the prayer of horses: a true story

8/3/2019 The Prayer of Horses: A True Story

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The Prayer of Horses: A True Story

Paul Hampton Crockett http://growingintothemystery.net/

A BIRD perched that day within the thick green canopy of the great old treesdraped in Spanish moss, peering downward, might have witnessed an unusualgathering far below. All of the horses were there, as usual, but today they weresilent and still, and even, quite extraordinarily, appeared to be united in acommon focus. They stood casually circling a tall blonde woman wearing blue

jeans and a button-down long-sleeve shirt, untucked and cuffs folded up. Hername was Debra, though that word was of small significance to the animals because they knew well her soul.

Debra, listening.

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http://growingintothemystery.net/

http://growingintothemystery.net/



In the stillness, she stepped easily from one horse to the next, at her own pace,rubbing their sides, tousling their manes, looking into their eyes.

Any such hypothetical bird might have taken wing hearing only silence below, buta “meeting” of sorts was transpiring. It might have been the notable heat that day,

or the woman’s admittedly fragile state of mind, but that afternoon they communicated as easily as if by thought, and nothing about the experienceseemed remarkable to her, at all. Robert Frost wrote in a poem “Home is theplace where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in,” and in that very sense she was now home, standing there barefoot on the green grass with noroof overhead. She was home because she was surrounded by the only ones whohad been able to really reach her, in her hour of greatest need. They had not only reached but held her here, as a matter of faith placing themselves between herand the gaping oblivion she saw awaiting, in their devotion and tender vigilanceexclaiming “Not on our watch!”

All paintings by Marc Chagall

Besides: if she imagined that the horses, as much or more than she, needed inthat moment to thus be given voice and be heard, she would have been entirely correct. And who was she to get in the way?

“WE love you as one of our own,” they said to the woman named Debra. Her eyes

watered with tears as she reflexively crossed her forearms, placing both handsgently upon her chest as she turned to slowly drink it all in. She loved them right back, almost as much as the children she lived for, yet quite naturally in acompletely different way. A few years before, she had been trapped for too long within the carefully spun web of an utterly toxic relationship, helpless and frozen.Precisely as per the spider’s plan, she’d become poisoned to the extent that shecould not care if she lived or died, nor for that matter even ascertain withcomplete certainty whether she was still among the living. “I must be,” she

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recalled thinking to herself in one of the long, dark spells that might have beenday or night, or some awful gray sequence of both, “otherwise it couldn’t possibly hurt so much.”

YET against all odds she had been guided back to the horses that had once meantso much to her, and in that most critical hour they had held her fast and savedher. Today, independently and joined in council, they affirmed her place withintheir hearts. Horses can be trusted well, for they have never learned to lie, and inany event find great difficulty in even grasping the concept.

And it may be just as well that they communicate in a language more sublime by far than any cobbled together of gross, clumsy words, for few humans indeed aregifted with the depth of heart to comprehend their message. They speak a subtleand various tongue partaking of the physical, the clear whinny or snort given voice only the smallest part of it, and know subtle nuances of the warmth orhostility of touch. Theirs is an ancient kinetic wisdom that we can only imagine.They know all too well what it is to be wholly misunderstood, eveninvisible, and with none to hear their cry.

They all dream of running free, when at last given a chance to close their weary eyes and sleep. Their experience has taught them struggle, patience, and

immeasurable compassion. When Debra had first come back to them, utterly broken of heart and spirit and hanging by only thinnest thread, it seemed to heras if they had somehow known she was coming that day, and stood gathered and waiting. They had come right to her. Horses “know what they know,” andunderstood immediately that their friend’s heart was indeed close to shatteringcompletely. Far too close. It can be a truly terrible thing to see, sometimes, forthey feel much. And they loved her.

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Though in that moment it seemed that their hearts might burst for sorrow, they would not turn away. Surrounding her as if in embrace, as horses will sometimesdo, they quietly opened wide in spirit to receive her into the fold of their ancientcommunion. That was all they had to offer, and also their very best, and it was

given freely and without hesitation. They knew not exactly how to proceed or where to “go,” for that was not particularly how they thought, anyway, and shestood among them very nearly beyond even their empathic reach. Yet they lovedher, and knew that sometimes caring and being there is the best gift that can beoffered.

