It has been a year. Mariah did not want to die. She was a happy mare, lively and so agile with her body that in her youth she would pop up from a quick roll, grab a bite of hay with most of it still hanging out of her mouth as she headed off to create a little hullabaloo with her horse mates. She made me think of a teenage dancer on her way out the door to meet up with friends with her jacket half on and a peanut butter sandwich dangling out of her mouth.
She was not a warm fuzzy mare, but was bright-eyed, aware, and had other ways of expressing love. It took me awhile to understand that when she walked up close to me, it was not meant for touching, but just to be near. I soon learned not to reach out. She would sometimes put her nose near mine and we would breathe together, but not touch. I learned to receive and be grateful for what she offered and grew to love her deeply and her own very special ways of expressing intimacy.
I have written about her humor, how one spring afternoon she dropped a tiny bouquet of flowering grasses on the charcoal drawing I was doing of her, then scooted quickly away; and I’m remembering the day she stepped very close with keen interest to a charcoal drawing I was doing of Tal, then, proceeded to erase the whole thing with her muzzle. There were the many times she would flamboyantly throw a pile of hay in the air, hers and everyone elses’ spilling it out of the food bins all over the ground, and one time purposely onto a 4 year old boy who giggled infectiously as as he stood with hay dripping off of him. I’m also recalling the strategic moment she bared her teeth like a class clown when I was talking seriously to the herd of 5 gathered in the barn about their dental issues. On a more serious occasion she stood behind me and looked over my shoulder while I was sketching Dollar out of his colic, and then she, the self-appointed director, stepped squarely between Dollar and myself letting me know I was done.
Through the years in working with the horses and human clients I learned what spiritual gifts each horse manifested. However, I couldn’t quite find clarity with Mariah until the last year of her life which I write about in a prior post. In the meantime I understood her to be the most evolved mystic of the herd. When she showed up with a client, she was either there to lighten all of our hearts with her humor, or to help uncover a hidden mystical gift or to nurture one that was known.
In Mariah’s later years, storm clouds started to form around her. She began to develop tumor-like bumps over her whole body. In the beginning she seemed oblivious to them; they were painless and didn’t itch but they were an unsightly intrusion on her beautiful body. Medically there was no solution that was long lasting nor free of significant negative side effects.
A couple of years into it, one bump the size of a ping pong ball above her eye started to grow and itch which she opened by harsh rubbing. It began to ooze. The challenge had begun. She became a mess to treat and to look at. Her nose started bleeding, her eyes running, her breath became putrid as the tumor drained through all three portals. I did my best at last finding a way to keep infection at bay by wiping the wound with castor oil.
Mariah was not doing well, but I was trusting her own process. Ultimately, I noticed that she was eating less and was dropping weight until she finally stopped eating altogether. One day she disappeared leaving her herd behind. She walked alone a very long way out in the pasture which was completely out of character for her. I sensed that Mariah’s time had come. Sadness hovered over us as the remaining three horses stretched their heads high and called longingly to her from their places near the barn. We lamented together as she was making her departure.
Since she didn’t return, the horses ran out to the pasture to find her. When they did, out of respect for her process, they held space for her as they kept an honorable distance away. As always, even in the midst of the sadness that was engulfing us, it was beautiful to witness the touching expression of love and sensitivity the horses expressed, the bittersweet often experienced in death and dying.
Later when I could no longer see her, I went looking. I wasn’t finding her anywhere until I happened upon her lying down, hidden in the tall dry grasses where she had made her bed. I was so grateful to know where she had chosen to depart. She was still alive, but I, too, as did her herd, respected her desire to be alone. I quietly walked away with a conflicted heart and headed back to the barn and the business of feeding the rest of the herd.
Back at the barn with grief weighing heavily on all my movements, and with darkness settling in, I noticed a slow-moving shadow up the hill by the water trough. I paused and looked harder. It was Mariah! She had come back! We stared in disbelief as she made her way down the hill to the barn expressing a confidence that she knew exactly what she was doing even though death was still pursuing.
I was overcome with a mishmash of feelings. Guarded delight that she was still alive, confused about a full day of accepting and mourning her death, but mostly, I was thoroughly intrigued by this shift in events and a realization that this mare was in charge of her life and we were on a fascinating journey together. Along with providing for her needs, I became a careful observer.
Over the next few days, she surprised me as she started eating a little hay, then gradually more. As time went on she started putting on weight, her eyes started to clear, her nose stopped bleeding, her coat started to look better, the stench went away, the wound started to heal. Each day, Mariah was offering a new bouquet of joys as she improved exponentially somewhere in her body and in her soul as quirky personality traits gradually returned. Sweetly humbled by this turn of events, I knew I was at last witnessing another miracle not unfamiliar in my history with this herd of horses!
