How would it feel to realise that there is only one purpose here. How much would we resist that notion, let alone the purpose itself? Yet it could liberate everything. It could undo all of the problems we believe we have and unlock the cages we have made. 

For me, in this life now, the comfort zone which allowed the old egoic patterns to carry on without much challenge is being replaced with challenge after challenge.

One crossroad after another arrives, and the road I know is right seems just as impossible every time, almost ridiculous, but ultimately it is the only possible way. To forgive, and let go, to forgive and allow, to forgive and accept.

The Meaninglessness

Recently my motivation for creating something on social media has been fading away. There seems to be no clear path of action in terms of a business plan. Even my deeply held and cherished dreams with the horses, with Quaramba, seem meaningless. It feels as if every drop of value is being squeezed out of being here on the earth. Perhaps the process of supporting Gabrielle, my sister, in her recuperation has required every particle of energy available. But it doesn’t feel as one dimensional as that however. We are all recuperating here on earth. The paths may appear different, but we are all on the same road, going back inside ourselves towards the truth.

Even my engagement sessions with the horses have been squeezed out recently, and I feel apart from the horses… separated. This is not only physical, it is part of the same process that has been happening with everything else. An evaporation, a petering out of everything that mattered so deeply, every resource, every spiritual comfort, that seemed to be my purpose here. 

Experiencing Resistance

On Sunday we were finally able to go out and begin the new line of fencing that would allow the horses into the hay field for a brief period of winter grazing. Literally the moment we were opening the gate to drive down, a whole band of hunters appeared, fanning out over the hay field itself. They were going to be there for a couple of hours, hoping for their hounds to flush wild boar out of the woods. Our fence project was thus aborted, and that night the horses were so upset by the disturbance that they refused to enter the barn for hay. 

I decided that I could go in there and meditate and help to release the volatile energy. Totti followed me in, and then she panicked and bolted forward, followed so closely by Quaramba that I was unable to get out the way and ended up flattened on the barn floor.

It didn’t feel good to have been invisible to her, and it did trigger my pain body!

Going Within

I picked myself up and Snow kitty came down with me and we sat together on the hay bale and tuned into the trauma. I did have the feeling that Quaramba had been expressing her depth of anxiety about the hunting by squashing me like that.

Snow and I were going into the still point and feeling our way through the eye of the needle. It felt beautiful and rooted and safe, and the horses began creeping carefully into the barn.

At one point Totti panicked again and they all ran out wildly, and I felt a kind of wave of desperation, that everything we have done together has been so meaningless.

Letting Go

That was when I started to understand the true message from this situation. I don’t know how it came to me, maybe from that still point place, from Snow kitty or the horses themselves. The horses had gone off to investigate the summer barn at the other side of the farm. I realised that the world does not revolve around me. Why do I need to solve the trauma from the hunters for the horses? Why do I need to be the healer, or the fixer, or the influencer? And of course it is the same message coming through from my apathy over social media… always trying to have something to say, to identify with an opinion or represent something.

It came to me that this is not my purpose here. But what is?

The Only Purpose

I went into the house at this point and opened up A Course In Miracles, it is always so directly illuminating when things are not quite clear yet and sure enough the passage where I happened to land went straight to the heart of my question. These two paragraphs are perhaps the most illuminating, and look at the title itself!  

57 The real world is the state of mind in which the only purpose of the world is seen to be forgiveness. Fear is not its goal, and the escape from guilt becomes its aim. The value of forgiveness is perceived and takes the place of idols which are sought no longer, for their “gifts” are not held dear. No rules are idly set, and no demands are made of anyone or anything to twist and fit into the dream of fear. Instead, there is a wish to understand all things created as they really are. And it is recognized that all things must be first forgiven, and then understood.

A Course In Miracles, CHAPTER 30, The New Beginning, VI. The Only Purpose

65 An ancient hate is passing from the world. And with it goes all hatred and all fear. Look back no longer, for what lies ahead is all you ever wanted in your hearts. Give up the world! But not to sacrifice. You never wanted it. What happiness have you sought here that did not bring you pain? What moment of content has not been bought at fearful price in coins of suffering? Joy has no cost. It is your sacred right, and what you pay for is not happiness. Be speeded on your way by honesty, and let not your experiences here deceive in retrospect. They were not free from bitter cost and joyless consequence.

A Course In Miracles, CHAPTER 30, The New Beginning, VI. The Only Purpose

The Same Lesson

So it is truly the same lesson every time, wrapped up in a different coloured paper. Give up the world, which is the search for idols. Whether the idol is yourself, or your dream, or your beliefs. There is no real value in their validation. All of these dead ends I am encountering are reflections of a readiness to acknowledge this and let go.

Years of hard work with the horses, building a website, sharing on social media, exploring and developing the energetic connection: in a sense it has all come to nothing. And yet, I have been following the spiral around again and again to reach this one, indisputable threshold.

To see the truth, to live the truth, is to forgive and un-see everything that appears to be in this world. That we are separate bodies, that our ego exists, that we ever mean harm, that anyone is a failure, that any unconscious action is real, or damaging. 

Beginning Anew

This morning the herd was settled and calm in the barn again. Yesterday’s trauma had been processed and forgotten. Perhaps the trauma itself was a necessary re-balancing in their lives where there is so little natural pressure.

And there was another shift… a sense from Quaramba – and in myself –  that we are ready for the next stage of our partnership.

A shift in perspective, a widening, as if we were no longer deep in the woods and unable to see, but that this cage, this particular cage, of judgment? expectations? minding? had been replaced by a space of forgiveness, liberation and not-minding.  This manifested itself in a feeling of greater physicality. She seemed deeper inside her body and more accessible. Fully here, no doubt reflecting my own clearer physical embodiment. At this point it feels unsophisticated and unshaped, and that feels right. An authentic beginning.