Whole in Their Power, The Space of the Creative Moment

Climbing the steep hill

Hoofbeats of mare and foal, Spring

Arrives suddenly

As philosopher-in-residence at a wild horse sanctuary, I experienced the great joy of welcoming new foals into the world. One came with Valentine’s Day, and another exactly 4 weeks later, at the cusp of Spring. Winter blew his frosty winds that day as I walked up one of the hills of the sanctuary—feeling an inexplicable draw to that particular hill, and having no idea what awaited me. I didn’t know a foal had just been born. I just felt the proprioception of the soul guiding me up this hill. Suddenly . . . I could see a foal behind his mama. The whole herd coordinated with them, and it became clear why they all had observed me the way they did as I approached up the hill.

Zhuangzi’s words came to mind:“Life and death, gain and loss, success and failure, praise and blame, hunger and thirst, heat and cold—these are the transformations of the world, the workings of fate. Day and night they change place before us and our understandings cannot spy out their source. Therefore, we have no need to let them disrupt our harmony; they should not be allowed to enter the Wellspring of the Soul. If you can harmonize and delight in them, master them and never be at a loss for joy, if you can do this day and night without break and make it be springtime with everything, connecting with all things, your mind becoming the space of the creative moment—this is what I call being whole in power.” (A rendering based on the translations by Watson and Ziporyn).

Horses are whole in their power. They have nothing to do with the dualities of human thought. They make it springtime with everything.

They are the space of the creative moment, the Wellspring of the Soul.

Thus they teach us the true nature of creativity, the true nature of mind and reality. They can help us to re-indigenize and become truly wise, loving, and beautiful—which includes being "ecoliterate," in harmony with spiritual and ecological realities.

If we join them in the space of the creative moment, the whole Cosmos can emerge from our own heart.

You can support Return to Freedom and their work in sanctuary, conservation, education, and advocacy by visiting returntofreedom.org

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