A Horse With No Name

Every man is divinity in disguise.
It is God playing the fool.

~Emerson

“I See You” by MHopkins © 2014

Now I’ve been up close and personal with some animals—dogs, cats, monkeys, raccoons, bears, even some endangered species like the lynx and bobcat that visit my land—but never a horse...in the middle of the road...on a dark and snowy night.

I suppose stranger things have happened.

‘Twas the night before the night before Christmas, and I was on my way home from a holiday musical extravaganza sponsored by the Unity Church of Boulder.

With a new moon rising and snow clouds hanging low in the sky, visibility was limited as I wound my way up the familiar stretch of Boulder Canyon toward my home. Sticking close to the canyon wall, I drove through the snow, all the while contemplating the meaning of “Unity.” What does it really mean—this concept of oneness?

Suddenly, out of nowhere, I came upon a horse running wildly back-and-forth across the narrow, two-lane road, sliding as she maneuvered uphill in the snow. The unexpected sight of her scared me half to death; she was scared, too. So I stopped and turned on my hazard lights, not sure what to do next, but this much I knew: Boulder Canyon is no place for a horse, especially at night when it’s snowing.

For a brief moment I watched her and, she, looking over her shoulder, watched me. And then I did the only thing I could think of to do: I rolled down my window and talked to her.

“Don’t be scared . . . I’m not going to hurt you,” I said softly. “Please, you have to get out of the road before you cause an accident.”

She stopped running, eyeing me suspiciously.

“Please, come here . . . you have to get out of the road,” I pleaded.

Slowly, she turned and walked toward me.

“Come here, girl, I’m not going to hurt you. I want to help you,” I continued, coaxing her with promises of safety while holding out my hand to her through the open window.

She approached my car, towering high above it, and lowered her head to meet me at eye level. As I reached out to touch the side of her face I saw something in her eyes that moved me. In that moment, I caught a glimpse of her spirit and I understood with acute awareness what I had only intellectualized until then—that the same life force that moved through her flowed through me. The same vital energy that animated her form, gave life to mine, albeit in different packages.

It was as if time stood still for me and that horse on the canyon. I whispered, “I see you.”

Just then a car came barreling around the corner and slammed on the brakes. My new friend freaked out and started running around my car. She had no bridle or halter to grab, so there was little I could do but work out a plan with the man in the car behind me to get the horse out of the road. We agreed—he would stay with the horse and warn oncoming cars with flashing lights, and I would drive the remaining three miles up the canyon and get the local police to help us.

The rest of the story played out like a scene from The Andy Griffith Show. I ran into the police station and exclaimed with excitement: “There’s a horse in the middle of the canyon.” To which the officer replied, “Yeah, what does the horse look like?”  

Four legs a tail and a gorgeous mane?  So I described the horse and told them of the man I had left behind on the canyon waiting for help, and I discovered that the officers knew the horse—or at least they knew the horse’s guardian—and they followed me out to remedy the situation. The horse was rescued. Crisis averted. It was surreal.

Later, as I pulled into my driveway, I could not shake the intensity of my experience with that horse—the moment of connection with her living spirit. What a precious gift to see and truly understand the essence of this spiritual principle, which reminds us that we are all unique expressions of the same Creative Source, interconnected with everyone and everything else. Call that Source whatever you like—God, Allah, Great Spirit, Creator, the “Big C”—it matters not, because there is only One from which all things flow.

You are at once a beating heart

and a single heartbeat in the body called humanity.

~Dr. Wayne Dyer

Oneness is a concept emphasized by many, and has been, perhaps, one of the toughest ideas for me to wrap my mind around. It is simple enough in theory to say that we’re all one, but when I see my neighbor in his yard shoveling snow and I’m standing across the street in my own yard—physically separate from him—it’s hard to make the connection. It is especially challenging for me to find the common thread when I look at the most vile criminal offenders—rapists, murderers and child molesters—for it is here that I am most keen to distinguish myself in every conceivable way. It’s even more difficult to conceptualize my oneness with the creek flowing through my back yard or the horse in the middle of the canyon, particularly when I consider the differences in our physical constitutions.

To grasp this concept requires that we open our minds and see beyond our physical limitations. Analogies help. For instance, if I pour wine from a bottle into your glass, what do you have? A glass of wine—the same wine that’s still in the bottle, only now a portion of it has been transferred to another container. The same is true of me, the horse and the vital energy that flows through us, bringing our “containers” to life. True, our containers are quite different and come with unique bells and whistles—in that way, we’re definitely not the same—but we come from One, which makes us all related in a wonderfully abstract way.