But the foreboding clouds moved in closer to Mariah, and just like in the fairy tales, a sinister event was lurking. When I was away, one of the caretakers at the ranch sneaked into the barn near Mariah’s corral and took photos of her wound and bump-laden body. Regrettably, this was not to record and celebrate Mariah’s amazing improvement, but rather to display that which had not yet fully healed. She sent the photos to me and accused me of causing her suffering and that she should be put down…to wish death to this beautiful mare who was doing an extraordinary job of self healing after her decision to defy death.
I was shocked. I felt a violation to Mariah so deep I was derailed and had someone else deal with this menacing but otherwise lovely woman who may have been well-intentioned as an advocate for the horse but completely misguided, hostile, and, in my words, spiritually poisoned by her own entities. Mariah clearly did not want to die.
I noticed that Mariah’s healing progress immediately started to reverse the same day the photos were taken. I thought that the observation was my over-reactive imagination infused with anger and my need to blame, but in the following months, Mariah bounced back and forth between healing and regression. I wasn’t connecting this with the violation. A pattern of hope and disappointment became our fateful dance.
One afternoon when I was busy working in the barn near her corral, Mariah nonchalantly walked past me and, in case I’d had any doubts, messaged me that she was not going to die until the caretaker who violated her was healed. That was her determination! I raised my eyebrows with curiosity and with a glimmer of hope that was laced with doubts. The healing of the caretaker would have also been Mariah’s healing. That had been the usual pattern with the horses in my experience for the past 30 years.
Gradually more tumors started opening, healing seemed out of reach, and there was pressure from humans in the community. Through the years, I had learned about the spiritual ways the horses healed and had experienced many successes. I knew there was another way through with Mariah but I wasn’t finding it and time ran out. I wanted to honor her intention, but I had to ultimately put her down. That was an additional violation since she had clearly demonstrated her determination not to die. Even though she seemed physically weakened, she found the strength to resist until the end, and her death was not pretty. (Memoriam: https://themystichorsechronicle.wordpress.com/2023/05/13/in-memoriam-mariah-and-amoura/)
It has been only recently that I finally understand what happened with Mariah.
I follow a website called “Listen to Your Horse.” The episode that I found in my email box, unfortunately after Mariah was euthanized was enlightening. It explained to me why Mariah did not heal. You can find the story here: https://listentoyourhorse.com/boundaries-permissions-in-animal-communication-equine-assisted-therapy/
When I observed Mariah’s sudden and obvious regression the day the violation had taken place, instead of an over-reactive mind, it was my discernment; instead of toxic anger, it was a strong sense of injustice; instead of blame, it was recognition of the human channel of the spiritual invasion. Mariah had needed to be cleared of the violation, freed from the transfer of entities. She had absorbed the intruder’s spiritual poisoning which blocked her healing even though, amazingly, her whole system was still trying, thus the profound healing attempts that continued before each of the repetitive regressions.
In the end, the healing was to happen either in her miraculous transformation here on the earth plane which would have been joyful for all here at the ranch; or, in her death when the shedding of the body releases the Spirit to its magnificence!
Mariah died, but her eternal Spirit, as a guide and one of the players in the Kingdom of Heaven, lives on in power. I see her dressed in the deep velvety reds of royalty with a train that flows gracefully behind and drapes across the worlds. It enfolds the earth and its inhabitants with her Divine magic and laughter. Under her nurturance transformation abounds. Mariah’s violation has become her Victory.
Afterword: The process of writing this post has brought both insight and catharsis. My journey with Mariah was not only a challenge physically but spiritually as well. What was so unclear and fragmented during our time together, now is rich with clarity and the fragrance of the Divine.
Mariah has fulfilled her purpose in spite of the fumblings of the human beings in her life. The woman who was the channel for Mariah’s violation was not evil. She in fact was and is very powerful spiritually which is one of the reasons her misguided behavior carried such traumatic impact. She is a very courageous creature who made a noble decision many years ago that launched her into multiple losses all at the same time. It became her very dark time of the soul. She admirably survived, but just as our physical bodies need detoxification after years of abuse, so do our souls.
Entities (disembodied beings not demons) collect during physical and emotional trauma and unknowingly influence our perceptions and interfere with our progress in life. They need to be released and sent on their way for the good of all.
Whether Mariah was a victim or was trying to intercept this human’s entities depends on one’s perspective, and both can be true at the same time at different levels, the earth plane and the mystical. What is clear, Mariah needed my cooperation and as I mentioned in my prior post, I fearfully balked at her guidance.
A few years ago, the horses had revealed to me how to do entity clearings using art, my own and others’. Unfortunately I had abandoned it for various reasons and was unavailable to Mariah during her time. But, because of Mariah, I have been reunited with that calling.
We have amazing traveling companions and guides and all too often are blind to the powerful beings that live among us in the form of animals, domestic or wild, all of nature, and many times in the form of other human beings. These are the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Heaven. We have only to recognize them and call them forth to dance together in God’s playground with whatever gifts we have been endowed. It is time. -Beverly
The Mystic Horse Chronicle 
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