Heidi had been without a horse for about one year after giving Glory, her horse of 6 years, away to a good home. Then one day she realized being horseless was not for her, decided it time to get another and immediately began looking through the paper, on the internet, anywhere horses were for sale, for a new equine pal.
A short time after Heidi started her search, a friend of mine called to let me know an appaloosa horse was for sale in Eden NY. Though Heidi was certain she did not want an appaloosa, with excitement of the prospect of a new horse, we made a trip to Eden, thinking, hey one never knows.
We found the house number we were looking for, and pulled in the driveway. We were disheartened with what we saw. Things were, well let’s say, not so neat, with the pasture and barn in disarray. I told Heidi, “it might be ok, my barn is no palace.”
“Maybe not… but your place does not look like this.”
The grasses were long and wild around the barn and all kinds of—stuff— haphazardly speckled the yard, in and out of the pasture. In the middle of the pasture was a large mound of manure or possibly dirt. Atop that mound, a brown and white goat lay curled up sleeping.
Doubts and thoughts of we should leave follow us up the sidewalk. Then at the halfway point between the house and leaving, a woman comes out side. Our first impression in a matter of seconds, though she seemed nice enough, her girth was not as tight as it should be. She asks us if we are there to look at the horse. We tell her yes.
Heidi and I follow her, while carefully walking around, over and through stuff, and enter the barn. Once inside we see one big stall and hay thrown everywhere. Goats are everywhere too, climbing all around us. If my memory serves me correct, four more goats were inside the one big stall. There standing out side the barn, at the stall door looking in… the not so pretty appaloosa.
A man joins us. I can’t recall if it was the woman’s son or husband now, but she instructs him to go get the horse and bring it in the stall. He tries. But the not so pretty appaloosa, unruly, rude and obnoxious drags him in the stall, swings him around, pushes him up against the stall, and then steps on his feet and stays there for a while, oblivious to his pushes to get her off him.
The woman says, I don’t know what’s gotten into her, she’s usually not like this. Heidi and I give each other that, yeah-right look. Heidi nicely tells the woman, “Sorry, I don’t think this horse is for me.”
With an animated voice, the woman says, “We have another horse for sale if you’d like to see him” and points out in the pasture.
Heidi and I let our eyes follow her pointing gesture. We don’t see anything and look at each other with a questioning look. We read each other’s thoughts, shrug our shoulders, and conclude what the heck we are here. So with skepticism, we crawl under a board, walk through the goat stall and in to the pasture with the woman, wondering if the Appaloosa from hell will push herself upon us, step on our feet and hold us against our will, or will we be run over by goats.
Its then the woman starts chanting, “Baaaaaaaaby…Baaaaaaaaaaby, cluck, cluck, come on Baaaaaaaaaaby, cluck, cluck, cluck, some one is here to see you.
Heidi and I look at each other….Baby?
“Baaaaaaaby,” more clucking, “come on Baby…come on boy, cluck, cluck, cluck, CLUCK.”
Heidi’s eyes glaze with a dazed wild look and I wonder— is this woman calling a dog?
“Baaaaaaby come here you have some visitors.”
That’s when it happens. A phoenix of sorts rises out of the dust, from the middle of that dirt or manure pile, in the form of a small dark brown horse. He shakes himself off and meanders down the pile of dirt as agile as a mountain goat. The brown and white goat follows him.
“That’s Baby” the woman says, “he’s an eight-year-old, ¼-horse mix, that my son showed 4-H before he went to college.”
“What in the goat show” Heidi whispers.
It took everything I had not to laugh aloud, though I’m not sure if the woman would have noticed anyhow or understand the brunt of Heidi’s joke.
Baby, nonchalantly walks towards us then heads straight to Heidi. As if checking her out, he nuzzles her clothes, her hair and her pant leg. Heidi backs up a step. He follows her. She grimaces, “What the heck, is this a dog or a horse? God he smells like a goat Kellie.”