Spiritual teachers and mystics across time have urged us to consider that what we do to one we do to all; that we cannot hurt another without also, in some way, hurting ourselves. And while many of us may find it easy to extend that thought pattern and courtesy to a handful of people we're close to (our immediate family and loved ones) how often do we reach out to help strangers or animals or the environment in the spirit of unity and oneness?

And so this was my Gift of the Magi—wisdom and recognition shared between a girl and a horse on a dark canyon road, and now I pass it on to you.

As we begin a new year, may you connect with the peace that comes with understanding your connection to the One.

What If . . .

There isn’t enough room

in your mind

for worry and faith.

You must decide

which will live there.

(unknown)

Tortured - MHopkins - Trim Castle, Ireland © 2014

I passed a neighborhood church with a sign that read:  “Worry is the dark room where negatives develop.”  Something in its message resonated to my core, not because I’m a worrier by nature but because, when I do, the train of “what if’s” can carry me to a dark and fearful place in a flash.  It’s not logical.

Like one of my students who, after nearly making herself sick with worry, suffering from insomnia and a whole host of physical symptoms that mirrored her chaotic mental state, confessed that she was worried that if she didn’t do well on the LSAT she would never be able to buy her own home.  What?  Let’s unravel that thought process; break it down for me.  I insisted.  She explained that if she didn’t rock the LSAT then she wouldn’t get into law school.  If she didn’t make it to law school she would never realize her dream of being a lawyer.  If not a lawyer, she wouldn’t make enough money to support a mortgage payment.  In a world full of homeowners who are not lawyers, it was easy to see the fault in her logic.  But it wasn’t logic that cast such a dark shadow on her thoughts. 

It reminds me of the parable about the young business man traveling along an unfamiliar road in rural America when he was stopped by a flat tire.  He couldn’t find a jack in his rental car, and it was impossible to change a tire without a jack, so he set off on foot for the closest home or business where he might ask to borrow a jack or at least a phone to call for help since his cell phone didn't have service.  As he walked, he imagined his conversation with the homeowner ending in rejection.  “No I don’t have a jack.”  “No you can’t use my phone.” And so on.  At one point, he even had an argument with the man he had yet to meet who had yet to refuse him help.  By the time he arrived at the nearest house and knocked on the door, he was so bent with anger and frustration that when the homeowner opened the door he screamed, “Never mind!” and walked away in search of someone who would help.

Worry, at best, is a misuse of the imagination!  At worst, it is the shackle that keeps us trapped in self-doubt and defeat.  Either you have some control over the situation or you don’t.  If you don’t, all the worrying in the world won’t make it so.  So next time you find yourself chasing that parade of horribles, ponder this:  What if all went pleasingly well?  What if you realized your greatest success? What if most of the things you’re worrying about never happen? 

What if…

Stressing the Vine

When we long for life without difficulties,

remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds

and diamonds are made under pressure. 
― Peter Marshall

People speak of wanting an easy life.  But how many of us really want it ‘easy’?  If our desire was met and we faced only comfort and ease, wouldn’t we soon become bored?  Where’s the fun in life without challenge?  Where’s the flavor without spice?  Where’s the growth without pruning?  Would we not seek to create our own chaos if chaos didn’t exist, particularly where situations have become stale or too readily assured?  I dare say that we would.

Yet we hear so much about how unhealthy chronic stress is for our bodies.  We need only turn on the news or read a health post on the Internet to discover all of the reasons why we should rid our lives of this toxin.  Constantly faced with demands, frustrations, hassles and deadlines, it seems impossible to break free.  But do we really want to break free?  Might this be where the magic happens?

Consider the life of a wine grape.  While it’s true that many agricultural endeavors require nutrient rich soil to thrive, winemakers worldwide will tell you that when it comes to growing grapes for wine, fertile soil is not always the best.  In fact, most California vineyards are planted in soil that would choke the life out of other crops.  Growers look for nutrient poor or even dry soil that drains well because it forces the vines to extend their roots far into the dirt to find sustenance—stressing the vine—and causing them to direct their energy and sugar into grape clusters instead of leaves, which produces small grape berries.  A handful of tiny grapes will be almost all skin and very little juice, which translates into a rich, concentrated color and flavor in the wine.  For these growers and vintners, the stressed grape is the best grape and produces the superior vintage.

