Category: Blog

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.

Most Tuesday mornings find me pulling on my barn boots and threadbare jeans for “Tuesdays with Primo.” In my left back pocket is a scrap from some flannel pajamas that I use to wipe his face. I did not intend to fall in love with another senior horse but I did. Primo lives eight minutes from my urban bungalow down a country lane.

Four years ago, I overheard a woman mention that she was taking care of her friend’s horse. The woman was quite ill and her mare needed attention. It seemed like an ideal situation because I wanted a horse in my life. I offered to walk and groom the mare, but after our first meeting, Freddy, the woman taking care of her friend’s horse, said that it wasn’t a good match. She did, however, see or intuited a connection between Primo and me that I didn’t see.

Primo was about twenty six we met. I was much more interested in hanging out with a younger horse. My heart had broken when Guiness died a few years before and I was reluctant to make another deep emotional attachment to a senior horse. For the longest time, Freddy told me that Primo really liked me. I had a hard time believing her, especially because he rarely did what I asked of him.

But I fell in love anyway.

Tuesday, the week before Valentine’s Day, I walked into the pasture filled with lush green grass. Primo knew I was there but continued eating. Without putting his halter on, I nudged him to walk with me toward the gate. Unrestrained, he followed me like a puppy. Each time it feels like a certified miracle. When I first worked with him, he would wander away when I came toward him with the halter. I would chase him all around the field until he gave up on the game. I never blamed him, though sometimes I got frustrated. I blamed my own inadequate horsemanship skills. (It would be several years before I learned that he evaded Freddy, too, unless she lured him with a small carrot.) The only way to get him through the gate was haltered, and getting him to allow the halter was difficult.

Every small act four years ago was hard; finding a halter that fit Primo among the jumble of different sizes, figuring out how to latch the gate, and remembering that the buckle on the halter goes in my left hand. Through it all we learned to love and trust each other. I’ve learned to drop into Horse Time. I relax now as I walk out to the field and let Primo take some transition time before coming with me.

I take my time as I groom Primo before our walk. Long bundles of brown horse hair fall off as I brush him. As I touched him, an image came. I am riding him. I feel the visceral feeling of being held and supported by Primo. We haven’t ridden for at least two years because of his age, though now a young boy rides him every week.

Primo almost died two years ago, and every time I see him, I treasure our time together. I notice details about him as if to etch him more fully into my very being. A bit of his mane lies on his left side like an angel’s wing. His rear legs have white socks. His tail almost reaches the ground. His stiff right hind leg is getting harder for him to lift up when I clean his hoof. Like his forebears, this Peruvian Paso is known for his steady gait, but sometimes I can hear his right hind hoof slipping and I brace myself for his inevitable last day. Tears appear as I allow myself to feel my anticipatory grief, quickly drying again as I drink in my gratitude that we are both here now.

Safe Harbor
Tuesday, we walked calmly past the two dogs behind the neighbor’s fence. They bark at us every week as we pass. Schooner is grey, black and mottled. He used to bark at us only half-heartedly until a few months ago when the younger all-black dog joined him. Now, the two bark at us hysterically each week. Schooner barks for the last time under his favorite spot under the pyracantha bushes laden with orange berries. Dogs may be man’s best friend but historically they were not so to the horse. The wolf ancestors of Schooner and the young black dog are natural predators of horses. At first, we both startled at this weekly cacophony, but Primo looked to me for cues. He learned that I was a safe harbor. We take the barking dogs in stride now. Primo has been my safe harbor, too. I remember a moment of terror when one of Freddy’s mares, Rosebud, charged us both at a full gallop as we were coming through the gate from one of the fields. Primo stood in Rosebud’s way and shielded me from getting mowed down at the open gate.

Down the lane, but before the five red mail boxes, I let Primo stop for a bite of grass at our usual spot. I saw a small white rabbit munch something nearby. Overhead was a lone  mourning dove. Later I heard the familiar trill of red winged blackbirds. Surprisingly, Primo wasn’t very interested in the grass at the side of the lane. Later when we reached his home, he spent a few minutes lingering with me before joining the other horses out on the field.

Years ago, when I hung out with Guiness, Alyssa Aubrey said that I needed to “be more interesting than grass” to get the attention of a horse. Today, I can say that when given the choice between a field full of new grass, and spending time with me, Primo found me more interesting than grass.