Christmas and the Mystical Bliss of Horses

It is almost Christmas, and yesterday was my birthday, and today I cried reading a birthday email from my sister.  She signed it “Lisa the Pizza, Tony Baloney and the rest of the gang ‘up there’,” meaning my brother, and my mother and father.  A sure arrow to the heart.

“Tony  Baloney” died a year and a half ago, leaving behind three adopted children whom he adored and who adored him, and a loving wife.  My father and mother died 24 and 19 years ago, as impossible as that seems.  I miss them all.  Dad and Mom died this time of year.  And my best friend, Wendi, died shortly after my father.  All of cancer of some sort or the other.  And they all loved horses.

We now live in Millbrook — horse country.  Horse farms dot the countryside.  My father and mother and Wendi would have adored it.  My brother was the only one to make it here, coming with his family whom we put  up at a nearby horse ranch where they all  had the time of their lives.  One of my fondest memories of my brother is from that visit.  We are holding hands as he is relaxing after a day of riding with his kids.  He is drinking and smoking (what eventually killed him) and we are taking in the sunset on the porch of the dude ranch.

I love horses, too.  It is in my blood.  Dad played the horses and my brother worked on several racetracks, including Belmont.  Now I abhor horse-racing,  finding it cruel.  My brother had nightmarish stories to tell of how the horses were drugged and run hurting.  I have seen horses being put down– all for a senseless sport.  Dad and I would quarrel about this if he were still alive.

I remember stroking a horse once at a show nearby and the bliss I felt was close to mystical.  I did not want it to end.  And the happiest I have ever seen my husband was on a moonlit ride we took in a canyon in Arizona on our honeymoon.  Horses bring bliss.  Dad knew it.  Tony knew it, Wendi knew it and to some extent, Mom knew it.  My husband knows it.

Too old to ride now I pet horses when I can and admire them as we drive by horse farms.  I photograph them when the spirit moves me.  And I ache inside this Christmas for the blissful moments of the past.  For my parents who would have adored it here in our little barn.  For my brother, the cowboy, as different from me as night and day, but bonded by a deep love and shared losses.  For my friend, Wendi, with whom I shared a not-to-be replicated link of love.  Merry Christmas, Tony Baloney, Mom, Dad, Wendi!

Now bliss comes from the love I share with my husband.  And from our spiritual connection to nature.  And to our giving, each in our own different ways.  My husband gives love everyday, in a big way, to clients whom nobody else cares about.  He is a clinical social worker for the poor.   I give on a much more modest scale.  A drop in the ocean– through online activism, mostly for animals, and yes, for horses.  And at 63, through my husband’s love,  I feel a new kind of peace, something blossoming inside.  A spiritual stirring that seeks more and more expression.  A stirring inside much akin to the mystical bliss of horses.