Running Horses Ramblings

Contrasting parallels

4/21/2011

Yesterday I went with a friend to visit a horse therapeutic center to spend some time with newly adopted mustang babies. The owner of the center has previously adopted Pre-Marin foals and connecting them with troubled young teen girls, assisting them (foals and teen) to heal heart hurts. Since the Pre-Marin industry has declined, so have the pre-marin foal adoptions in our nation. Upon the suggestion of a good friend, she has adopted two very young mustang foals. So here-in my blog post begins…

I left the facility yesterday with words once again arresting my mind in search of making sense of things that simply don’t make sense to me. Today in conversation with a long time friend I was beginning to process what I was feeling yesterday. We live in a world of contrasting parallels. Let me explain it this way…the ying/yang, good/evil, light/dark…Its all around us in our daily lives, everywhere, and every living creature experiences these parallels of contrast from the beginning of its life to its end, us included.

As I approached the mustang babies my heart sunk. To see such youngsters, already branded, already exposed to such horrific experiences as being run by helicopters at their mothers sides no more than 30 days old across miles of rough terrain in unbearable hot temperatures. One of the foal’s names was ‘Fearless’. She was the smallest of them both, not even to my waistline at 8 months of age. Living six plus months of her life with no mother at her side (she was separated from her in the roundup and the BLM was unable to locate her to re-unite them. It made me think of the harshness of the dark side of life’s contrast of parallels. As I brushed her thin little frame of curly gray mane, my heart sunk into my belly imagining this little filly’s experiences from the time of her birth. A short- lived bliss of freedom on the range only to be followed by fear and loneliness at the hand of ‘man’. Yet even on the range in the wild, there is a contrast of parallels as we know many times foals live a short life ending in the death by mountain lion or other predator etc. Yet with mother-nature, it is easier to accept the contrast of parallels because it is part of the natural rhythm of life. Its seems when ‘man’ gets involved, we tend to make a mess of things that nature has prefaced as perfect.

But then, there is always the other side. Even as I was brushing this little filly known as ‘Fearless’ I was quickly reminded that the other ‘parallel’ was the act of kindness displayed upon her adoption, to remove her from a BLM holding pen, to a facility where she receives affection, tenderness and nurturing hands. Here she will mature and grow not just physically, but she will grow to know herself, along with the maturing nature of the teens that interact with her. Here she will fulfill a different purpose than her life on the range.

Wild, on the range, she would have been a living symbol of freedom, strength, endurance and beauty. Here in captivity she will become a symbol of hope, she will become contrast of parallels, helping young girls overcome their own contrast of parallels in life’s issues. It’s a story that’s not finished, it’s a story that will live on through every introduction that ‘Fearless’ makes with mankind, It’s a story of a contrast of parallels.

Everyday, we each have a choice to do our best to decide which contrast of parallels we will display...what kind of story we will leave as our legacy.