Called to Heal

I'm writing this now, not holding back to "wait and see," putting it down before skepticism and the cold light of day get the better of me.

In my last post, I was wondering aloud whether George might not be a teacher/healer - whether he might, in fact, be wishing to exercise this gift.

If you read K's recent post about her  horse, there's a description of what I take to be an Epona procedure, where you, like, stand with your back to the horse and sense stuff and all, and then the horse gives you a message about this or something, and then you're all like "whoa" and have this big realization. Well, you'd best go over there and read it for yourself.

Anyway, I was getting ready to go out earlier today - I opened the kitchen door to let a cat in or out or something, and I saw George, who had perhaps heard the noise, standing in the middle of the field, staring at the house. So I thought, "What the heck." (I say that a lot.)

So I put on a sweater and went out in the drizzle, walked over to the fence, turned my back, and starting observing myself.

I noticed tension in my toes, in my hips, in my neck, and somewhere along the way I heard breathing coming up on my right side, breathing which I knew belonged to George. And my awareness was on the tension in my eyes. It drifted away and then back to the eyes. George stood, blowing occasionally through his nose, close to my side but not touching. I glanced at him. His ears flicked sideways, his head was relaxed, and he breathed. My eyes were letting go.

After a short time, George straightened up, looked into the distance for a minute, then turned and walked away, chasing Bridget in front of him as he went. He came back to a different spot along the fence and looked over, but this time his attention was off somewhere else.

For a long time, I've been getting more and more far-sighted. I started out with only reading glasses, but for the last maybe couple of years I've been wearing glasses all the time, as my middle-distance vision isn't so good, and I can't read road signs very well while driving.

I set off this evening in the dark to pick up the exchange student from a basketball game, about a 35 minute drive. For once, I didn't put my glasses on, but tried to remember what I'd let go when George stood beside me. As I drove, I realized I could see very well. Things seemed sharp and clear and lighter. Road signs whizzed past me in perfect focus. True, the dashboard was still fuzzy - but not as fuzzy - and once (just once), at a stop sign, I looked down and the fuzz was all but gone.

Now, I've dabbled in the past (half-heartedly) with the Bates method and eye exercises, but to no great effect - or rather, I felt that if I ever persevered and practiced diligently for months, I might get some good results. But this evening, there it was - handed over on a platter. I'm avoiding the temptation to try and preserve the effect with what I remember of those exercises. If the effect's real, it'll last, or return. It has faded over the last few hours, but I think I'll ask George for a tune-up tomorrow!

It's not that George did magic or a miracle or anything like that. But his presence somehow allowed me to feel exactly what it is that I'm doing to myself which is causing the problem.

One thing I have resolved: to stop training George. I'll still ask him to remember to be polite; and I'll still ask him to give people rides, as being taken for a ride on a horse is something which is dear to many people's hearts, myself included. But he doesn't mind those things. I've been thinking that I just need ever more tact in asking him to do things - but really, it's not the amount of tact, it's the mere fact of asking him to do things just to make sure he can do them - it's insulting, really. He's very polite and considerate about moving this way or that way when there's a real reason, but naturally he thinks it's an imposition to be asked to move in the interests of my demonstrating control. It's like at the end of Taming of the Shrew when Petruchio shows off Katherina's obedience. Later, if George decides that dressage-type exercises are something he finds valuable, well - hooray! but we can live without it.

Tomorrow I plan to tell him this, and to apologize for not coming to this conclusion sooner.

I didn't expect anything today from my Epona (or whatever it is) experiment. This was so much more than I could have imagined. I can feel my scepticism sneaking back up on me, and the Eeyore within re-awakens. I'm not a big Woody Allen fan, but there's a scene at the end of Manhattan when Mariel Hemingway's character is reassuring Woody Allen that although she's going away, she'll return and all will be well. Woody Allen looks up (y'know, cos he's short) at her, wanting but unable to believe her,  with this expression on his face that says it all. That's my expression most of the time when God is talking to me. Or George. Maybe George can fix that too.