September 11, 2004goodbye horses [edification]beneath the stillness of the night, when not a sound dares break the hushed silence, they timorously creep into the mind. fragile. flittering. wraithly forms often more real than reality itself. seeking out audience from the deepest abyss in the soul. polite enough to bring gifts. one e-ticket for front row seats on a vista of visions. nonsensical. terrifying. fantastic. and sometimes..... just sometimes, hauntingly beautiful.
wake up!
there's a lump caught somewhere closer to mouth than throat yet it's threatening to find a cascading exit out the eyes. it's not alone. oh no. somewhere nearby is a lingering nostalgia for something infuriatingly near yet an eternity away. yet.... behind all that.... it may take a moment or five to find... but there is a distinct feeling that everything just seen was, in fact real. real, in that beyond the tangible truth of ticking time in which life became one moment of timeless infinity that could never be defined in any dialect sort of real.
it's a secret.
nothing more than a chance to glimpse beyond. enough of a tidbit to hint perhaps this phantasmic cocktail of everyday life scrolling chaotically through the unconscious should be taken seriously. at least a little bit. of course there are the exotic ingredients of fanciful aspirations that disqualify such things from even an aspiring vision contest. unless one gets lucky.....
you told me, i've seen it all before - i've been there. i've seen my hopes and dreams a-lying on the groundi've been dreaming about horses lately.i've seen the sky, just begin to fallno surprise. it's been a one year, one month, and one day since i put bentley down. it's been five years to the day since my dad passed away. combined with the stress over our living situation and my car - it doesn't take freud to figure out what i'm constantly dealing with on some level. my plate is very full, thank you. easy enough what comes to front in some sort of cathartic emotional vomiting is the situation i have, without argument, the least amount of closure with. i was totally fucking traumatized by bentley's accident and am in no way near a healthy point of grieving.it's been building for the last year, reached a peak last month, and has been leveling out in waves since. logical enough to focus on the worst problem for a little self-awareness workshop that makes me deal with undesirable thoughts and feelings before a, theoretical, royal flush of the system. embrace it. get it out. get rid of it. so on.
if all else fails, the mind'll kick in with some self-preservation measures of its own. right?
you say "all things pass, into the night"
and i say "oh no sir, i must say you're wrong, i must disagree, oh no sir, i must say you're wrong."
wont you listen to me.
the people of ancient india saw the cosmos within the configuration of the horse.the dawn is the head of the horse and the sun its eye. the wind is its breath and fire its open mouth. its body is the year. heaven is its back and space its belly. the earth is its underbelly. the cardinal directions are its flanks and its ribs are the intermediate ones. its limbs are the seasons and the months, its joints. its hooves are the days and nights. the stars are its bones, and the clouds, its flesh. the sand is the food in its stomach and the rivers its entrails. the mountains are its liver and lungs, and the herbs and trees its hair. the rising sun is its chest and the setting sun its rump. the lightning is its jaw, and the thunder, the shivering of its hide. rain is its sweat and its voice - it's creative word.
horses stand for amplified energy. sexual drives. change. they signify the racing wind as much as ocean tide's roiling foam. horses act as a bridge between the physical and metaphysical world.
they are, in essence, liberty. unfettered by terrestrial weights, welcomed as divine servants.
herds roamed freely across the lands. domestication brought freedom to nomadic civilizations previously blind to the potentials awakened with each new journey. controlling freedom as a steed and draft animal quite literally symbolized the ability to harness the wild energy to apply in ways socially beneficial. the implication is that the mind is controllable - we are capable of turning our instincts, passions, impatience, judgements and criticisms into wise discernment. the abstract has become concrete.
we can become so much more than human.
horses were the brute force moving an army to war, trained to fight alongside their masters in battle after bearing their burdens in transport. warrior spirits defending riders for safe journey across the physical and spiritual worlds... and not once does their loyal faith waver. they will jump fences higher than those that keep them in their pastures. they will plunge into water not knowing how deep it will be, or what hides beneath the surface to shatter their legs. they will struggle to pull impossibly heavy loads until the weight moves or exhaustion claims their stamina. they will run until their hearts explode.
even the shackles of mortality are not strong enough to diminish desire's hope.
some eastern philosophies represent the five senses through the horse, associating the things that keep us tied to the physical/material plane of existance. transcending the limitations of these senses acheives a higher level of consciousness. your basic enlightenment. there's a form of closure in giving up the emotional ties inflicted by loss or conflict. the horses are left behind.
goodbye horses, i'm flying over you
so maybe it's not a self-inflicted wound the way i keep reminding myself of horses. i cut a full eight inches off my hair last week. shortest its been in years. damned liberating. got rid of all the old growth, split ends, weight, and that damned hitchy symbolic association of what was now at the tips is what was growing during the time of greatest conflict. given the timing, on top of everything, i'm willing to accept certain evidence supporting the theory that i am, at least in part, finally at a point to... well... leave the horses behind in just about every sense of the phrase.let us go, then, you and i, where the evening is spread out against the sky. to realms where the mind breaks free of mortal bonds. imagine foaming waves crashing on immaculate shores, lightning dancing across the sky, a beacon brighter than the fullest moon showering the panoramic view in resplendent glory. all life began in this dream sea. untouched by grounding consciousness. a vast road stretches forth, merging into infinity, amassing one direct path towards the potential of everything it is we don't understand. most dreams are said to base on repressed desires and fears. and then there's that dream that comes along and defies all explanation.
one step - tentative - down the horizon's road. then two. maybe a few more before a sudden launch propelling the unwary towards whatever waits just beyond sight. the problem is - it's impossible to plan for. bring along something to take notes? please. a vision there. a glimpse here. a random course of events unfolding in the most irregular process complete with pain, anger, joy, ecstacy..... they're the subtle footsteps of dreamsound echoing half-forgotten down the mind's corridor. a sadness intense enough to resemble joy.
for if only...
it's the sound of silence. a gossamer vision dispersing just before capturing grasp. yup, just dreams. barreling through like torrents of light invading untouched voids in the mind. blindsiding. a breifly carefree and bouyant float offered on wings of bliss. and then! oh... how it draws. pulling with a force both awesome and tender, snatching at the very core of reality and revealing those raw things kept inside.it's near. so fucking near. can reach out. touch it! but then the spell breaks. wake up a total stranger in the mirror. then there's nothing to do but wait until the day comes to return and claim your soul.
but that, they say, is another story.
mood music: q lazarus "goodbye horses"Posted by Wolf at September 11, 2004 09:42 AM
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