The Return of the Ukrainian Blue Horse
Last year, I wrote of finding a blue horse statue outside an Illinois hospice facility after saying final goodbyes to my sister, and the uncanny way that the world can speak to us through symbols and synchronicities.
Today, I share the story of another blue horse—one that I said goodbye to but came back into my life in a surprising way.
In 2010, an energy healing client invited me to her home for lunch. As she bustled around in the kitchen, I looked around her cozy apartment. On a nearby shelf were three distinctive pottery figures painted in bright colors. I recognized them immediately because they had once graced my home. They were painted clay whistles that had been fashioned by my Ukrainian friend Olga Berdnik-Otniakina (facebook.com/olga.berdnic).
Olga was a single mother when she first came to the Women’s Center in Cherkasy, Ukraine. There she was introduced to expressive arts, and with the support of the group, she poured her passion for folklore and fairytales into making clay whistles. The whistles had been a traditional handicraft. Her work, often compared to the wooden figures of Oaxaca, Mexico, is now in international galleries and collections.
I had purchased the three whistles many years earlier. Two were fanciful beasts and the third was a blue horse. I asked my client where she got them. A few days prior to our lunch, she had bought them at a hospice thrift store. She was told that they had just been put on the shelf for sale. Without knowing about my interest in women and horses, and before telling my client of their history, she handed me the blue horse and said, “I think that this is yours.”
Seven years earlier, I had hosted an invitation-only moving sale. My friend Barbara Daniels-Love purchased many items that evening, including the Ukrainian whistles. Barbara, a vibrant Black activist, died in March 2004 when her pickup truck flipped over in dense California tule fog. I later surmised that her family or coworkers must’ve donated them to the hospice thrift store six years after her death.
On the day that she died, before I had learned of Barbara’s death, I painted my nine-sided drum—with a blue horse. I had taken the day off to paint the drum after doing a dialogue process with the Horse Ancestors. Weeks earlier, they had advised me to procure the drum and to create an “Equine Equinox” ceremony (see my blog post on celebrating the equine equinox here). On this March 2004 day, they counseled me to paint my drum and create ritual to welcome it. I meditated about what to paint, and the blue horse and other images from a dream the previous December came to me.
As I painted a red zigzag on the drum, I mused that it looked like a “river of blood.” Searching within for its meaning, it felt appropriate as I was going through my passage into menopause. Little did I know that a few hours earlier, Barbara had just passed over the river of blood and the land of the living to the realm of her African ancestors.
The Blue Horse drum came with me to her memorial, and I used it to celebrate the first Equine Equinox. And the Ukrainian Blue Horse? It later disappeared in my 2012 move to Petaluma. After years of searching, I finally unearthed it several years ago from a box in my garage. It typically sits on my desk now but sometimes resides on my bedroom altar or travels to ceremonies.
For decades, blue horses have filled my dreams and artwork and shamanic visions. I also happen upon them, especially recently. Visting a friend in Colorado this October, I purchased a blue horse t-shirt, and she showed me a book of poetry that sits near her bed, Lucia Tapahonso’s wonderful Blue Horses Rush In. The signature poem tells about the birth of a baby girl who arrives amid a herd of many-colored horses.
I discovered that the Denver International Airport has a controversial blue horse statue nicknamed “Blucifer” (the name combines blue and the fallen angel/demon Lucifer), for its glowing red eyes and because its artist Luis Jiménez was killed in the making of it. Two weeks ago in meditation, a herd of blue horses came to me. Last week a loved one alerted me to “Reach Horse” by watercolor artist Carol Carter.
What do all these blue horses mean? In the Council of the Horses Oracle wisdom deck by Sarah Wallin and Kim McElroy, the Blue Horse lives in between heaven and earth to incubate our human dreams and help manifest them. Each time I ask them their purpose, I receive a different response depending on the current circumstances, so, much as I would like to, I can’t give a definitive answer. I can say, however, that having so many blue horses show up in the last month has nudged me to write this blog post and fueled a new determination to complete my book.
References
Bailey, Cameron. “Blucifer: The Story of Denver Airport’s ‘Blue Mustang’ Sculpture from Luis Jiménez.” Uncover Colorado. Last modified August 13, 2024. Accessed November 16, 2024. https://www.uncovercolorado.com/blucifer-blue-mustang-statue-denver-airport/.
Carter, Carol. Reach Horse. Watercolor. Accessed November 16, 2024. https://www.carol-carter.com/newest-work/reach-horse.
Tapahonso, Luci. Blue Horses Rush in: Poems and Stories. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1998.
Wallin, Sandra, and Kim McElroy. The Council of Horses Oracle: A 40-Card Deck and Guidebook. Illustrated by Kim McElroy. Rochester, VT: Bear and Company, 2024.
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