Dream Horses

The worst thing is to have an answer.  That means something died in you, when you have an answer.   Life doesn’t have an answer, just more questions. The worst thing is to find an answer that will make you right.  That is the worst mind trap.  It is better to not be “right.”  It is better to be quite mistaken.  That is where life is, it is never right.  Life is one big mistake. 

Writing can be a form of humility.  I always thought of it as prideful, attention-seeking, boastful, and it can be that way, but it can also be a way of paying attention to the world, of admitting one’s ignorance and of offering what little one has to something greater than oneself.

When I am riding I am in an older and less tame place and that is my happiness.

To the degree that one is domesticated and civilized, one is trapped within structures and parameters, as surely as any other domesticated beast.  To the degree that one is safe one is also trapped, to the degree one is willing to wager life and comfort, there are choices.

We are not the beings that we think we are.  We think through the body of the brittle star or the sparrow as much as through our own - through the body of the dirt on which we place our feet, the polyester or cotton or silk of the pillow on which we rest our head, the metal of our machines, the air we breathe.  There is no Nature in itself - no Ding an sich - because we are things ourselves.  There is no line that separates us from death.  Everything reverberates.  We exist through that which would destroy us as much as what brings us health.  The idea that our own personal selves matter very much is a silly fixation.  We are part of something much larger than our physical selves, even our social selves; that is the being that we are.

Last night I dreamt of my old grey horse.  I dreamt of his massive, gentle fleshliness, his kindness.  I was trying to strap a saddle to him but it was not fitting right and I kept having to redo it. In my dream he communicated with me, as horses do, with the bend of neck and brush of whisker, with a quality of presence that is as clear as words.  Perhaps clearer.  Love reverberated between us.  I woke up and realized he had died last year.