Dream People: Horses’ Dream

“We stand on a peak of consciousness, believing in a childish way that the path leads upward to yet higher peaks beyond. That is the chimerical rainbow bridge. In order to reach the next peak we much first go down into the land where the paths begin to divide.” Jung

“Mentalities can not be changed by decree, because they are based on memories, which are almost impossible to kill. But it is possible to expand one’s memories by expanding one’s horizons, and when that happens, there is less chance that one will go on playing the same old tunes for ever and repeating the same mistakes.” T Zeldin

“We always think that we can make a straight line in spite of our shortcomings, but they will weigh very heavily and often derail before we reach our goal because we have neglected our tail-ends.” Jung

All to say that horses, and our specific interaction with them, are ‘dream people’

of a new form, a new representation of the Centaur and Mare-headed goddess.

Pledge to the Invisible!

“The unconsciousness is not limited to the instinctual reflex processes of the cortical centers; it also extends beyond consciousness and, with its symbols, anticipates future conscious processes. It is therefore quite as much a ‘supra-consciousness.” Jung

“Because we believe that one moment is more or less like the next, we lose touch with the essential urgency of the present, the fact that each passing moment is the one moment for the practice of freedom.” Robert Grudin (Time and the Art of Living)

“People speak of belief when they have lost knowledge. Belief and disbelief in God are mere surrogates. The native primitive doesn’t believe, he knows, because the inner experience rightly means as much to him as the outer. He still has no theology and hasn’t yet let himself be befuddled by booby trap concepts. He adjusts his life – of necessity – to outer and inner facts, which he does not – as we do – feel to be discontinuous. He lives in one world …” Jung

The vision I have been dealing with this morning is death. Once that happens, the ‘game’ is over, so you have to do everything in your power to make the best of life. You slack up a bit, don’t give it your best shot, don’t go out on a limb; take it where it needs to go or you’ll lose out big time and be doomed to small time and life in the shadows of what might have been.

One morning, I woke up and looked in at Lucy, our alpha mare, and there on the floor was a perfect, but stillborn, foal. – the result of extreme hardship and a moment of doubt. What would this perfect being teach me?

Ours is to focus on life and the living and those still to be born. Yes, to prepare the way with EVERYTHING we can muster. Raise your head little foal… I await your return.

Picture, Promise, curtsey of Kim McElroy 

Enter Gretel

Not just another horse: another personality! Her mother, the mare, Doll, learned to rely on us, so when Gretel was born, she entrusted her to us. And so you have a horse that sees people as friends rather than foes – with her mane in front of her eyes,  she is quite a punk and full of herself. Today, she was lively once out of her stable, doing karate kicks in all direction, limbering up just like when she was little. We never dreamed of a horse quite like her, but nature likes to surprise us, doesn’t she?

 

Day Mares and Sebastian

Unconscious enslavement is enslavement doubled. Robert Grudin

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” Eleanor Roosevelt

“As you awaken, may your dreams greet you by name and may you answer – ‘yes’
” Mary Anne Radmacher

Wishes can be horses! Look they call  us… their names are Sebastian, Lucy, Frida and Gretel. Gretel?  Yes, Sebastian and Doll did some dreaming of their own:-).  She’ll be here very soon to gallop freely into your waking life, like the others.

Enter Gertrude

“The creative process might be simplified if we stopped searching for ideas and simply made room for them to visit…” Robert Grudin

“The many species that constitute the living world have no voice to ask for our compassion, wisdom and leadership: participating in ‘breaking the silence’ is an act of solidarity… “(?)

“The more you let yourself be distracted from where you are going, the more you are the person that you are. It’s not so much like getting lost as it is like getting found.” William Stafford

And so enter Gertrude. Well, there was no way that I could keep her out for much longer. She is a dream breaker. She gets  your attention and snaps you out of the deepest trance. She wants you to be part of the moment and nowhere else. In sum, cats break trances with ‘their’ dances and direct non-negotiable communications, especially at meal time.  I try not to be charmed by her, but it is difficult. She would spring out of the photo if she could and cat-ch you, too.

Gertrude wins  the day! Welcome in Gertrude: people will love you here, too, and want to know just what you are about… there is no dog or cat or person who will get the better of her. She is part of the equation of existence whether we like it or not.  Oh, you cat of cats!

P.S.: If you are curious,  see how Gertrud ‘springs’ out all over the place and  join the fun  here. How many times does she appear unexpectedly? Curiosity hasn’t killed this cat….. yet!

Horse Deity

Narcissus

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world”  John Muir

The dark horse is stabled in the child …. that ride up the hill of Heaven …. William Gass

And so you may have chanced on the story of the youth who, looking into a pool, fell in love with his own image and was transformed into a flower, Narcissus.

But the metamorphosis doesn’t stop there: we have become whatever we look at and vice versa and one of the most transcending examples is the horse and related myth of the centaur, half horse, half man – not even half the story, for we become the horse and the horse becomes man.

