the spirit-flow, after all, feeling what I have done or how I can do (xyz) is the cause of our connection.

 

I have been learning the hidden gift of this time in some new ways with Brian too, only possible because of being together over more extended time in a pandemic-required, quarantine proximity. Neither he nor I would have known how to relax into ‘simple presence together’ as often as we have been beginning to learn how in these months. He and I both are attuned to functional spaces, providing-for spaces, highly intentional time together, ‘doing’ our marriage more than being our marriage. My family of origin lived and breathed in functionality. So…I am living in the soup of that transactional way unconsciously and most often in my worlds…and bringing a more present way into my own home. Brian is receiving and learning, deepening in it, without my agency of course. Despite my agency. We find our way somehow...

 

Life with Lisa over these many years has been a much broader world of primary-P/presence, deep re-connecting, then moving into circle-birthing and mothering tasks/function. Both/and. As the last years of WWfaC circle-tending grew in number and then leadership things, the functional-tending naturally grew. Neither of us lost the P/presence yearning, reconnecting depths, and yet…my own ego and soul dance a lot of frenzy in the less-vulnerable, provision-work-function connecting. There were assurances in this functionality for me that I no longer have access to, or need, to be honest. Except when I get afraid…or fears like ‘not being enough’ from of old arise within me.

 

It was a gift for me to come to words about all this last night, to hear her gentle tone and understanding, her own learnings (fears?) coming to speech alongside my own. To be able to speak this vulnerable side of me, this fearful yearning side of me who sometimes can’t find herself seen and heard in all the other worlds I am blessed to know.

 

I am a cherished woman, this I know. And I love that she hears me so well in the word ‘tender.’