My Old Mare

 I was out in the woods today with my wagon and team of older horses.  The mare is 20 plus years old and the gelding is just a little younger.  Now this is very old for horses but when you spend a lot of time with a horse, it is really hard to sell her and buy a young horse which you know will give you more trouble than she's worth for a few years until she is trained to fit into your program.  Some horses never get really trained and you have to put up with their bad habits for as long as you own them. 

  So last week my old mare fell down in the stall and had a lot of trouble getting up because the floor was slippery.  I had to get my truck and pull her to the door where she pushed herself out onto the dirt yard where her back legs were able to dig into the ground and she was able to get herself up.  She was however stiff from thrashing around in the stall so I didn't use her until today to see if she was still able to pull her own weight around here.  Well she did fall again but it was mostly my fault because I was backing her where she tripped over some rotting wood.  I unhitched her and told her to get up and she did.  Then I put her back on the wagon, loaded up some wood and she did fine bringing the wood back to the wood pile.

  So twice now within a matter of a week I got to watch an animal, whom I love, teeter on the brink of death.  Now this kind of experience makes one feel very vulnerable.  We try to minimize the pain and vulnerability by thinking I can buy another horse or shit happens.  But with love we become aware of the fact that everything and everybody is not replaceable.  You just feel the loss between you and the object you love until your karmic debt is paid.  And that karmic debt is paid in time and distance between you and the next object you need to project your love onto.  In this case my horse got up and our relationship continued after only a few minutes of extreme suffering on my part.  But this suffering, which happens when a love object is taken away, can last years sometimes.   And this is why many people do not let themselves love.  But love is the only reality, everything else is illusion.