The Power of the Herd (63 page)

Born six to ten weeks early, the firstborn foal weighed twenty pounds, a third the normal birth weight for an Arabian horse. His stillborn brother was significantly larger but hadn't been able to survive the cramped space of Rasa's womb. The vet was doubtful the other foal would live through the night. The first hurdle involved siphoning his mother's milk into a bottle and hoping he would drink. After a moment of fumbling, he grabbed hold of the nipple and sucked the fluid down like ambrosia. Then he let out a deep, delighted whinny.

The black foal's enthusiasm seemed to inflate his delicate body. His rich baritone voice, the result of underdeveloped vocal cords, seemed so incongruous
with his tiny frame that we couldn't help but laugh out loud when he demanded another bottle. His curious, wide-eyed gaze entranced everyone, including a vet who thought she'd seen everything. The little toy horse looked so pleased with himself, so happy to be in the world, we couldn't help but rally around him and revel in the challenge of keeping him alive.

“Well one thing's for sure,” I said, “he's got more spirit than body.” The foal's name suddenly seemed obvious. “You want some more, Spirit?” I asked as the doctor showed me how to milk Rasa. The little guy responded with an animated rumble.

As the news spread and people came to see Rasa's tenuous miracle, my husband was left with the most difficult task of all: burying Spirit's twin, whom we named Sanctus, acknowledging his sacrifice and the effect his brief, sad, profound visit had on us. Later that night, Steve told me of carrying the little foal to his final resting place, of the power and gentleness in those silent eyes, of the insights the twins inspired in him. “To see life and death side by side,” he said, shaking his head, “to bury one colt and hear the other calling out...”

Steve couldn't finish the sentence, but I knew he was, like me, swirling between the opposites: not transcending duality exactly, but feeling, really feeling, how joy spills into sadness, how beauty emerges from suffering, and how language can never touch the mystery that informs all life.

As Spirit continued to grow and thrive, in part through the efforts of people who volunteered during the ten weeks he needed extra care, I decided to investigate the symbology of twins. I was surprised to find that in cultures around the world, male twins are closely associated with horses. Most often, one brother endures the death of the other, who then connects the survivor to the otherworld. The myth of Castor and Pollux is a prime example. Castor was famous for training horses, Pollux for his skill in boxing. The brothers were as close as two brothers could be, so Pollux was inconsolable after Castor was slain in war. He begged Zeus to take his life in exchange. The Greek god instead granted Castor semi-immortality, directing him to spend half his days in the underworld, emerging every other day to visit heaven. Upon Pollux's death the two were reunited as the constellation Gemini.

In Thebes, Amphion and Zethus were abandoned at birth and raised by a shepherd. Hailed as great equestrians, they were called the “White Horses,” “the Horsemen,” or “Riders of White Horses,” mirroring the equine associations of Castor and Pollux (who are collectively referred to as the Dioscuri,
the “horseman gods”). In India, the Asvins were born to the goddess Saranyu. Twins who could take on human or horse form at will, they too were abandoned at birth, yet the brothers went on to create the healing arts. The Navajo creation epic features heroic male twins who bring horses to earth after defeating a group of carnivorous monsters. A number of Celtic and Eastern twin myths also have equestrian associations. Many feature a weaker twin who dies, continuing to influence his earthly brother in subtle yet powerful ways.

In his book
The Soul's Code,
psychologist James Hillman reflects on the mythological theme of sacrificing one twin to create balance between this world and the other. The Inuit speak of “another soul,” he writes, “whether internal and in the same body or an external one that comes and goes, alights and leaves, inhabits things and places and animals. Anthropologists who walk with Australian aborigines call this second soul a bush-soul.” Hillman also cites fairy tales, Rumi's poems, and Zen stories alluding to

this doubleness, this strange duplicity of life.
There are two birds in the tree, a mortal one and an immortal one, side by side. The first chirps and nests and flies about; the other watches....Twins themselves are often considered ominous, as if a mistake has occurred; the two birds, the human and the ghost, this world and that, both present in this world. Twins literalize the doppelganger, visible and invisible both displayed. So tales tell of the murder (sacrifice) of one twin for the sake of the other....The shadow, immortal, otherworldly one gives way so that the mortal one can fully enter this life.