Might we also benefit from a bit of stress on the vine?  In our periods of stress we are called to break out of our complacency, extend ourselves beyond the comfort zone, and direct our energy to find ways to thrive even under the most pressure-filled conditions.  We are given an opportunity to turn our negative stressors into positive ones that help us to grow, remain vital and alive.  We learn to think positive and remain hopeful for better days. We discover how strong and capable we are.  And if we stretch, we learn that humor and laughter are the catalysts that lift us out of our oppression and transform us into the most colorful and delicious versions of ourselves, like the wine grape.

So perhaps what we really mean is that we want an ‘easier’ life, every now and then; a break from worrying that a certain wolf may huff and puff and blow our house down.  If an easier life is what you desire then I suggest you can have it, simply by making up your mind to not dwell on factors that you cannot change and, instead, look for ways to set a positive process in motion; and trust that there is a good reason for this.

LOOK WHERE YOU WANT TO GO

Why would you give your precious life energy . . .

to something you [don’t] want?

~Dr. Wayne Dyer

The Road Less Traveled
Connemara Region, Ireland © 2013 MHopkins

While learning to ride her motorcycle, my mother decided to practice in their neighborhood.  Having made the loop, she topped the hill and came to a stop, preparing to make a left turn.  That’s when she saw it—the neighbor’s mailbox just across the way—and though she tried not to look at the mailbox and, instead, focus on the road before her, as she turned left, eyes still on the mailbox, she veered off course and crashed…into the neighbor’s mailbox; the very thing she wanted to avoid.

There is a golden rule of motorcycle riding that says “look where you want to go.”  Though she knew it in theory, my mother learned this the hard way.  There are many long and complicated theoretical reasons why this rule of riding might be true, but none that make any real sense except the idea of target fixation, which says, in essence, that what you focus on expands. 

And so it is in our every day lives.  How often do we repeat some aspect of the past or dwell on the negative parts of our situation and then find ourselves faced with more of what we don’t want, instead of giving attention to what we would most like to create and then taking small steps each day to make that vision our reality?  Maybe we’re unhappy in our relationship or we dislike our job or we don’t like the extra weight we’re carrying around like a spare tire, yet instead of creating a positive plan of how to get from here to there we focus in on what we don’t like, complaining or feeling sorry for ourselves, repeating the same bad habits, or avoiding the discomfort of change, and so we keep driving our proverbial motorcycles around and crashing into the same mailboxes. 

It is impossible to be angry and laugh at the same time.

Anger and laughter are mutually exclusive

and you have the power to choose either.

~Wayne Dyer

Choice is the essence of our free will, and it is through our choices that we direct the course of our lives.  While we may disagree with the actions of others and even dislike our own circumstances, we have the right, power and opportunity to make choices every day—the attitude we adopt, how we respond to the world around us, where we place our attention, the thoughts we entertain, what we take responsibility for, the meaning we give to the events of our lives, and what or to whom we give our power.  It’s all energy, and the lightness or heaviness of that energy determines much about our physical, mental and spiritual health. 

Take another look down the road you're traveling.  Do you really want to go there?

Don't Forget the Whiskey Whore

I had an inheritance from my [grand]father,

It was the moon and the sun.

And though I roam all over the world,

the spending of it is never done. 

~Ernest Hemmingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

(Artwork by A.L. Childress - year of creation unknown)

My friend Tim took one look at her hanging on my wall and said in his most dramatic, southern drawl, “Well she’s nothing but a whiskey whore…” summing up the scantily clad woman reclined against the sofa with a half-empty bottle of booze on the floor in front of her; and so she became known around our house.  But to my grandfather, she was an erotic gem; painted on a canvas torn from an old World War II military jeep and hidden beneath a bland landscape painted in gray, given to my grandfather as collateral for a $2 loan he made to the artist after the war. 

For years the Whiskey Whore had been concealed beneath that drab landscape, stashed in the basement of my grandfather’s house.  Then one day as we discussed art, I confided that many pieces in my personal collection were erotically inspired from cultures around the world.  He couldn’t resist the temptation to share his secret.  “There’s an erotic painting under there…” he whispered, pointing to the dull gray landscape.  I was certain that I had misunderstood. 

