Dash and The Sun - becoming the banks of the river

Dash and the Sun
Becoming the Banks of the River. 

This is a story about how a healing I did for a horse turned into a healing and teaching for me.

It was windy when I arrived.

The barn roof flapped like a memory, not just noise, but the echo of something terrible. The way the coats flapped in the place he came from. Not the barn itself, but the sound.

The sound was the trigger.
The sound was the ghost.

Dash stood frozen.

I know his story. He came through the slaughter pipeline and he remembers.

So I sat.

Not to fix or to press.
Just to become a frequency of warm love.

I let it move through my body
and out through my hand
like a sunbeam extended.

Held steady in presence,I became a field he could maybe trust.

Then I was guided:

Go outside with your drum.
Do the healing on the land.

So I walked far into the field,
let the rhythm come,
and opened to the unseen.

I don’t remember the whole journey.

Only that I had to help him out of a building. There was fire.  There were horses running in fear.
I was moved to turn toward the sun. And in that turning he was lifted.

Dash.  Radiant and golden.  A luminous horse-being, bathed in light.
Cleansed.
Cleared.
Re-membered.

When I returned to the barn, he was still in activation.

He couldn’t come near me.

And this is a horse who always comes near.

So I sat again.
Stilled again.
Became the warm love again.

And when the signal came,
I stood in the stall next to him with my hand out, soft and open.

He came.

Nibbled.

Then rested his nose on my palm.

And the current moved.
A warm river from my heart
through my hand
into his trembling.

He began to shake.

He released.

Then he touched me nose to nose.

And from his nose to his tail, waves of release rippled through him.  So hard to describe the extraordinariness of what was happening.  

Another horse flanked me.  She stood on the other side like a guardian and an anchor.  Maybe she was giving me support so I could stay in it.  I don’t know.  She was so strong and gentle.

But Dash stayed in the stall even after he was still again. 

Even after the others left.  When he would normally follow.
Even after the healing.

So I said softly,

“Dash, we need to leave the barn now.”   

Like he might need to complete the action. 

He hesitated.
Moved.
Froze.

“Dash, we need to leave the barn now.”

He moved again.

I walked beside him.

And when he stepped out he shook again.

He touched his nose to mine.  Exhaled a long breath.  One of my favorite things. 

And then he went to drink  water.

Tears welled up.

Because then he galloped.  Not wildly, but gently.  Freely.
With his mane flying like light.

He ran toward the sun.  Just like the journey.
He ran toward the herd.
In ran in his freedom.

And I understood that Dash had not only received healing that day.

He had taught me.

He showed me that freedom does not always arrive all at once. Sometimes it comes through trembling. Through hesitation. Through the body remembering what it was once too afraid to feel.

He showed me that courage is not the absence of fear. It is the willingness to stay present as fear moves.

To feel what arises and to let it flow.
To shake.
To howl.
To cry, if needs be. To be still and move only when ready.
To allow what has been held in the waters of the body to begin moving again.

Trauma can fix time and space inside us.
It can trap a sound, a smell, a moment, a terror in the tissues as if it is still happening.

But when the body is met with enough safety, enough steadiness, and enough love, what has been frozen can begin to thaw.

What was trapped in the inner waters can return to the sacred river.

Dash reminded me that my work is not always to force the river to move.

Sometimes my work is to become its’ banks.

To stay steady enough, soft enough, strong enough to allow what is ready to move
to move. Like Whistles standing next to me. 

And I can call on the sun.

I can call on the land.
The drum.
The unseen ones.
The horses.
My higher self.
The great intelligence of life that remembers my wholeness even when I forget.

I can let them show me that no part of me is only the wound.

No part of Dash was only the place he came from.

He was still golden.
Still whole.
Still horse.
Still light.

And I remembered Edgar Cayce’s words that horses are teachers of spirit
because they know because they know what we forget:

even when bridled, the spirit remains free.

Emily RiverStar

Next ½ Day Retreat with Horses May 29 & 31. Now offering private healings with the horses. Reach out if you’re interested!