I’d never heard of a windhorse before.
For three days before my 30th birthday, he was there chewing. I first saw him on a glance out the window. He was in the neighbour’s yard, having been led to a well. He drank. Un caballo blanco. A white horse.
I’d asked aloud where to start writing on this blank page. A new decade.
As I wandered home the next evening he was in front of a construction site. Caballo was ripping up grass, roots and sending all flailing in the air. Fresh red earth sprinkled to the ground with each chew. His teeth chomped hard, a machine, but his lips moved in waves.
He carefully manoeuvred the grasses to their green edge and then nipped. He snipped it off just before the filthy roots.
Occasionally, his back flickered. His tail bouncing up and down as if testing gravity. Making its own waves. Hard muscles and weightless hair, his whole body was flowing. Effortless. Being.
A leather reign held him to a post. Yet, it doesn’t seem to restrain him. He showed no longing. He wasn’t stuck there. There was no pressure on him. He watched me walk up the road wanting nothing.
Calle Los Laudrilles means Bricklayers’ Street.
The never ending construction here is a cause of stress for mi madre segunda (my second mother). The wet clay earth sticks in my hiking boots no matter how hard I clean them. She hates dirt, terra. I’m an earthy person. Lo aprecio. I appreciate everything, especially her patience.
I don’t have enough words even in English to tell her. Instead, I joke:
“El caballo hace la casa,” the horse builds the house.
She smiles and nods. I’m not sure either of us are certain when we understand one another, but kindness communicates.
Besides, I say weird things sometimes… about horses and houses.
Right now, our neighbour’s home is only a foundation with some walls, maybe that’s what matters most. No matter the fires, the passing superficial surface trends, a foundation remains. In my experience, that’s the case. I value my support above all else having watched houses burn.
Muchas gracias. Thank you so much.
I finally see into his eyes. They’re soft, unburdened. He doesn’t resemble a workhorse although there are red scabs on his white back from the harnesses of his past. Caballo’s hoof nudges the earth and his face turns flat towards me. The long white paddle of his nose is saddled with two night skies, his eyes.
Horses and deer have this warmth in their dark, doe-y spheres. It’s like a looking glass: wide, aware, knowing. Here is where galaxies spiral out from. He relaxed back into chewing. I caught my reflection.
Nails, food, gum chewing has always been a distraction for me. A way of avoidance. Yet, for the horse, it was process. He stopped, absorbed me into his awareness, digested and, satisfied, went on to the next. Chewing was simply one part of a much bigger being.
That was it! He seemed satisfied.
Everything was being constructed and stressed over all around him. People driving progress and productivity. But, he was focused on the moment not its progression. Not where it led.
On day three, I sent a photo of the vista from my family’s home to a friend. She’s an animal lover so I told her to “Find the horse.” She couldn’t. I pointed it out to her.
“Mi Caballo Blanco, he’s right there amidst everything.” I realised just how distracting the scene was as I wrote it. Mossy, folding mountains, farm villages spotting up their sides, adobe homes and grids of Spanish roof tiles. Reds, greens, chickens, and laundry hanging on the breeze.
No wonder she didn’t see it. I simply knew it was there.
Over breakfast the next morning, in broken Spanish I asked me madre segunda, “Te gustas el caballo blanco?” She laughed and said she’d never seen it.
The district is muy tranquil, very tranquil, and full of agriculture. Homes have built up around the farmers’ fields in line with the rows of crops. Modern, tetris-block properties have cows, sheep, and chickens for neighbours. I wake everyday without an alarm. Well, with a rural one.
A natural call to wakefulness. “Wake up!” Look where you are! I’ve never been so excited to pull the blinds in the mornings. Would El Cahas, the mountains, be in clouds or crystal clear? What would I see? I never have expectations, they’d always defy me.
How did mi madre segunda not know her neighbour’s white horse? She walked everyday and knew everyone. My familia are muy amable, very friendly people.
That afternoon, while slipping down the exposed clay road to el centro, city centre, I looked for me caballo blanco. Busco. He had left. The next day was my birthday. A blank slate.
That’s when windhorse appeared.
I was reading a blog on the bizarre frutas, fruits, to try in Ecuador. Soy curiosa. I caught the words “Windhorse Cafe” in Cuenca — perhaps because I had horse on the mind. They explained their cafe’s name with a Shambhala Buddhism link:
“In the Shambhala teachings of warriorship, this life force is called windhorse (Tibetan: lungta). Lungta is the unlimited energy of basic goodness, buddha nature, inherent wakefulness.
Basic goodness is the most fundamental secret in any situation—difficult or not—and it’s something that we already possess. We connect with it through meditation practice. Every day we need to contemplate our own inherent wakefulness.
Then we’ll have the confidence to raise our windhorse and ride it through life with joy and delight. This is how we become the kings and queens of our own lives.
…We always have the opportunity to raise it here and now.”
A windhorse is our inherent goodness. It’s not a self improvement project, it’s a re-connection. We don’t have to do anything or go anywhere to find it. We simply need to embody it.
What does our highest self look like? What would it feel like to be in that state? Imagine, saddle up, and ride.
The more we get used to feeling into our highest, free mind, the more we work that neural pathway. It becomes the easier it is to live from it at all times.
We start a new habit and can find our windhorse quickly amidst everything else in our view. It’s right here, in us just alongside our scars and harnesses. All exist together. There’s space for it all. Specs in the night sky, speckles on our horse.
Windhorse is right here in our streets. Even as we construct our lives around it.
Windhorse can be found when we know where to look. Here. Now. Pay attention.
We can walk home blindfolded once we take the path many times. Practice being the windhorse.
Every moment is a blank slate, a blank page, a white horse. Wake up and ride.
The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. – Albert Camus
I was looking for a community for meditation practice. Windhorse Cafe not only hosts sessions but makes a mean breakfast (brunch is sacred).
The day I walked in, was a special session for the whole weekend. An introduction. Another blank page.
I wasn’t going to be able to attend. I lived too far away and would miss the last bus. Turns out, the lovely ex-peace corps owners live a block away. We cabbed home together.
Maybe it was because I was looking for it.
Rose
Lovely lovely lovely
Martijn
Hola Ashley,
Seems that your e-mail doesn’t work, or I can’t read it properly?
Anyway, thanks for the interesting conversations 🙂
Take care and hope to meet again some day in the future.
Cheers,
Martijn