Horse-Sense

Living in-between worlds grants access to the languages of all of them--and more importantly, the freedom to synthesize these languages into sometimes startling insight.

Last night, in a dream, I was reclining on something soft--I think it was a kind of cushion, in the grass--on a warm afternoon. I saw in the distance a young white mare. I appreciated this, because a white mare in my dreams is always significant (think sacred, like white buffalo or stag).

To my surprise, she made her way toward me. Usually, you see, she stays in the distance. I wanted to stand up when she reached my side, but I was too tired, and apologized for that fact. She dropped down, horse-fashion, right next to me.

I was shocked, a little scared, and honored. She asked me if I would give her a massage. She said she, too, was tired. I was afraid that I didn't know the proper method to massage a horse, but the mare indicated that she would guide me. She said, "Put your hands on my shoulder."

I did, tentatively. "Your entire hand," she instructed.

Upon relaxing my hands on her soft, satiny hide, there was some kind of warmth transmitted, a shifting. I felt the muscle under the skin, and she became like a child, leaning into me, contented. I realized that I could almost see the underlying anatomy of this creature with my hands. Still, I was hesitant. How deep should I go?

"Over the bone", she said, referring to a scapula-like spot...so I pushed, and the skin and muscle was so pliable, it was strange. I could feel through everything, almost to her heart.

To my amazement, I felt something--foreign, not right, out-of-place. It seemed to have some kind of life of its own. I was horrified, and immediately pulled back. The mare turned her head and looked at me directly. "It's like a parasite," she said. "Don't be afraid. Feel it."

I swallowed my squeamishness and reached back into the place where the entity lurked. I felt it, felt the toughness of it. It was something in a spiral, something mindlessly living, something that was finished now...my curiosity got the best of me, and I ran through the catalogue of weird parasites in my mind, trying to identify it as I explored its outline...and then it vanished. Dissolved.

This was good. I knew it had been somehow incorporated in the correct way; I was a little disappointed that it was gone before I could "know it" with my mind, classify it somehow to my mental satisfaction. The mare thanked me, with her shining health and companionship, and the way she rested with me. "We can take a nap now," she sighed. I began to drift in perfect bliss...on into this world, where I am now typing these words.

I could spend all day translating this dream into English; it can be applied to personal, national or even universal stories, shaping meaning that ranges from interesting to paradigm-shifting. If you experienced this dream, it would be entirely yours, a message just for you. Personal myths and signs let go, though, make their way in multiple forms through the entirety of reality.

What struck me deeply in the dream was the "hands-on" factor, the intimacy of healing...not a horse, but myself, my own story. My sacred white mare does not "need" intervention from an ego. But in the eternally generous way that archetypes have with the sleepy sides of myself, she offers the mythic region of her heart for my exploration--no, insists that I quell my fear enough to literally feel a draining problem. To facilitate this learning, she makes herself mild, unthreatening, light enough not to crush me. In the resulting comfort and permission to snuggle, she tells me, somehow, that I don't need to know the given name of the dis-ease, or what kind of damage it could do if not explored, or where it goes when it dies. She simply reciprocates love.

I still feel this animal under my hands. I feel a kind of awe at inner workings of all kinds. Therein lies the truth. Elements of the dream-story will continue to speak, like they do, for a long time. But part of this, I can't vocalize...because it must also be "languaged", completed, by you. :)