October 2009 Archives

What is the Story of Your Life?  Who are you?  Where were you born?  Did you go to college?  Which school can claim you as an Alumna/us?  What was your family like--and were you happy?  Have you found vocational fulfillment?  Will anyone remember you when you die, or are you content to go unnoticed, and pass into Eternity, in obscurity?  Will you leave a legacy behind, or is it OK if you don't?

These are questions that pass through each human heart at one time or another.  Some of us are plagued by unsatisfactory answers, and so we set a course to assure that the direction from here-on-out is different, perhaps more exciting.   Some of us embellish, because the story so far isn't up to some standard we secretly hold in our hearts.   Others need not alter the tale, as it's already pretty darned fascinating. 

Joe Hernandez was a Wordsmith, a man whose speech and writing talents were elegant, precise and beautiful. If he never accomplished anything else, he contributed to the lexicon and had the gift to string together words in such a masterful fashion that mind pictures were painted, leaving indelible portraits for all those who were blessed to experience the work of his heart...

"A horse is a horse, of course, of course.
But who would you be if you were a horse?
A horse who ran Life's Race on course?
What would be your name?

Caballo's the Press, pub-lish-ing source
That asks your race name if you were a horse.
A prize awaits, a book, of course!
Please tell us your name!"

(I offer my sincere apologies to Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, the composers who wrote the "Mr. Ed" theme song in 1961, for hacking up their beloved ditty.)

Most of us who adore horses, especially Thoroughbreds (or Arabians or Quarter Horses, for that matter--any horse who races, right?)--have at one time or another fancied ourselves as a sleek, gorgeous, well-muscled, shiny-coated steed.  Running Life's Race, feeling the solid Earth (real dirt, thank you) under our perfectly-formed hooves.  With the wind blowing through our manes, we cross the finish line first--at least in these fantasies, we are free and we always win...

I am constantly amazed by the ways in which horses choose to communicate with we mere humans:  recognizing that we homo sapiens are the ones who forgot how to talk Horse--not the other way 'round--members of the equine species will go out of their way to get their point across to mortals, to get what they need or want from us. 

And, being that horses are ultimately intuitive--intuition has kept the species around for over four million years--even the smallest, quietest flicker of a candle in a window can signal salvation for a horse.  We humans are so busy striving to stay alive in this dog-eat-dog world--that of the predator--that we forget that the best way to survive and thrive actually is quite the opposite.  Rather than looking to predators for advice, we should observe instead the quiet ways of the prey, whose powers of observation must, by necessity, be more finely-tuned than those of the aggressor.

I'm thinking about a mare I met at a party, 20+ years ago:  the Wisdom, calm and trust that she exhibited that dark Winter night and my first experience with the real mystical properties of The Horse left an impression with me that has informed many of my thoughts and relationships in the two decades since the encounter...