But I hadn’t.  Eager to share his treasure, my grandfather had placed the framed painting face down on the table and removed the back with a screwdriver, gently pulling the layers of canvas apart to reveal the vibrant Whiskey Whore underneath what appeared to be so dull and lifeless.  That’s when he told me the story of how he had won her by default for an unpaid debt.

He gave me the painting that day; he made me carry it out the back door, up the hill and round the house to my car so that my grandmother wouldn’t see.  But she had been looking out the kitchen window as I schlepped through the yard with the painting tucked under my arm and she knew straight away what I was hiding.  A bit of drama followed:  “Why Karl Mason!  What kind of grandfather gives a painting like that to his granddaughter?  I’ve never heard of such!”  Grandpa calmed her down as only he could while I quietly placed the painting in my car.  We never discussed it again.

Yet this controversial work of art has become so much more to me than paint on canvas.  It reminds me of the many layers of life waiting to be revealed—the vibrant colors of the soul—and the gentle wisdom my grandfather shared with me so freely in the time we spent together.  And though I’ve traveled the world and discovered my own great fortunes, this simple painting on tattered canvas hangs above our fireplace as a gentle reminder of the depth and breadth that is life.

It has also become a metaphor for remembering what matters most—is it the painting or the story behind the painting?  As my sweetheart reminds me from time-to-time when I get caught up in the chaos of life:  Don’t forget the Whiskey Whore!

Monkey See, Monkey Do

“What you see and what you hear

depends a great deal on where you are standing.

It also depends on what sort of person you are.”

~C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew

I saw him standing by the big window, his face fixed in concentration and disbelief.  “Get over here, love.  You’ve got to see this!” 

Certain that he had spotted one of our four-legged friends, I joined him at the window with that sort of stealthy gliding motion I have developed after years of quietly watching, sometimes following, wildlife in this mountain paradise.  I scanned the yard, the creek bank, the massive trees; the space between.

“What is it?” I squinted to sharpen my view.

“There! You see it?” He pointed with his fingertip on the glass.  “I don’t know…it looks like…a dog?  No, it’s not a dog.  What’s it doing?”

I could see it there by the water’s edge.  “What the heck...is that a…oh my, is that it’s tail?  Look at that…it’s standing on its hind legs!”

“It looks...like...a...monkey!  Look at that! Shoot! It's a monkey! Sweetie, get the camera!” He could hardly contain his excitement.

It didn’t make sense!  When have there ever been reports of monkeys in our mountain community?  We knew this, yet there we were having this random conversation while watching a couple of monkeys walking around on their hind legs down by the creek in our back yard.

Just as we had convinced ourselves that we were witnessing something truly amazing, the monkeys cleared the trees.  Our vision no longer obscured, we realized they weren’t monkeys at all.  They were our neighbors!   

Sure they were out of their territory and, true, one need only look at a diagram illustrating the evolution of man to see the resemblance of humans to monkeys and understand our mistake, but how could we have thought for even one second that we had monkeys in our back yard!?!  We laughed so hard I nearly peed in my pants.

That’s the funny thing about perception:  the way we organize, identify and interpret information to understand and make sense of our environment!  When you get right down to it, we’re all walking around on our proverbial hind legs seeing monkeys of some sort.  Sometimes our reality coincides with another’s and we have a shared experience.  Other times, not so much. 

Maybe we cannot say that we are in touch

with reality and he is not, but should instead say,

His reality is so different from ours

that he can’t explain his to us,

and we can’t explain ours to him.

~Philip K. Dick

Maybe we’re all just living in unique worlds, different from each other.  No one else has access to the private world we each carry in our heads, no one else can see or feel what we feel, or understand what we think we understand, unless we attempt to communicate our experience to others, which, even then, may not be understood.  Yet if reality differs from person to person (or at least our perception of it), then how can we really claim any singular form of reality?  Might we speak instead of parallel realities?  

Consider a person with multiple personality disorder.  His reality may be quite different from mine, yet as I learn of the disturbing, even nightmarish, events of his life, I know that his experience is as real to him as my perception of the monkeys in the back yard seemed real to me (however strange and fleeting).  Kind of makes it hard to say “he’s crazy” or “she’s right” or “they’re wrong” when you consider that we’re all just doing the best we can to make sense of the world we live in.

Each of us was once a dream and now we are the dreamers.  In one instance the world is one way.  The next moment, it’s entirely different.  The longer I live the more I understand:  Most of our experience of the world and the people in it  takes place in our minds.