First it is an imperceptible movement within the vast infinite sea. Then it is a thought, then it is desire which becomes a passion, an irresistible urge rising out of the depths of all possibilities, a place beyond the limits of imagination. It pushes and heaves and in a mighty burst birth breaks through the crust of manifestation.
Horse-Rider dripping foam and froth of birth, rises from weightless space of thought into weighted gravity of matter.
Atmosphere presses against body. Organ crushing unrelenting clamp causes a compulsive whole being inhalation – the in breath of incarnation – now a created concrete beingness, Horse-Rider emerge as one from the sea, riding the momentum of immensity from which it emerges, not yet fully formed, not yet landed. The heave and roll and undulating current of sea moves it steadily toward shore. With the force of a cosmic fist driving knuckles first into the wavering seam of creation, Horse-Rider is thrown into manifested life.
Weight, unrelenting weight of matter. No longer one, but two; Horse and Rider. Standing in stunned senses, froth of amniotic soup and blood drips and pours from nostrils, ears, eyes, skin, submerging them in a fountain of their own creative fluids. Another wind blast intake of air fills every internal cave and crevice, lungs and heart open, expand, pulse in separateness, two hearts, two beings.
Horse lowers his head and snorts at the blood spiraling and splashing out from beneath his anxious hooves and shies lifting whole body out of the offensive pool of birth blood. He turns and inspects, ears forward, nostrils flaring.
Rider grasps tight with hands and legs, nearly unseated in the explosive motion. Out of balance in this unknown – mind gripping fright, already forgotten the place of beginning. There is only this heaving creature beneath her. Vertigo of sensation caught in the curl of a visual, emotional, mental tidal surge, spun in the collapsing tunnel crashing into this new awareness of living. Senses are stunned by the tsunami impact of sight, sound and feel. The crash of the curling waves cresting and crumbling against sound blasted rock and sand. The surge swirls past horse hooves, enervating tickle cold, he backs away, head low, snorting. Rider grab fistfuls of mane, sensing the shift and alignment of bone, tendons and muscles, unfamiliar inner tension – strength and weakness – looseness and tightness – hard edges and soft curves – an unfolding of opposites within her being, desperately clinging to the back of horse.
Horse snorts at the receding foam, takes a step. Rider senses movement, feels her body align, another horse step, another adjustment. The cramping hug of her legs begin to soften, Spine lifts into the vast openness above, aligning her head and neck and shoulders over the bones of her hip. A sharp and sudden spasm shivers through her, bones lengthen, tendons, ligaments, muscle make connections and wrap joints.
Again she is slammed with outward sensation. Now sight and sound and touch and smell are differentiated. The air glistens with micro-mini sun caught molecules. The rumble of the ocean reverberates through horse’s hooves, penetrating her inner cells, activating the pulse of heart and blood. Her lungs open, filling with iridescent life breath. The eye shielding brilliance of the sun disc caresses her outer sense with penetrating heat, skin penetrating, scalp penetrating the heat descends in a golden ray permeating Riders inner being, descending, ascending like a helix through her center, descending through horse, through glimmering sand, to earth’s core. Spirit of light is embraced in earth womb, kissed in earth consciousness, mother blessing her child through spirit and sending back to Rider, spirit baptized in matter.
Horse explodes in sense overload, legs bend then stiffen shooting him into the air, seeking escape, feeling there is no safety in Rider, her knowing disconnected from their one spirit. Gravity ensnares him, dragging him to the ground. He lunges forward, hooves pounding against the sand, propelling him forward with legs frantically pumping beneath his great heart, driving spirit into muscle, extending neck and shoulders, he begins a race for his very life, his spirit, his being.
Rider, thrown off balance, grips horse with grappling arms, legs, hands and feet. Mind locks in fear, breath shallow, nerves chaotic, shutting out all senses except survival, she hangs in limbo, a broken connection.
Imperceptibly Rider feels a magnetic pull, an attraction, a blossoming of emanating energy from Horse heart, encircling her heart, entraining the turbulent boom of primal pounding, heart to heart. A tenuous internal connection – she begins to feel the bounding rhythm in Horse’s body. Through tendrils of fear her mind opens to this connection. Cautiously she maneuvers her body back onto Horse – recognizing the heave and sway so reminiscent of the sea carrying her and Horse in the currents of the amniotic fluid of creation. Newly invigorated muscles bunch and lengthen, she leans into the velocity of horse’s headlong charge through his fear, his terror of the grappling, clinging body, unbalanced, unsupported relationship.
Hair ringed hooves harpoon the sand, surf, seaweed, all unheeded in Horse’s unleashed run for survival. The seaweed wraps and clings to his pasterns and fetlocks, begins to drag and tangle itself as his hooves whip through the stems, stems snaking rope knots about his legs. Trapped, he stops, white foam lathering shoulders and flanks, lungs and heart battering breath and blood. Every cell in his body trembles. He feels Rider slip from his back. Caressing hands console his body, kind crooning sounds soothe his terrified mind. He feels the knots loosen from his ankles and the rope stems slip from his legs. Dropping his great head to the ground he takes a deep groaning breath, allowing the comfort of Rider’s hands and voice to assure him that she remembers who they are, that they are still one even though two.