Photographed by John W. Hay

For instance, we even learn to talk the language of the horse, ‘Horse,’ understanding that the horse perceives us as a horse, too, and has come to imitate our movements, arms becoming legs that then correspond to the horse’s four.

Moreover, horse is no donkey, but, nevertheless,  wonders what on Earth happened to our ears, flattened back  reflecting our permanent discontent. And yet  he is quick enough to notice that fingers have been added to our front hooves that signal movement and interest in much the same way ears should. He accepts Nature.   Man becomes one with the herd.

So know this: when, by chance, you meet a horse, he may have come for you as your soul mate to accompany you, heaven-wards…  and, though, the way be hard and you might come to forget this, look into the pool again and you will see, remember and understand.

"Don't cry for the horses
That life has set free
A million white horses
Forever to be

Don't cry for the horses
Now in God's hands
As they dance and they prance
To a heavenly band

They were ours as a gift
But never to keep
As they close their eyes
Forever to sleep

Their spirits unbound
On silver wings they fly
A million white horses
Against the blue sky

Look up into heaven
You'll see them above
The horses we lost
The horses we loved

Manes and tails flowing
They Gallop through time
They were never yours
They were never mine

Don't cry for the horses
They will be back someday
When our time has come
They will show us the way

On silver wings they will lift us
To the warmth of the sun
When our life is over
And eternity has begun." ( Author unknown)

Transformation revelations

The richness I achieve comes from Nature, the source of my inspiration – Claude Monet.

“You and I can turn and look

at the silent river and wait. We know

the current is there, hidden; and there

are comings and goings from miles away

that hold the stillness exactly before us.

What the river says, that is what I say.” William Stafford

Inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic energy striving, but it comes to us slowly and quietly and all the time.

Brenda Ueland

…

Inspired by John W. Hays

…

And so, once upon a time, there was word of a long forgotten sacred spring. Yes, of course, I had been dreaming about it for years.

“Somewhere, there under 12 foot of briars high and to all sides.”

And so with my friend  John’s amazing lust  for adventure and discovery, we set about to find it. And find it we did NOT, just an empty dry form in the rock. It had run dry. But to our immense joy, the next day produced a miracle: the water had mysteriously reappeared.

Spring Rediscovered

…. And so it remained, apparently stationary and static – ONE

It was only later that I kept having this recurrent dream, water on stone, water on stone and the image of a mirror. No sense to it, until one day, my daughter, Patricia, says she’d like to create a pond.

And so we noticed the little stream overflowing from the spring – water on stone, water on stone. TWO.

A little stream

And so all we needed to do was to dig a ‘basin’ and support it with some stones to create a pond – to ‘ponder’ over… THREE.

The Pond!

Now, you are wondering what could be the point of this ONE, TWO, THREE process. Well, a week or so later we got the answer – wild boar had been there looking for roots. And so new life had appeared in a rather dramatic fashion! And more subtly  other forms of life take up residence; fish, lilies, waterboatmen and many more. You notice a  changed atmosphere,  beautiful blue and red luminous dragon flies emerge – a clear indication of metamorphosis and transformation.

But the process doesn’t stop there: you look into the pond and SEE beyond and above infinite possibilities. For we have created the mirror of all mirrors, a living mirror.

The Living Mirror

…

What happens when you look into a mirror? You don’t see yourself as you might imagine, but a parallel self.  If you let it, your mind expands into new possibilities, the present may become the future as was the case of The Two Fridas, where you can witness the process of transformation and healing.

So we witness three simple steps to revelation inspired by nature.

You might be curious enough to wish to look into this living mirror yourself to catch a glimpse of the divine force that transforms us.

Do you see, do you understand? YOU are the realization of a dream stemming from the beginning of time.

..

.

Key (w)holes or Stairways to Heaven

In Bollingen, silence surrounds me almost audibly, and I live “in modest harmony with nature.” Thoughts rise to the surface which reach back centuries, and accordingly anticipate a remote future … my ancestors’ souls are sustained …. since I answer for them the questions that their lives once left behind. I carve out rough answers as best I can. … It is as if a silent, greater family, stretching down the centuries, were peopling the house. (MDR, P 237) Jung p 36

When we fight for the soul and its life, we receive as reward not fame, not wages, not friends but what is already in the soul, a freshness that no one can destroy. This soul truth, which young people pick up somewhere, sustains them. It assures the young man or woman that if not rich, he or she is still in touch with truth; that his inheritance comes not from his immediate parents but from his equals thousand of generations ago; that the door to the soul is unlocked; that he does not need to please the doorkeeper, but that the door in front of him is his, intended for him, and that the doorkeeper obeys when spoken to. Robert Bly, P 46

It is not easy to answer your question about the “Island of Peace.” I seem to have quite a number of them, a sort of peaceful archipelago. Some of the main islands are: my garden, the view of the distant mountains, my country place where I withdraw from the noise of the city, my library. Also small things like books, pictures, and stones. Jung p 37