They show us, everything Baby ‘can’t ’ do. We watch in horror as he bounces around the pasture with his head and nose in the air. Whoa, means he can stop on his own time. They explain how proud they are at how road safe Baby is, because as Mrs. ‘Baby chanter’ tells us, “if they ride him down the road a certain distance and he turns around and comes back—that’s his way of telling them the road isn’t safe today” hence road safe.
What?
Yes their definition of road safe, great barrel racer, stops good, can turn on a dime, and can clean his feet (that were clamped to the ground) easy, were very much different from our definitions of the above.
We asked the woman, when’s the last time he was wormed? Has he had his inoculations this year, were his teeth ever floated, when’s the last time his feet were done.
The woman response…“What?”
Why, and with out good reasoning, a few days later, ‘Baby’ is in the barn, first order of business, name change. It took a few days. Thoughts of Ziggy, Shorty, Hey You, Goat Horse, and a few other choice names came to mind, but Billy (no pun intended) seemed to fit.
Not long after he was here, Heidi and I on warm day thought it time Billy had a bath, because the barn had taken on a noticeable goatish odor.
Billy gets an—oh god, what is it with these girls—look on his long brown face, as we giggle, tell him to stand still, wet him down, suds him up and scrub away. We find something we never expect and with great excitement, we chime giddily, “He’s brown, no he’s black, no wait he’s seal brown.” We also find as we scrub more, a white spot on his forehead—and—white hind socks. Billy looks like a very different horse then the Baby horse we looked at. He’s washed into a beautiful dapple bay, with a small star, and two white socks. No wonders he smelled like a goat and blended in the pile of dirt.
Billy, of course did not know what all the fuss was about…He didn’t care— he was a horse, or maybe a goat in disguise. Although, I can’t really say with certainty he didn’t know what the fuss was about, because occasionally he’d pick up the plastic curry or brush and almost show us where to scrub.
There were trials and tribulations in the first year of Billy and Heidi’s relationship. There was a time when Heidi wasn’t sure she wanted to keep him. Then the growth of a friendship with many fun hours and loving memories formed.
Billy taught Heidi how to have fun with your horse and about unconditional love. Heidi taught Billy that a human could love and care for him and be his friend, a friendship that brought the best out of both of them.
God makes all animals special but sometimes for reasons we don’t understand some are more special than others. Billy— the horse that slept with goats—was one of Gods specialties. What a great little horses you were. We love you and we will miss you.
With one last thought, about the horse that slept with goats. I find it extraordinary that Heidi found one of Gods specialties— her equine friend that loved her unconditionally, in Eden?
4 AM...Thoughts from Heidi about her Equine friend...Billy
Gone are the days of hearing your gentle nicker to greet me as I entered the barn
Gone are the days of seeing you enjoying the pastures on a lazy summer day
Gone are the days of our care free rides and your nonstop curiosity with all in the world around you
Gone are the days of wondering why you just aren't the same and why you're not feeling well
Gained is my thankfulness for the gentle, caring hands of the veterinarians in their attempt to heal you but eventually helping you to be put to your ultimate rest
Gained is my reminder of just how remarkable friends and family can be during our seemingly darkest days
Gained is my understanding that some day down the road my thoughts of you which are painful right now will turn to laughter and joy recalling all the years we spent together
Gained is my absolute gratitude to God for the 'gift' he gave me of being your owner
RIP Billy...Jan 14th 2010...We will miss your cute horse life loving muzzle...
Kellie
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
The Blue-Cold Moon Celebration...
Uncertainty and a tiny amount of fear, shade the margins of this blog. Not from the content, but of where to start, well OK… maybe a little uncertainty is about the content. I don’t want anyone to think me eccentric.
Most everyone who knows me, knows I am a spiritual. However, raised Catholic, I am forced to confess I’m not thee best catholic. Nonetheless, I say I am spiritual and that should count for something…I think.
