One of my greatest horse teachers, Xas, gave me a gift. She showed me how seeing the perfection in everything liberates my entire experience of life. To go beyond the labels which are tagged on to the outside of things, when attaching ourselves to them keeps us on the outside. Labels are created by our intellectual mind, from fear of losing the way, so by following them we go in circles.
There are many labels in the world of horsemanship, from horses being dangerous or crazy, to suffering from navicular. Of course there is a necessity for description, for names, yet they quickly consume the meaning.
As soon as the name is there, the unique truth behind it is no longer seen. The labels are the names we have made for the visible tips. The ends of things that do express something of the whole, but in themselves can never express everything.
Going Beyond Labels
The following story is about Xas. She is a very wise older mare now, a passive leader in her herd. She was born with neonatal maladjustment syndrome, and although she survived a coma and was a balanced and healthy foal afterwards, she had an underlying weakness which would surface every few years or so, and she would have a health crisis of some kind.
Every time the symptoms were totally different. One time she had a massive foot abscess which became cellulitis, and although she had a fever and couldn’t move for two weeks, she came through. Another time she had a splinter enter her leg and the whole back of her leg came off. That took months to heal.
These episodes deepened my sense of her being somewhat handicapped and needing special care. Her care was natural, using energy work, herbs and homeopathy, not conventional medication, although she did have surgery on her wound. The last time she succumbed to such a crisis was many years ago now, during a hot summer, and she began to lose weight.
Every day she was thinner and we didn’t know what was wrong. Then she began to colic, and she lay down, and it seemed that perhaps we had reached the end of the road. At the time we had a student staying, Naomi Sharp, who had discovered an ability to read the horses thoughts, so Naomi and I went and sat with Xas, and listened.
Listening To Xas
The first thing we felt was a sense of terrible sadness. There was something twisted in her intestines that hadn’t developed properly, and Naomi put her hand on that. Xas communicated some pictures of her as a foal on the straw, and there was the issue of her lack of connection with Tiggy (her mother). She showed her eye mixing in with a human eye – maybe to explain how she had imprinted on to people, or become more human. At some point I felt something about her wanting me not to feel responsible for her anymore – that made more sense later on. We started to get the story of her past life as a whale, young and very strong – she was a pink speckled whale and she was older than a baby, but only slightly, and she was with her mother.
I saw this circle in her hair on her neck and it was clear that she had been killed by a harpoon, but her mother was killed first, and there was a sense of abandonment, and then the anger about what had happened. Then Naomi saw her spirit traveling over the surface of the sea, she said that she was the sea at times in the vision. Then I got a sense of her coming into her horse body, and her head being very sore – it was so sudden after the terrible killing. It was all to do with lack of oxygen, and she had to go back into a coma to escape the reality for a while. But we brought her back, and she showed images of that.
Then this idea that she had to go back to the whales came up – that she had chosen to come into a life close to humans to learn about something, and she had to go back. So Naomi took her back, as a horse, to the sea. She was a bit frightened when she was in with the whales at first, but then she understood the message, and that felt amazing: Every spirit is free, no one is, or ever can be, imprisoned. Once the message was heard, she was so joyful to come back to us, there was her galloping along the beach to Gaby and me. Then she wanted us to know how strong she is, and that we must see that in her now and never think of her as weak or different. Now she is one of the herd, and she runs with them, and she gave pictures of how she wants to be, all muscular and shining and white. The harpoon mark on her neck faded and the twisted bit in her intestine loosened itself out. So she wants the responsibility to change now, she wants to take it for herself and be our mother. She is strong enough… It was incredible.
2010 Healing session with Xas
In the years after Xas was everything she chose to be that day – she became the mother of the herd, and us humans too. We can’t even imagine her being weak now.
She is strong and healthy and everyone looks to her for support. She doesn’t make a fuss about things, but when a leader is needed, she’s there. The perfection was free to manifest itself.
Opening The Space
In Xas’ case we were able to access her true energetic pattern, beyond the symptoms and irrespective of labels. This was because we thought there was nothing else we could do. Xas was going to die, and the desperation of this created a space free from the need to fix, and the need to medicate or to heal. Since then I have been realising that this space is always there. It exists in every single moment, and in every circumstance. The place beyond labels is our authentic existence. To reach it we only need to let go of the labels. To listen.
Often when we care deeply for those in our lives there is a need to fix things. When this is examined without ego, it can be understood that we only wish to fix what we perceive as broken. I thought that Xas was broken, and I had to make sure she could survive the world. In fact the only thing that I needed to remember was that she was not broken, she was perfect. In that situation, her brokenness was an illusion, a physical manifestation of an expectation. As soon as the expectation was gone, she could express her physical strength.
What do you feel when you consider your world, and being able to see its perfection? Perhaps there is doubt that if perfection is what you see, you will not be a supporting or healing influence? The opposite happens, because at last you are engaging with what is. Healing is the expression of perfection. When anything heals, it has become infused with perfection. In seeing the perfection, the healing is already invited, in resonating with the light, it has already arrived.
