a poem

written in response to Mr.O'Donohue and prompt #5 at the aeolian harp.....

the fog

i wrap myself in layers of bravery,

woven of ink and moonlight.

i walk the mists of unknown journeys;

 the wending, pot-holed  footpaths in the 

midnight forest of my soul.

but despite how well i cloak my heart against

   the doubtful night and seeping dark,

still, the cruel tendril'd fingers grope

 and creep

through the cracks and folds

of paper courage

and leave me

shivering, 

small,

  and alone.

the bones of a poem rattle noisily -- like the efforts of a shaman summoning wisdom from beyond the veil.

i find myself  wanting to retreat further into the depths of my soul-cave...craving the solace of a flickering fire and the wind howling through cracks in the granite.

i'm too long on the Outside.

i'm too long threading a needle to mend a friendship in tatters....one that doesn't want mending after all.

but there are appointments to keep and words yet to weave.  the whisper of truth grows louder and i feel the shift of the earth beneath my feet as a different trail shimmers on the horizon.

the bones rattle louder and i keep walking.

memory

in the fog of recent disconnect i have tiny flashbacks...memories of times gone by- they're filtering in to remind me of who i've been and therefore who i am.

i remember my beloved red horse - his real name was Muntej but i called him Monty...as in, The Full -- he was just naughty like that. he would roar out of the barn rearing and we'd careen our way to the racetrack amid my laughter and other people's shaking heads. when we were down in Florida at the training center, a senior's group had come to watch the horses train - we were jogging around past the grandstand and when he saw all the white-haired old ladies he stopped dead and reared straight up, pawing the air in fine dramatic style. i berated him, half-heartedly, and off we went again. the ladies were delightedly horrified. he went on to win multiple stake races and was champion turf male for that year. a year or so later he broke his foreleg while out playing in the round pen - monkeying about, as always. it was better that way -- he wasn't meant to get old and weary.

and then there was Poetically who would buck her way around the track, squealing with glee, until it was time to gallop. she was champion 2-year-old filly that year and was never in doubt of how special she was.

and so many more - dozens of them - Caught Out, Sea Run, Forest Princess, Cassia, Galadriel,Taos... not all of them superstars and some of them not even very nice, but all of them had a part in rebuilding a young girl's battered soul.

so Rose  was right - it is hard to imagine myself being happy trundling around a school working on where my elbows ought to be and if my heels are down far enough. and Sarah is right too -- there's a someWhen where i'm still riding those fast horses. so perhaps i ought to be able to be happy with a quiet life.

but i'm not. i know now  that my heart would be happiest on some tangle-maned creature trekking through the woods; maybe an occasional, clandestine gallop across a fallow field. and so i'll  wait for that, because i've come to realize what it is that binds my soul to them. and it isn't necessarily having  them do what i want in a precise and orderly fashion - it's them allowing me to touch their soul and feel their joy of being alive. perhaps eventually i'll find a retired racehorse and we can meander into our dotage together.

all that aside, i do fancy learning to joust. ;)

on finding Truth

i'm in the habit of consulting the cards, in times of ponderence {new word} -- i tend to draw anyway when the moon is full as well as dark -- always on the dark moon....it's my birth moon and when i'm at my deepest submersion.  anyhoo -- whatever your woo, sometimes you just want a bit of clarification, right? i rarely use my tarot deck anymore, finding more juice in either one of my meditation/oracle decks. but that's just back-story...

last night, one of the cards that came to me was concerning Truth -- and in this particular instance, i've come to learn that it concerned one of my own, rather than that of another.

without going into the long and convoluted story, it seems that a particular chapter of my life may be over. or at least on indefinite hold. and that's rather sad -- as it's not something i ever would have expected. i spent years living and breathing horses -- and to think that the desire to ride would ever be usurped would have been utterly laughable. but faced with a choice -- it seems my heart lies in other places now. oh, i will still reap the healing benefits of being around them...Savannah has taken up the reins now {egads, a frightful pun and i would have avoided it, really...} and perhaps that's part of my truth...that it's her turn now.

you see, given the choice of spending available income on riding or my current indulgences of books and art supplies - my heart has chosen art. perhaps it's because art enriches my life daily, whereas the riding would be once-weekly or so; perhaps it's because riding a quiet horse isn't the same as riding a racehorse -- and all those years of fast horses has spoiled me for the finer points of instruction, no matter how high the quality and deep the challenge. or perhaps it's more fiscal than that and, after having Saturn kick my ass around the universe all last year, my sense of financial responsibility has reached all new levels.

but what this has really done for me, is wake me up to the reality that it's time to get on with things; that the ideas i've had simmering under the surface are ready to emerge. or rather, i'm ready to commit to them. i've realized what i want and have the skeleton of a plan to get exactly that.

so i wasn't wrong -- that returning to my horsey roots was the missing piece of the puzzle. although certainly not in a way that i expected.

more importantly, i've been shown a way home and it's time to start walking.

full circle

my hands still smell faintly of the small chestnut pony. i didn't try to wash them too much, just so that i can breathe deeply of that familiar scent for a while longer.

i was in a foul mood before we left for Savannah's lesson -- but an hour or so just being in the barn, and i come home happy and calm and clear of mind.

more and more it feels like riding again is the next step...the thing i need to do to propel everything else forward. which is really difficult to explain, it's just something i'm beginning to Know on a cellular level.

i gave up riding when i was pregnant with Savannah and it was a choice made with a full heart. i also knew, being as i am, that it was going to be for the long haul. my soul is woven from strands of a wild pony's tail, i knew i couldn't do either thing in half-measures - Motherhood, or life with horses.  and so i walked away.

a few trips up and down the Spiral and i feel like it's time to revisit all that...that perhaps it isn't a matter of half-measures; perhaps, like one's love for subsequent children, the heart expands.

i bought myself a pair of secondhand boots and will dig my helmet out of the trunk where it was stuffed all those years ago.  and next Monday, we'll see how things go.