It Takes Patience

Allow me to introduce our horse, Patience.  She's an approximately 8-year-old quarter horse mare, with some debate about whether she is a Paint (Sabino, specifically, with white splashes on her belly) or a chestnut. 



She's exactly 14.2 hands high, which makes her a big pony or a small horse.  She has two really distinctive marks:  a horse-head brand on her thigh and a unicorn-shaped white splash on her belly (I can't remember which sides, left or right, for either of these.)

She comes to us via Sis's old riding school from a horse farm in Vermont, where she lived outside on a mountain.  Now she's at a new barn, where she mainly lives outside in a paddock either by herself or with another mare.  She isn't so fond of male horses; she kicked one at the old barn who had bitten her (both were okay in the end.)  There is a "fan club" trio of male horses who watch her at the new barn, their heads swiveling in unison at the young mare; even the donkeys like watching her.  As Sis's old riding coach said, "You horse has a nice ass!" 

She is very patient in the aisle when she's being groomed and harnessed or unharnessed; we wonder if that's how she got her name.  She throws her head when the saddle goes on before a ride and yawns a few times when the bit comes out afterwards.  She has been feistier recently, perhaps because of the fan club, and even tossed Sis off for the first time on Saturday when she was startled by the truck of a neighbor of the farm.

Sis loves her completely (her yawns, her fluff, her scent, her soft nose, her wiggly lips, etc etc etc) and especially loves taking pictures of her derpy (silly or dopey) side.  And Mama and I are becoming horse lovers, too.  Mama is even thinking of riding.

How could we not love that face?

Of Demons and Angels

"We were so worried about our dad on Saturday.  He was thrashing about and yelling things.  Totally not like himself.  He was possessed.  But then someone from our church came and prayed.  And the demons tormenting him left.  So we've kept up the prayers and he's been okay." 

I had never personally heard demons discussed in a literal manner before.  Metaphorical ones, sure.  And many friends believe that angels watch over them, especially deceased love ones.  But real demons?  No.  And my logical, rational mind kept thinking, "It's not unusual for dying people to have terrors and outbursts.  And then, with medications, they do settle down."  Just Google end-of-life anxiety.  It doesn't happen to everyone, but it happens, in varying degrees, some much more powerful than others. 

I think I underestimate the number of people who believe the supernatural world is as common as the natural one.  For me, it's just entertainment on television, our favorite series "Supernatural" about ghosts, werewolves, vampires, angels, demons.  Like "X-Files" and "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" with two handsome brothers kicking butt with heart and humor each week.  But these two sisters as hospice truly believed a demon had inhabited their father on the way to hospice and had made him act out until the special prayers exorcised the demons.

And they weren't even Catholic!  I had only thought of exorcisms with respect to the Roman Catholic Church (when I wasn't thinking of the 1970s movie or our tv show.)  I checked in with our chaplain, the priest, who said there was a huge belief in demons in the evangelical church.  These Christians believe in deliverance (yep, I hear banjos and I haven't even seen that movie!), the idea of being delivered from demons via prayers and such and of needing to actively avoid being contaminated by demons.  This is why you hear that Harry Potter, Halloween costumes, rock and roll, yoga, etc., are tools of the devil.  There are even lists, like the one that appeared in my inbox recently:

I think I can tick off more than a few of those, including Eastern Religions, Meditation, Vegetarianism, Postmodernism, LOTR, Video Games, Harry Potter, Halloween, Fornication, Rock Music, and, yes, I've even seen Twilight!  And I have experienced, at least once, Palmistry, Tarot, Ouija, Wicca, Earth Worship, Divination, Dungeons and Dragons, too.  But I've never been a vampire or a werewolf (Lycanthropy.)  

I must admit to some cultural and spiritual prejudice--I really never believed people actually thought music invited the devil.  It's like a superstition out of the dark ages. Yes, the kids have friends who can't celebrate Halloween because it's satanic, but I figured that was a one-off.  How wrong I am, how small my world sometimes.  

And I don't really know what to do with it all.  I don't believe in demons, just like I don't believe in hell.  To be fair, I don't just reject the negative; I don't believe in angels or heaven either.  My world is decidedly not supernatural.  