In an Internet discussion of an obscure scholarly paper, “Twin Lights of Consciousness, Biology, Microphysics and Macropsychology,” Howard Teich took the symbology of twins to a much deeper level. According to this psychologist, writer, and lecturer, who also weaves archetypal and mythological studies into his own leadership training program,
the “twin nature of light as waves and particles”
in quantum theory is reflected in these myths. He theorizes that the overwhelming tendency to depict the twins as two males, rather than as male and female, is an expression of the genetic chromosomal code. “Since females are already twinned at the chromosome level (XX), perhaps the symbolic archetypal image of twin males...is a mythological compensation for biology.”

As I literally raised an equine twin, it took me months of research and reflection to integrate these concepts. Basically, the entire experience gave me yet another reason to acknowledge a vast coordinating intelligence that speaks to people through dreams, art, and visions — and occasionally through the physical manifestation of archetypal themes. Through Spirit and his stillborn
brother, Sanctus, the twin nature of consciousness engaged our attention in the most vivid way possible. We saw, for one brief moment, the two lying side by side. In naming the stillborn twin, in touching him — and in being touched emotionally by his brief, sad life — we forged a stronger bond with the numinous, archetypal realm of origins.

In quantum theory, the most basic building blocks of life have a dual nature, appearing as particles with a set location in time and space, and as waves, invisible regions of influence that can flow through walls, resonate with physical matter, and yet not be limited by the laws that hold physical beings together. Through this strange, unusually public horse birth, a cross-cultural theme emerged from obscurity — and continued to expand.

If women already contain “the twins” genetically (as XX chromosomes), this alludes to why feminine wisdom is associated with intuition — ways of knowing not limited to physical and logical laws. The two male twins seemed to be an attempt to bridge the gap between the worlds in masculine consciousness. They manifested this time not as horsemen but as actual horses: nonpredatory beings who, though domesticated, retain a vital connection to instinct and nature while also being associated mythically with a strong sixth sense and the ability to carry riders between this world and the other. The fact that the stronger, larger twin was sacrificed emphasized, for me, the need for a stronger connection to the otherworld at a time when logic has become much more dominant than it was during the era of Greek myths.

Nearly a hundred volunteers, clients, and Epona staff were drawn into horse consciousness through the act of caring for a foal as one of their own. This never would have happened if Spirit had been able to stand and nurse at birth. In this sense, Spirit also bridged the gap between horse and human, drawing nourishment and love from both species. In the wild, he never would have survived.

Perhaps even more interestingly, people who came to help Spirit felt a palpable sense of numinosity in the room. They left deeply moved, sometimes experiencing life-changing responses to the unmistakable presence of a huge, openhearted being in a tiny, fragile body. Spirit's ability to inspire others during his time of greatest physical weakness also underlined the paradoxical power of vulnerability during an era when technology insulates us from the elements and allows us to destroy our enemies with remarkable ease and efficiency.

Rasa's boy grew up smaller than his mother and father, yet strong willed and unusually brave in situations that would unnerve the average horse. His
confidence and strange, half-horse-, half-human-like intelligence made it impossible to control him through intimidation. Trainer Shelley Rosenberg and I had to work together to come up with new ways of educating and motivating this feisty little stallion. Teaching him to treat his caretakers, and eventually his mate, Panther, respectfully was quite an ordeal for all of us, as Spirit's unbridled enthusiasm and total lack of fear made it necessary for the humans in his life to boost their own courage, ingenuity, and solid boundary-setting skills.

