Delicious grass, delicious life

20180817_105926Though I’ve been somewhat limited in what I can do the last seven or eight months, there’s still been plenty of horse time. Galahad and I have continued our adventures in relationship-building, and it’s been wonderful. I have so much to un-learn, including how I interpret his behavior. I’m really beginning to understand that everything he does when we’re together is a way of trying to communicate with me. He’s not “bad,” “difficult,” or “stubborn.” Those are just interpretations I’ve put on him. He just has a good sense of himself and a great and patient willingness to keep trying to communicate until I finally “get” it.

I’m always humbled by his patience. But something happened the other day that really shocked me.

We had done a little bit of work in the small indoor arena, then we went for a walk down the lane past where Midnight used to live. I let him graze there while I just hung out enjoying the beautiful day. We’ve had a stretch of cooler weather, and that morning it was in the mid-70s. The grass was damp and there was a bit of a breeze blowing from behind me toward my horse, keeping things especially pleasant. It was pretty amazing for mid-August in Missouri!

I wasn’t thinking about anything much at all, but I gradually became aware that the grasses smelled unusually strong and sweet. I watched as Galahad picked through them to find the tastiest ones, and I could tell them apart by their fragrance. At first I didn’t think much about it, but just wondered why I hadn’t noticed this before. It just seemed so natural. Of course, grass smells wonderful after it’s mowed, but this grass hadn’t been mowed for at least a month. Neither had the adjoining pasture. And the wind was coming from behind me. It did seem a little strange to find myself salivating at the fragrance from the grass that Galahad was most interested in. It smelled kind of like it does in a pastry shop when they’re baking croissants or cookies.

I put him back in his pasture after an hour or so, and headed home in a state of contemplation. As I was driving up the road out of the valley where the ranch is located, I looked at the beautiful trees and foliage and asked God how She/He made things so incredibly beautiful. The realization came that we—Nature and humans—are made for each other, so of course we see it as beautiful when we really look.

The Knowing went on to say that in fact, we are one and the same, we and Nature, and we humans have as much beauty inside us as the trees, rocks, rivers, and animals. We only need to realize that, and begin to see that beauty in each and every one of ourselves—human, animal, plant, mineral…. Then the whole world changes. I had the sudden awareness of that Oneness—it was much like the worldview in the movie “Avatar.” It was a strange, wonderful, and fleeting experience. Wow….

It was only then that I realized what had happened between me and Galahad that morning: My gracious horse had shared his world and his senses with me, and I had, for that brief time, experienced Nature as humans almost never do any longer.

But I believe that it’s our birthright, as children of Nature, as part of Nature, to share experiences with others in this way. This is how our ancestral hunters knew the habits of the Swimmers and the Four-leggeds who were willing to feed us with their bodies; it’s how our ancestral gatherers and healers knew which plants could feed us or heal our illnesses and wounds. We in these days are so isolated and cut off from Nature that most of us no longer even understand that these kinds of experiences are possible. But they are possible, and I believe they are becoming more common.

Let’s pray that enough of us realize our kinship before it’s too late.

 

Cross-posted on The Alchemical Horse.

 

9 thoughts on “Delicious grass, delicious life

  1. archaeotrauma says:

    I was thinking just yesterday about us humans, how though it’s our instinct to adapt our environment to our needs (which in essence is what all human technologies are), we also need to adapt ourselves to our environment, to Nature. These two things we’ve always done, I think, as one of earth’s species, but I sense we’ve lost our balance. We easily forget that Nature doesn’t really revolve around us but rather it’s more a case that we’re intrinsically interconnected with all the other elements of Nature, or, to borrow from early medieval art, we’re interlaced. Thank you for your thoughts, Kay.

    • Thanks, Chris. We are changing the world, when we do our personal work. I know that to be true. Courage: I pray for it every day. This is not an easy world, nor are ours the easy paths, but SO worth it. Nice to have companions on the journey, eh?

      • archaeotrauma says:

        Indeed, yes. 😊

      • Mai says:

        “We are changing the world, when we do our personal work.”
        So very true, I agree 100%. It’s far from easy though… But then again: who promised us that life would be easy? Perhaps it’s high time to do away with the idea that ‘things should be easy, and if not, we just run away from them as fast as we can’. It’s time to look them in the eye, all of them. They’re all just a mirror, so there’s no escaping them anyway.

  2. Freedom Farm & Stables llc says:

    Beautiful Kay ❤️ Love you, take care

    >

  3. Mai says:

    Oh, how beautiful to read this while enjoying my breakfast, Kay…
    I can only say “YESSS!!!” to everything you wrote <3.

  4. Mai says:

    “We are changing the world, when we do our personal work.”
    So very true, I agree 100%. It’s far from easy though… But then again: who promised us that life would be easy? Perhaps it’s high time to do away with the idea that ‘things should be easy, and if not, we just run away from them as fast as we can’. It’s time to look them in the eye, all of them. They’re all just a mirror, so there’s no escaping them anyway.

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