What I’m about to share, I believe is me evolving and doing what I’ve always known was part of me. Some might think it means I’m simply not a good Catholic girl and consider my Catholicism slightly tarnished, but I can’t help it. Even as a child I asked questions and believed in things I wasn’t ‘supposed’ to. In spite of this, I’ve always had the feeling I have a unique connection to God, so what I felt and what I was taught did not always coincide…therefore I asked with a personality that wouldn’t allow me to merely accept what they were telling me. I had to see it for myself thus comprehending better—how—I was to perceive what they were teaching me. I wanted to understand, but could not take someone’s word at face value…sorry sisters (I’ve not changed much since that time either).
It never felt God got mad at me for being this way...He... instead spoke in a way—I–understood, which wasn’t always through written words, the words of a priest, or sister, but for me, through the animals, the earth, my sense of a higher being (something I sometimes question) and the voice.
Consequently, then and— now—I’d stay quiet within my thoughts and rarely, if at all mentioned the voice. I wanted no one to deem me a weird child. (The fist time I heard the voice I was four years old. Yes four. But that’s another story.)
As I’ve mentioned in another blog, the voice, is not necessarily the voice of reason, but a voice of intuition, thoughts or crazy ideas that come from…well you know where, or maybe you don’t. I think here is a good place, before I go on, to explain although I don’t always see eye to eye with my religion, I am still proud to be a Catholic. I can’t help it, its part of who I am, genes of my Scotch/Irish heritage.
Please, don’t worry, the voice, isn’t a voice like what Jack Nickolson heard in the Shining. It’s a little voice that speaks in the back of my mind or sometimes in the very forefront or sometimes a voice so persistent it can’t be ignored.
Everyone has the voice. You know it as that flash thought you ignored and wished you hadn’t, or the voice putting up a red flag telling you repeatedly, someone is not good but you don’t listen and you get taken to the cleaners or get your heart broken. You know…the voice, those inner thoughts that most of us have, but chose not to pursue, because of fear. Fearing that if we speak of it, (the voice), we’ll sound loony. We also fear that if we relay what we hear or think we heard we could be wrong or scarier…we could be right. I know…I’ve been there.
With maturity, I find myself taking bigger chances and listening to the voice more often (or maybe it’s because my outer hearing is not as a good as it use to be) and accessing deeper recesses within, finding what feels comfortable and right for me. As I re-read that it almost sounds selfish, but its not, because I’ve found, what’s comfortable and right for me, benefits others, our earth and I believe this is what I am suppose to do, its what the voice tells me anyhow.
So here goes, usually I do not celebrate New Years and have not done so in years. I don’t like it. It feels like a bunch of unhappy people trying to be happy, only to wake up the next morning with a hang over and feeling unhappier than they were the year before. Unhappiness stemming from the realization the resolutions they made for last year, they did not keep, thus convincing themselves they are failures for not doing what they had set out to do. Hence…grief at the loss of a year of un-achieved goals, and they jump head first with new resolutions, instead of spiritually, in to another year, and goals are re-resoluted and new ones added, consequently badgering themselves for another year of not accomplishing their goals. It’s a vicious unproductive cycle that doesn’t have to be, if they’d only realize they don’t have to wait until one night of the year to resolve and or try something new…any time is a good time, any time that’s right for them. And that sometimes the only thing we need to reach our goals, is to be silent and listen—to the voice. Well you get the drift of what I am saying with out beating you over the head with a noisemaker. I hope anyhow.
Dec 30th, late morning my friend Heidi called to let me know she’d be coming out to see her horse New Years eve and she’d like to bring pizza or something. When she called because I didn’t know what my husband was doing I wasn’t sure what I was doing. He wasn’t home yet. Then my husband got the call. New Years eve, he would leave for Baton Rouge. This didn’t bother me. Its not a big holiday for us and usually I’m in bed before midnight and simply like to wake to the New Year. This year would be no different and with the job market the way it is, as us farmers say, have to make hay while the sun shines.
