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Windhorse
Val Hampson
The horses usually hear Kim’s call
clear over the top of the hill and come running, first a white bobbing
horse head, then a black one, their bodies growing into view. How they
can hear her on the far side of the hill amazes me. This time, we go to
them, car careening across the pasture over the top of one of the downs
on the Isle of Wight.
....
Leigh Shambo and I are visiting Kim Brown,
organizer of one of Leigh’s workshops in the UK. Kim, a generous and
gracious horsewoman, is taking us bumping across the field in her car to
meet her two horses. There is a steady wind and the scene is
breathtaking. All around us are verdant hills- the “downs”- pastured and
treed, with the English Channel in the background. In the corner of the
far side of the hill, two horses, one black, the other white, watch us
pull up.
Leo, a white and venerable older
Lipizzaner gelding, and Roy, a jaunty black Fells pony, stop and turn to
us with curiosity and interest. Leo is tall, stately and aloof, his
regal nature softened with the orange tint of good mud rolls. Roy is in
your face for affection, mouthy without the sharp nip, of an earthy
cheerfulness, playful and engaging. Roy rushes over to Kim, Leigh and me
eager for whatever we have in mind and wanting to be touched and to
touch us. Leo hangs back a little.
Roy is the new boy in the pasture and
Leo is not thrilled. Kim bought him largely as a pasture mate after
Leo’s first buddy passed. Leo then became smitten with the neighbor’s
mare. She was likewise taken with him and there was a bucolic period
when they were together. Unfortunately, changes for her people
necessitated her herd to move to a different pasture. They can still see
each other at a distance and sometimes are near. Leo stands in the
corner near her pasture, a place where he can look down across the downs
towards her farm. We saw that herd running full out over acres of
rolling downs towards the barn for their feed. I could see the intensity
of Leo’s gaze. His body was a focused point as he watched her run.
There is a great dignity to Leo as he
stands like a sentinel looking for her. He sometimes has a broody look.
The grief of his losses is palplable, yet so is his strength and wisdom.
Here is a great Teacher. He carries the circumstances of his life within
his huge spirit and walks forward with them. There is no pretense of
anything other than how it is in this now. Included in this moment is
the strength and confident beauty of who he is.
And Roy. Leo ignores or harasses him.
Roy is his opposite. Yang and yin, black and white. The playful one,
dangling the possibility of cheer, relaxed playfulness, an open
affectionate heart. Joie de vivre. He is like this despite the
challenges of his own life with humans when Roy worked at the tin mines
in the tourist trade. He does not appear to be dissuaded by Leo’s
rebuffs. He continues to offer his friendship to Leo. Perhaps Leo will
soften as time goes by.
I originally intended to write an
article focused on Roy,
as his heart with its outpouring of love quite captured mine. Thinking
of him running atop the downs, the wind blowing his black mane and tail,
his feathered hooves dancing across the grass makes me smile and brings
a lightness to my heart. Yet, it is the complexity of varied emotions,
the loves and losses, the demeanor of Leo that has emerged onto the
page. I find myself with compassion and respect for Leo as he makes his
way through life with its interweave of horse and human.
The vast freedom and Spirit of the
downs blows a healing wind. May it sing in his heart and that of us all.
Val Hampson, MA,
is EAGALA certified and a writer, horsewoman, educator, energy and qigong practitioner, psychotherapist,
and editor of Equus Spirit. Contact her at
valh@equusspirit.com
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