Page 77 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue2

clear and urgent. The feeling was a picture, too, of me straddling his bare back. I looked around for his

halter and rope but could see none. “You’re really crazy,” I thought to myself as I stepped into his

paddock, empty-­‐handed.

Hank slowly and deliberately walked up towards me and then swerved to stand alongside side the

railing as if to say: “This is how you can get on top of me.” With butterflies in my stomach, I climbed

the railing and slipped on top of him, straddling him bareback just as I’d seen in my mind’s eye. I

grabbed his mane, nervously. Hank moved away from the fence and walked up to one of the apple

trees. Dangling within arm’s reach was a cluster of bright red apples that he could not reach on his

own.

I burst out laughing, relaxing all the way down to my toes. My overwhelming desire to enter into his

paddock and climb on top of him had been his idea! A communication. Hank had needed me to pick

the apples he couldn’t reach on his own. I happily obliged, plucking one apple after another, and

reaching down to feed them to him. Then one big, fat apple fell from my hand to the ground, rolling

under the tree. Hank went to fetch it and, panic surging through my body again, I found myself getting

tangled in the branches, my feet coming up along his face to his ears as I was forced to lie back, a

recipe for disaster.

But Hank grew still, listening to my panic. Slowly he lowered himself and stepped aside and back,

allowing me to grab a branch and slip off his back, and then to the ground, safely. I turned around to

face him in amazement. He was facing me, too, looking me straight in the eye, softly. My heart

skipped a beat as he playfully stepped towards me, making me step back with his lowered head. He

took another step forward and I took another step backwards, and then still another. Losing my

footing, I looked down to see where to put my feet on the bog. Perched between us in perfect

formation was a crow’s feather, pointing straight from me to him, as if placed on the bog by an

invisible hand. Tears welled up in my eyes and I felt such a seizing of my heart that I knew beyond the

shadow of a doubt that this horse was deeply kindred to me, a long-­‐ lost friend. My Feather Spirit.

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