Later on, the same day, a friend, Kathy, reminded me this was a Blue Moon New Year and I had to celebrate. I wondered, how could I celebrate something I don’t like celebrating. But, this…this was a Blue Moon New Year with a partial eclipse of the moon and if I didn’t celebrate in some way—I knew I would be very disappointed.
It then dawned on me it was as if God had made reservations for me to celebrate. So I searched of what one does on a blue moon celebration in December and then called Heidi with the idea I had for Dec 31st. We were about to celebrate with the blue moon. Or the oak moon, or cold moon, the moon of December, indicating the impending long cold months of winter.
Dec 31st, unfortunately, we could not see the moon. The sky was hazy with wet snows, but we knew it was there so our celebration commenced.
First, we ate pizza and salad, while drinking ginger ale, a feast fit for our small gathering. After we ate we had a nice cup of tea.
Through dinner, we giggled, talked and laughed, then went outside, tromped in the snows readying our prayer area. My two dogs romped around, and the coyotes yipped in the distance. We lit candles for those we were about to pray for, here and gone. We sat on Mother Earth grounding ourselves, burned sage to purify our thoughts, heart and area of prayer. Earlier we had written prayer requests, wishes and convictions on paper, and were holding them in our hands. It was then the world around us went quiet. The breeze stopped, the snows fell silent and straight to the earth. My dogs sat behind us, as we raised our voices to the heavens and read each prayer request aloud so our words could reach our heavenly father. We then lit the papers to let the smoke also carry the words to the heavens and saints.
After our ceremony, we had dessert and coffee, Heidi went home, and I went to bed before midnight. I closed my eyes, and saw soothing shades of purple and white. Relaxed, I fell asleep while thinking of the prayers we’d prayed. I slept better that night than I have in a very long time. Upon waking, I experienced lightness in my chest and a happiness that was almost scary. I was worried and wondered….why do I feel so happy? My psyche did not want to allow this happiness because some how it felt wrong. I called Heidi and she told me she felt the same. I knew then, the way we celebrated was right.
Still, uncertainty and fear shade the margins of this blog, because I fear as when I was a child, sharing the way Heidi and I celebrated, would cause the church or others to chastise me for not celebrating in a holy manner, but then the voice spoke…and this is what I heard.
Kellie…be silent and listen.
When you go to church and light a candle, why do you do that?
I answered, “We light it for those we pray for, to demonstrate special devotion or to make a specific appeal”.
Then I heard,
Don’t you think the Catholic Church does this because they view candle burning as a natural religious expression, not something tied to a specific form of idolatry? “So this was my need to light the candles. Got it.”
When you go to church on Christmas Eve and the priest burns incense… why is that…“
Burning incense reminds us our prayers, like the smoke of incense, ascends towards God and mingles with the prayers of the Saints in heaven?”
Psalm 141 (140), verse 2: "Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight: the lifting up of my hands, as evening sacrifice."
And ins't it often used as a purification ritual.
I pondered, “The sage?”
Yes…
When you go to church and sing, why do you do that?“
So the words of our prayers rise to the heavens? OMG (no pun intended) our prayers spoken aloud is music to your ears.
Yes…
And, where have I told you, your church can be?
I raised my eyebrows and conceded, “Outdoors, with the animals…in my conversations with you. Where ever you and I walk, or the places where my thoughts are clear and my soul is pure…such as in my garden, in the barn, being one with Mother Earth…anywhere you and I are together.”
Yes…
I get it
It’s as I’ve always thought…
It’s not about the religion… its about believing.
Its not important how I pray… its that I do.
Its not where I talk with you that’s important…. its that I do.
Its not about holding hands with someone saying I have faith, its about holding hands and walking with you, believing in something I can’t see…That’s faith.
Its not important how or where I celebrate….but that I celebrate with you, for you and on behalf of you.
So then, how do you know I’ve listened and I’ve answered?
The voice…
Yes
Most everyone who knows me, knows I am a spiritual. However, raised Catholic, I am forced to confess I’m not thee best catholic. Nonetheless, I say I am spiritual and that should count for something…I think.