Two yet one, Rider’s heart fills with a hope, an anticipation, a love so big it plunges from the confines of her chest spilling into her arms and legs, feet and hands, shoulders and throat, tumbling into her head, her thoughts, her perception, over flowing and encompassing Horse, so protective of his delicate nervous system, his brave generosity, his need to be one of two. Love lifted she leaps onto Horse’s broad back, her legs explore the spring of his ribs, the muscles of his back beneath her buttocks, and the damp heat of his sweated hide sticky against her skin. With breath, intent and a quiet tightening of her legs she urges horse to move forward, stepping out of entanglement, stepping out toward the horizon of fanning, slanting pink, orange and purple pluming as Sun settles into a cosmic nest of radiating color.
White caps play against the sheet of deepening color reflecting orange, yellow, red, blue, indigo, violet – rainbow hued arching to the gusting breeze, tickling ocean skin, exiting nerves of riders skin, infusing her breath with the colors of the sinking sun. Colors radiate upon the sand heaped dunes and flowering iceplant. Birds bank in the thrust of the wind, kaleidoscopic colors shining off iridescent wings, shimmering in the brined air, caught in the scalloped sand of the fore beach – scattered sparkling particles of light in air and water and energy. Rider releases her body to Horse. Horse offers his mind to Rider.
Rider turns West toward the setting sun, horse moving with her gaze, a compass arrow aligned in shared direction. Golden light gleams, horizontal light of the setting sun encompass Horse and Rider in a golden shower. Rider turns South, Horse pivoting to her intention, facing out toward the horizon of the great heaving sea, darkening in the early twilight. Rider turns North, with horse facing the rounded breast of dunes, casting shadows in the fading light. Together Horse and Rider turn East, the dunes recede into fathomless distance. Moon, at the border of land and sea is beginning Her lift from the horizon, a breath catching silver radiance seeping into the gloom. Silhouetted in the cross point of Earth and Sky, Water and Land, Horse and Rider breathe in promise, the promise of adventure, the adventure of love and loss, birth and death, the ageless adventure of embodied spirit.
Horse, restless in anticipation, prances his intention. Rider soothes, yes, just a moment more. The sun has set, there is a phosphorescent diamond dust sparkling in the surf, in the surge, in the waves. Deep shadows drape the dunes, the cuff of coastline arcs against the rising globe of the moon, ending in a rocky point pushing into the pound of the sea. A symphony of stars grace the domed darkness of sky, vanishing into the depth of sightless horizon. Horse trembles and snorts, paws and lifts his head, eye open to expansive energy inviting him to engage in its expression. With an exhale of breath Rider releases Horse. He springs into the air, bouncing forward on hind legs, forelegs grasping for the promise pulsing in his veins. His hooves hit the ground running.
And then there is only Horse and Rider and the ecstasy of unrestrained, unfettered freedom, exposed power of energy in motion. With lengthening stride horse reaches into each moment, driving into the barrier of future, releasing the past footfall, balancing for the next, reach, rebalance, release. Rider leans into the acceleration of Horse’s charge through space and time, arms outstretched like wings, laughing into the lunar light, hips and legs holding to horse, to the undulating surge so like the great power of the sea. Together, in the full exaltation of life shared, they race the phosphorescent waves, sparks springing from beneath horse’s flying hooves, sparklers mirroring the moon gleam bouncing across the surface of the throbbing sea.
They gallop, fully extended in physical being, in emotional bliss, in mental unity with each other and all that is within the stage of their theater, breathing great lungful’s of night, laced with starlight, moonbeam and shimmering waves, intoxicated by the wondrous sensations and scents, washed in a wind of their own creation in a tincture of salt and sweat and sea.
As suddenly as their run starts it ends. Horse crests, mirroring the crown and spray of wave, his hind legs slide underneath him, front legs lifting, back and neck round, the spume of mane and tail flung forward, Horse and Rider reach land’s end. Rock slick, awash with tidal turmoil, trails into a wash of moonlight, silver mercurial cobblestones form a path across the face of the ocean.
There is but a pause in forward motion, a breath, a half halt. Rider urges Horse forward into the mystic moonlit moment, each hoof tipping the glistening cobblestones, Horse and rider gallop on, and on, pulled by some great magnet into the cosmic presence of their destiny. The weight of gravity begins to disintegrate, shedding itself in swaths of iridescent star dust, a shining in the darkness streaking into the bright of the moon. Rider exhales, her breath twinkling, feeling the spaciousness of body, effortless, wingless flight of Horse as they traverse the outward path, lifted by the primordial dark energy of life and light.
A vibrating orb of green and rose begins to glow within the Heart chakras of Horse and Rider. Deeper and richer and fuller the colors intensify, expand until one encapsulates the other, blending hearts in unity and energy of love. Descending matter radiates in a light show of red, orange and yellow, ascending spirit glows in blue, indigo and violet, Horse and Rider, a rainbow comet soaring through the infinite cocoon of space. An ecstasy of oneness, wholeness even as the weight of embodiment falls in a shower of shooting stars, Horse and Rider release heart and mind to the pull of the great magnet, the path home.
Horse and Rider gallop on and on. A vibrant glow expands upon the horizon of their path, it fills their vision, a blooming, billowing luminescent cloud, sacred burial place of stars, sacred birthing place to solar systems, enduring stage of reincarnation, the fingerprint of God. Time and space collapse into one infinite moment, one immortal archetype. Horse and Rider dissolve into particles of gas and dust, a miniscule dot in the sweeping kaleidoscopic dance of color and shape, finding home in nebula, an essence of eons in the exquisite beauty of destruction and creation, forever Horse-Rider in the primordial whole.
Lynnea Honn Bunker Hill Rd, Amador City
October 20, 2014
Art by Jan Long Harper
From the Heart of a Horsewoman 