A juxtaposition of perspectives in the form of a spiral staircase

When you walk out into Nature you have basically two way of creating dialogue. First you can simple turn off the beaten track and discover a Sacred Aisle or place that speaks to you across time, or you can get stuck in and actually create one. What you see in front of you is a spiral staircase made of earth, trees and stones that connects two terraces. Each of the terraces is quite different, one old and unchanged, the other, newer with recent plantings  of introduced trees and flowers. It is a very, very  long walk to get from one to the other, to the next higher level and, by the time you get there, you are getting weary and tend to have forgotten where you have come from and lost the impression of what you experienced. Hence, the spiral stairway makes it possible to compare and contrast the two levels very quickly, as you ascend,  jarring the senses and lifting you upward. The twisting movement causes you to adjust your stride, grasp, hold on, fear falling, to be drawn into the different something… a camellia horseshoe, guarded by two old orange trees… just time to make a wish that will sweep you off your feet.

Boxer, his name was ‘Boxer’!

Horses make a landscape look beautiful.

Alice Walker

John Elsley – Shire Horses

“Get off your high horse,” my father quipped at me one day when I was a little boy.

…

Until this day, I had never really realized that I have always been riding a high horse.  I have now lived three times as long as most horses, but I know I am riding the same horse. You see, in the past month I have dreamed about horses no less than nine times. For some people, this might even be considered a night mare – pun intended.  The dreams produced the following conceptions:

The Return of the Son King, The Presence of the White Unicorn, The Invisible Green Horse, Horse in a Pickle, Horses Pulling Their Weight, Alive and Kicking, Horse in Shawl, Time out with the horses calling in the Future

So the question you are asking, as I was, is: Where is all this coming from and where does it lead? I remember now, my friend, Roger Hawksbury’s father had saved a great white shire. The horse had worked all its life and he believed that it should be put out to rest, put out to pasture to spend it remaining days in peace – and not to be exchanged for money and sent to the knacker’s yard to be turned into dogmeat, which was custom even in England where they are supposed to love horses.  He was a good man and that horse deserved the best even when it was too old to work and worn out. But I only knew this part of the story later.

…

Roger and I were just a couple of young school kids and loved to be out to play, as it was called then.  I had climbed over the wall with broken glass embedded in the top to join him and jumped down into the mental asylum, for the farm was now being used to keep the patients occupied. But we weren’t interested in them, particularly. First we visited the orchard and then made our way towards the lake, Duchess’s lake. It was our adventure because we had to keep out of sight of the warden with his stick – Roger had told me that he had laughed so hard when one day a big dog had run up to the warden and run off with his stick – There were carp in the lake – some say,  as old as a hundred years – they were later caught and transferred to Bristol Zoo, I heard, when the lake was drained for the motorway to come through.

…

And sooner or later, we would tire and just sprawl in the grass and from the edge of the lake look up the hill at the Palace, already a hospital. And there to one side was a tall stone pillar, a memorial to the Indian Prince’s steed.  And there grazing below the Palace was the magnificent white shire that captured my heart for ever. What I remember was the impression of white on green, for his white countenance shone at you and I swear that the grass radiated greener and greener. I was hypnotized. I remain hypnotized.

…

Boxer, His name was ‘Boxer’!

….

Well, I never did meet the white shire again but have chanced on five horses, which if we put them all together recreate his presence.  And guess how you might sum up my life today, Yes, ‘ Time out with the horses, calling in the future, for, here, our horses literally create the landscape!

Horses enjoying life

The Magic Mountain of Grace

I was to ascend this enormous mountain! I no longer knew which was bigger, I or the mountain. With a tremendous puffing, the wonderful locomotive shook and rattled me up to the dizzy heights where ever-new abysses and panoramas opened up before my gaze, until at last I stood on the peak in the strange thin air, looking into unimaginable distances. “Yes,” I thought, “this is it, my world, the real world, the secret, where there are no teachers, no schools, no unanswerable questions, where one can be without having to ask anything.” Jung 31

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.” Edward Abbey

“Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test it’s a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.”

Distant view of Mt Graça

See anything? Nothing at all? Not there in the distance, perhaps? Try projecting yourself forward, relax your eyes and senses … and feel it. For what you are looking for is not really out there but within you… yes, let yourself go and dream your dream.

Not quite that easy, you are thinking.

Well, you may be pleased to know that Mt. Graça (the mountain of grace) really exists to help you get tuned in  (click on the photo).  She is a very feminine mountain, smoothly rounded,  that has a way of changing color, disappearing and reappearing when you least expect. She is also decked in rainbows and thunder and lightening storms. And last, but, not least, she is enchanting – it is so easy to be entranced by her and heaven swept.  And so I,  entranced,  share her dream with you.

And she would reunite YOU with YOUR own MOUNTAIN OF GRACE, all the countless blessings you have been gifted with and she would tell you that YOU are incredibly lucky and one of G/god’s most appreciated children.

“Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So … get on your way.” Dr, Seuss