What I’m about to share, I believe is me evolving and doing what I’ve always known was part of me. Some might think it means I’m simply not a good Catholic girl and consider my Catholicism slightly tarnished, but I can’t help it. Even as a child I asked questions and believed in things I wasn’t ‘supposed’ to. In spite of this, I’ve always had the feeling I have a unique connection to God, so what I felt and what I was taught did not always coincide…therefore I asked with a personality that wouldn’t allow me to merely accept what they were telling me. I had to see it for myself thus comprehending better—how—I was to perceive what they were teaching me. I wanted to understand, but could not take someone’s word at face value…sorry sisters (I’ve not changed much since that time either).
It never felt God got mad at me for being this way...He... instead spoke in a way—I–understood, which wasn’t always through written words, the words of a priest, or sister, but for me, through the animals, the earth, my sense of a higher being (something I sometimes question) and the voice.
Consequently, then and— now—I’d stay quiet within my thoughts and rarely, if at all mentioned the voice. I wanted no one to deem me a weird child. (The fist time I heard the voice I was four years old. Yes four. But that’s another story.)
As I’ve mentioned in another blog, the voice, is not necessarily the voice of reason, but a voice of intuition, thoughts or crazy ideas that come from…well you know where, or maybe you don’t. I think here is a good place, before I go on, to explain although I don’t always see eye to eye with my religion, I am still proud to be a Catholic. I can’t help it, its part of who I am, genes of my Scotch/Irish heritage.
Please, don’t worry, the voice, isn’t a voice like what Jack Nickolson heard in the Shining. It’s a little voice that speaks in the back of my mind or sometimes in the very forefront or sometimes a voice so persistent it can’t be ignored.
Everyone has the voice. You know it as that flash thought you ignored and wished you hadn’t, or the voice putting up a red flag telling you repeatedly, someone is not good but you don’t listen and you get taken to the cleaners or get your heart broken. You know…the voice, those inner thoughts that most of us have, but chose not to pursue, because of fear. Fearing that if we speak of it, (the voice), we’ll sound loony. We also fear that if we relay what we hear or think we heard we could be wrong or scarier…we could be right. I know…I’ve been there.
With maturity, I find myself taking bigger chances and listening to the voice more often (or maybe it’s because my outer hearing is not as a good as it use to be) and accessing deeper recesses within, finding what feels comfortable and right for me. As I re-read that it almost sounds selfish, but its not, because I’ve found, what’s comfortable and right for me, benefits others, our earth and I believe this is what I am suppose to do, its what the voice tells me anyhow.
So here goes, usually I do not celebrate New Years and have not done so in years. I don’t like it. It feels like a bunch of unhappy people trying to be happy, only to wake up the next morning with a hang over and feeling unhappier than they were the year before. Unhappiness stemming from the realization the resolutions they made for last year, they did not keep, thus convincing themselves they are failures for not doing what they had set out to do. Hence…grief at the loss of a year of un-achieved goals, and they jump head first with new resolutions, instead of spiritually, in to another year, and goals are re-resoluted and new ones added, consequently badgering themselves for another year of not accomplishing their goals. It’s a vicious unproductive cycle that doesn’t have to be, if they’d only realize they don’t have to wait until one night of the year to resolve and or try something new…any time is a good time, any time that’s right for them. And that sometimes the only thing we need to reach our goals, is to be silent and listen—to the voice. Well you get the drift of what I am saying with out beating you over the head with a noisemaker. I hope anyhow.
Dec 30th, late morning my friend Heidi called to let me know she’d be coming out to see her horse New Years eve and she’d like to bring pizza or something. When she called because I didn’t know what my husband was doing I wasn’t sure what I was doing. He wasn’t home yet. Then my husband got the call. New Years eve, he would leave for Baton Rouge. This didn’t bother me. Its not a big holiday for us and usually I’m in bed before midnight and simply like to wake to the New Year. This year would be no different and with the job market the way it is, as us farmers say, have to make hay while the sun shines.