Later, as Merlin's first surviving son sired his own daughter, Artemis, in 2008, I began using the metaphor of the worldly/otherworldly twins to help people access more creative forms of consciousness. Even the most skeptical leadership clients were inspired by Spirit's story. Those whose inner critics vehemently warned against “losing touch with reality” could accept the metaphor of accessing and exercising “the twin.” The idea that consciousness, like light, might also have a dual particle-and-wave nature allowed their heavily defended, logical minds to entertain a more creative, whimsical “partner.”

The benefits of engaging the mythic imagination were impressive. Innovators who had “hit the wall” accessed unexpected ideas scintillating with a vital energy that inspired others long after these initially metaphorical ideas were translated into practical applications. At the same time, personal challenges, relationship quandaries, even illnesses and accidents were also handled in imaginative, surprisingly effective ways.

Consciousness separated from spirit interprets daily existence as an empty progression of chance encounters and meaningless suffering. Learning to move fluidly between multiple states of being is difficult for the modern mind. While we need to exercise reason and problem-solving skills, another essential though long-ignored part of our psyche loves to improvise on timeless themes, creating new symbols, myths, and metaphors — road maps into the unknown.

Embracing the mythic dimension of life is like meeting a more adventurous twin, one that changes form at will, sprouts wings, flies to the stars, and brings a piece of magic back to earth, where its logical brother works hard to manifest some practical aspect of this glistening, otherworldly gem. Now, more than ever, we need both of these boys on our side. Exercising the twin nature of consciousness helps us maintain contact with reason while letting our imaginations run wild, leading to all kinds of creative impulses, half-baked ideas, and whimsical discoveries that eventually, in some cases literally, blast us to the moon
and
safely bring us back home again.

A
s a radio announcer on Florida's Gulf Coast
in the 1980s, I had the job of playing soothing classical music and jazz. On a number of occasions, however, I happened to be on duty during a hurricane. At times, the weather was so bad that I couldn't leave and no one else could get to the station. I had to batten down the hatches, respond to the Emergency Broadcast System when it was
not
a test, and keep listeners updated on road closings, evacuations, and the trajectories of tornados spinning off the primary storm as it hit land. I had to give people information about things they surely wished they didn't have to hear but
needed
to understand and respond to in order to save their lives.

If I had started hyperventilating on air, screaming, “Grab what you can and get the hell out of here!” it wouldn't have helped my listeners. Neither would it have been useful to ignore the emergency, announce in my smoothest FM radio voice, “There is no fear, only peace and harmony,” and launch into the love theme from Tchaikovsky's
Romeo and Juliet.

The same can be said for all those uncomfortable sensory alarms that ask us to slow down, watch out, hold our ground, make a change, get more information before signing that business deal, ask for help handling that feisty colt, and any number of other strange “gut feelings” that beg to be acknowledged rather than suppressed or transcended. Emotions are not irrational mental misfirings designed to harass and embarrass us; they are not simply a part of our imagination. Though sometimes stirred up by distressing thoughts and resistance to change, emotions also alert the brain to what's happening in the
environment and let the ego or persona know what's happening in deeper, less “acceptable” regions of the psyche.

Refusing the information emotion provides is like discounting sight or smell. It's not your eyes or your nose that leads you astray. It's what your brain has been trained to do, or not do, with the input that causes trouble. In fact, to use emotion effectively, you
must
use your brain in the form of a witnessing mind that can ask questions of the emotion and decide how to use that information constructively.

When tempestuous emotions churn inside like whirlwinds, imagine stepping into the eye of the hurricane (where it's clear and sunny, as anyone who's ever been in a hurricane knows). There you can address these powerful energies without getting caught in the spin. You can interpret incoming reports from the “National Weather Service” and decide what actions to avoid or what routes to take.

The tricky part about fear in particular is that sometimes, especially in its earliest, most useful stages, the true nature of the threat is not yet obvious. Predators hide in the grass. Carjackers, rapists, and terrorists lurk in the darkness. Yes, of course this sounds scary. But just like horses, who use their heightened senses to live safely among predators, you can learn to take vague intuitions seriously without becoming paranoid.