The reasons or facts of the situation do not matter. What Debra needed above allelse was hope. Yet what she most needed eluded her, and in the light of coldreason she found only dead ends, cold and hard. In time, even the fading notionof that imagined refuge itself mocked her without mercy. She had given up. Almost! Yet she had somehow known to come back to the horses…

Maybe she sensed it and maybe not, but these fine animals had made a solemnpromise to That Most Sacred to love and to protect her, always. (Because they arehonorable without fail, and absolutely resolute once a promise has been made,they are frequently misunderstood as aloof and unreachable, or even uncaring

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and disinclined to promise, at all. Yet here the horses are being badly misunderstood: they are in truth exercising their “horse wisdom,” and giving duerespect to the inviolable weight and honor of a commitment once made.)

In time Debra came to understand that she had most certainly been blessed, even

in that very darkest hour in which salvation had been least expected, forsomething in her heart assured her that their promise was good, and forever.

And so it was. Though past has surely folded gently into the now, the startingpoint of all becoming and the birthing place of creation and all potential, still yetthe promise remains. (The notion of time itself seems in the horses’ manner of thinking both abstract and completely useless, for they remain attuned to andremain grounded in only that which is real.) Even now they await the promisedcoming of her great new day, as they have always, and will so abide for as long asit might take. Happily, and with pride immeasurable.

WHAT Debra failed to see almost completely, then or now, was the gift she had been to them. Because of her: the constancy and depth of her shimmering soul,the gentleness of her touch and whisper, the purity of her heartbreak, they knew they were not alone, and greatly comforted. They knew that she longed forfreedom at last, always (as did they), and that she had “done her time” in the dark valley of the utterly solitary, and had stumbled along its twisting turns as best shecould for what seemed a woeful eternity, accompanied only by despair.

They had themselves trodden before her the sere terrain of that bleak place withno horizons to be seen in any direction, and knew it all too well. Her arrival at lastthus bespoke valediction, and even hope! All shadows suddenly fled for them,though Debra in her brokenness could not then even begin to understand this. Itseemed that the brilliant Light that she carried within, earned so dearly, lay behind her, and thus outside her field of vision. Though a hunger for that grandelusive light filled her very being, despite her best efforts all she could make out before her were shadows, long, deep, and grim. She could not know that the very

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darkness of the convincing shadows bespoke a hidden promise, of the great and brilliant Light that followed wherever she went, and that was their source.

BECAUSE of Debra, everything was different . They saw no fences. Only theclouds floating idly past in the ever-open sky above, the good green grass underhoof, and a world transformed because someone in it understood them. They have intoned always ancient horse prayers on her behalf, their hearts full andlifted upward by the very idea of her.

“Keep your dreams alive,” they offered in encouragement, for they had notforgotten the ancient wisdom that any true miracle of healing is never just once.

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“Never fear,” they promised, “we shall await you. And not just once. Always.Until the end of time, if necessary, for such is our pleasure.”

“You are ours,” they breathed in gratitude before turning away to graze in somegolden grassy field no man has ever seen (and yet closer than one’s heart). “And

so we are blessed. We love you, because you first loved us.”

“You are now and always have been, a gift.”

For Debra With Love Oct. 5 2011

DEBRA ATWELL lives among the horses she loves at her Ashwood Grove Farms Ranch,in Vero Beach, FL. Ashwood Grove is a horse ranch, in every sense, and yet somethingmuch more. Among other things, Debra has initiated a girls’ riding group called

Pologirls, and been much gratified to see the change for the happier in some of the girls,perhaps something to do with hope. She has also done her level best to provide a safe andrespectful home for the older and “broken-down” horses no one else wants, allowing

them to live out their final days in the dignity of comfortable surroundings, to be loved,and to continue teaching such lessons as they may be able. She is doing some truly extraordinary work: http://www.ashwoodgrovepolo.com/

She also has available a truly wonderful vacation-rental property right on the beach, viewable at http://www.vrbo.com/311687

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http://www.ashwoodgrovepolo.com/

http://www.vrbo.com/311687

http://www.ashwoodgrovepolo.com/

http://www.vrbo.com/311687

the prayer of horses: a true story

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