Later on, the same day, a friend, Kathy, reminded me this was a Blue Moon New Year and I had to celebrate. I wondered, how could I celebrate something I don’t like celebrating. But, this…this was a Blue Moon New Year with a partial eclipse of the moon and if I didn’t celebrate in some way—I knew I would be very disappointed.
It then dawned on me it was as if God had made reservations for me to celebrate. So I searched of what one does on a blue moon celebration in December and then called Heidi with the idea I had for Dec 31st. We were about to celebrate with the blue moon. Or the oak moon, or cold moon, the moon of December, indicating the impending long cold months of winter.
Dec 31st, unfortunately, we could not see the moon. The sky was hazy with wet snows, but we knew it was there so our celebration commenced.
First, we ate pizza and salad, while drinking ginger ale, a feast fit for our small gathering. After we ate we had a nice cup of tea.
Through dinner, we giggled, talked and laughed, then went outside, tromped in the snows readying our prayer area. My two dogs romped around, and the coyotes yipped in the distance. We lit candles for those we were about to pray for, here and gone. We sat on Mother Earth grounding ourselves, burned sage to purify our thoughts, heart and area of prayer. Earlier we had written prayer requests, wishes and convictions on paper, and were holding them in our hands. It was then the world around us went quiet. The breeze stopped, the snows fell silent and straight to the earth. My dogs sat behind us, as we raised our voices to the heavens and read each prayer request aloud so our words could reach our heavenly father. We then lit the papers to let the smoke also carry the words to the heavens and saints.
After our ceremony, we had dessert and coffee, Heidi went home, and I went to bed before midnight. I closed my eyes, and saw soothing shades of purple and white. Relaxed, I fell asleep while thinking of the prayers we’d prayed. I slept better that night than I have in a very long time. Upon waking, I experienced lightness in my chest and a happiness that was almost scary. I was worried and wondered….why do I feel so happy? My psyche did not want to allow this happiness because some how it felt wrong. I called Heidi and she told me she felt the same. I knew then, the way we celebrated was right.
Still, uncertainty and fear shade the margins of this blog, because I fear as when I was a child, sharing the way Heidi and I celebrated, would cause the church or others to chastise me for not celebrating in a holy manner, but then the voice spoke…and this is what I heard.
Kellie…be silent and listen.
When you go to church and light a candle, why do you do that?
I answered, “We light it for those we pray for, to demonstrate special devotion or to make a specific appeal”.
Then I heard,
Don’t you think the Catholic Church does this because they view candle burning as a natural religious expression, not something tied to a specific form of idolatry? “So this was my need to light the candles. Got it.”
When you go to church on Christmas Eve and the priest burns incense… why is that…“
Burning incense reminds us our prayers, like the smoke of incense, ascends towards God and mingles with the prayers of the Saints in heaven?”
Psalm 141 (140), verse 2: "Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight: the lifting up of my hands, as evening sacrifice."
And ins't it often used as a purification ritual.
I pondered, “The sage?”
Yes…
When you go to church and sing, why do you do that?“
So the words of our prayers rise to the heavens? OMG (no pun intended) our prayers spoken aloud is music to your ears.
Yes…
And, where have I told you, your church can be?
I raised my eyebrows and conceded, “Outdoors, with the animals…in my conversations with you. Where ever you and I walk, or the places where my thoughts are clear and my soul is pure…such as in my garden, in the barn, being one with Mother Earth…anywhere you and I are together.”
Yes…
I get it
It’s as I’ve always thought…
It’s not about the religion… its about believing.
Its not important how I pray… its that I do.
Its not where I talk with you that’s important…. its that I do.
Its not about holding hands with someone saying I have faith, its about holding hands and walking with you, believing in something I can’t see…That’s faith.
Its not important how or where I celebrate….but that I celebrate with you, for you and on behalf of you.
So then, how do you know I’ve listened and I’ve answered?
The voice…
Yes