But what if the supernatural is just the natural we haven't come to understand yet?  What invisible forces exist that we don't understand, like Chi or Chakras?  We've only recently come to understand x-rays, bacteria, atoms, radio waves, microwaves, Wi-Fi; and yet, we do not give them a second thought.  I'm still not saying I believe in demons or heaven.  But what don't we know?

Just this week, the NYTimes published an article about the Placebo Effect and how there might actually be bio-chemical processes unrelated to prescribed medicine or surgeries that can result in healing.

And how do I explain my own healing?  I've written (here and here) about how my physical therapist used alternative treatments to heal my back injury when a variety of specialists in the tri-state area couldn't.  I did benefit from what she would call spiritual healing--a combo of accupressure, chakra alignment, Integrative Manual Therapy.  It won't surprise you that she believes in angels and demons.  I suppose I could call it the Placebo Effect, but I really can't explain it and am often uncomfortable reflecting on it, or more importantly, the implications of it.  If I can sit and walk because of energy healing, do I need to believe in angels and demons?  I can't make that leap.

But to push against my beliefs and expand my experiences, I recently attended a Reiki workshop at hospice.  Reiki is a type of energy meditation and healing that is frequently used by various caregivers in hospitals and hospices.  One of the chaplains at my old hospice used to offer it.  And yes, my PT has been trained in Reiki, too.  I know and believe in the benefits of Buddhist meditation so I thought I would learn more about Reiki, which does include chakra cleansing (chakras believed to be energy wheels in the body, represented by the colors of the rainbow, backwards, purple to red), which is beyond my usual rationalism.  It was an intriguing day, not only for the instruction, but also to hear from my fellow students--who believe not only in spiritual healing and energy work, but also angels, demons, ghosts, past-life regression, auras, Tarot, psychics, and mediums.  My mind couldn't wrap around those things.  BUT then I had a Reiki session from one of my classmates and she was drawn to my lower abdomen--completely without knowing of my multiple abdominal surgeries and three recent trips to the ER for severe abdominal pain.  Coincidence?  Educated guess?  And then, when I received attunement--yep, the instructor tuned me towards the chi--I saw these amazing flashes of deep blues, greens, and purples quite unexpectedly. 

Our teacher repeatedly said that Reiki was not dualistic, i.e. not good and bad, it just was, based on chi, the Chinese theory on energy in the body ("ki" is the Japanese spelling.)  She assured us that we could only do good things with Reiki, not hurt anyone.  Which is akin to believing in angels but not demons.  How does that work?  If Reiki can be used to help or heal, how come it can't be used to hurt?  Especially since it is isn't specifically considered a good force, just a natural one?  Nature causes hurt, depending on your perspective, but in itself is a neutral, balanced force--I watched a beautiful Cooper's Hawk devour one of our yard squirrels yesterday; neither good nor bad, in sum, just natural (certainly, from either the hawk or squirrel's vantage point, it would have been a good dinner or a bad evening!)  I think I'm overthinking it all.

But it does seem to keep popping up for me, even with regards to our upcoming trip to Thailand.  I've been reading about the animism that flows through Thai life, in addition to Buddhism and Hinduism, a belief in spirits everywhere.  We have even watched two Thai movies recently, Pee Mak and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, which heavily featured ghosts.  A belief in spirits participating in everyday life is so common that, I read, taxi drivers put icons or altars on their dashboards and trust in spirits, to the point of not wearing seatbelts.  Que sera, sera. I checked in again with our Catholic chaplain, who does wear his seatbelt (and has also officiated at an exorcism, which was a force of evil like nothing he'd ever seen, certainly beyond any psychological issues that people bring to him regularly, he told me.  He doesn't see demons appearing regularly in the world, and certainly not because of yoga or music), and he said that God expects us to help ourselves.  Which reminds me of that story of the man dangling from the side of the cliff and praying to God for help, but refusing the climber and then helicopter that comes to his aid, saying he's waiting for God; when the man gets to heaven and confronts God, God said, "I sent you a climber and a helicopter!"  Or a seatbelt.  

Whew.  That's a lot.  And it's all been swirling around in my head.  Still, I tend to see the world as more natural than supernatural.  And I'm really more concerned about the human community in our world than anything else (both how we fare as people and what we do to the Earth and each other); that's the work in front of me.  But that human community includes people who believe in a whole range of forces.   I don't have a tidy way to sum it all up beyond this poor paraphrase:  there is more in the world and in people's beliefs than is dreamt of in my imaginings.