I stare – ready to envision. Before me, the skull of a Salt River Horse – choked to death by a growth in the throat. The way a cheekbone juts, cavities abound for reason I don’t know – biology beyond my knowing and standards.
I asked and I asked, and I asked for that which I most fear – a horse skull – I held the vision in mind for year(s) – a way to face my fear of horses (irrational, never being assaulted/bit or even a memory of riding a horse). And its time was granted upon me – and I had to do the work to get so. A hike into Coon Bluff along the Salt River – in and out with a backpack and a trash bag. I forgot any kind of gloves – which proved to be the most enriching point of my journey – to personally handle the flesh.
The foal – what was left of it – was on the riverbank, lying on its side – very far into decomposition. Blackened flesh sun dried. I had my pickings, a scavenger to my own Faithfulness, Gratitude, and ready for Desecration of the Sacred.
A white boy – taking for his own – from the Ritual Animal of the Land.
Spine intact, skull present – I had to exude stability, mindlessness, No-Form – in my loneliness with the deceased – I had the crunching of rocks and stones beneath my feet – and the cracking of separating bones at my will.
The youthful Foal – a sacrifice to the land – its own mingling back into the richness it once lived active within its now empty skull. Imagine the level of worship that a horse, born unto its own landscape, activates the land itself – enrichment of life to enrichment of soil – in the gait of trotting to the communal stampede.
All it took to bring the living to the dead – were maggots and time. The terms of decomposition intruding within all burrows that flesh-home provides.
The dead feeding the living, the living feeding to die.
As I took the Head from the spine – a flow of maggots produced themselves – hiding away to treasure the succulent interior – that last remaining levity tucked within that protective skull –
protective up to a point…
I now, only witness from the imagination I can behold within – the capacity to sit and be the ravenous maggot – smell the rot, treat the bone, carve the restful structure – final sacrament to living time – uncovering toothed grin to bear the ‘ultimate form of us all’ – in Death smiling we wait for relief.
“You are ‘The Death’ Living” all of Us. One – final – breathe – away – from – Eternality.
You living, are born to die – simplicity.
And shall we be so grateful that the “Bones of Our Being” shall live far past our memories – far past our words – far past the fears that riddle us incomplete.
I am both the death-revealing maggot and the life-forgiving foal… synchronicity abound.
We shall all return to the One…
To be cliché - Yet, in the meantime…
The Anthropology of Self –
Beneath the surface of our ‘perceivable perceptions’ – lives the stories that we dream. In this body, the microcosm unifying conscious and subconscious ‘rem-embraces’ from the scarring of the ancient ways bestowed by our ‘deep-time ancestors’ – still living by the details of the land that make ‘Us’.
Momentary recollections, only to ‘wake up’ to our present place and time (Role) of life.
How many stories have been unknowingly carried into me? Just by simply picking a flower, feeling the bark on a tree…
Taking a Horse Skull away from home…
Have the dreams I have dreamed of been mine alone? Shall they belong to another creature – one perhaps I never knew?
Can the birds flying, casting shadows through my window, gift me a vision – one that I can in turn – create as a gift?
How long until I ‘wake up’ to the senses of my own being? Or, am I really One Being alone?
I know the world is not mine. It shall forever be its Own, telling the eternal story – ever unfolding into the Creators Own.
As I tend to peek around the corner, scanning the darkness for answers to questions I don’t know I have – I cannot help but not be alarmed when the Sacred comes rushing, screaming, bellowing out of me –
my sacrificial body, weak to The Majesty.
If I may leave one Prayer upon my flesh – to let it seep down into the Bone-House of my Being – those little caves and burrows – ready to receive the maggots of Fate –
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May I ever grow in capacity – ever be the One to gift the Sacred back to itself – that Human understanding of ‘Beyond-ness’ – that One that encompasses all One – Spirit riding upon Flesh – mingling all the worlds – light upon light – May I be that one – and all that embodies.
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I may never be able to truly write what is Real, Right, and needed for our time space. Yet, I know stopping only dams up the system – so I shall forever do my best.
Enjoy the Journey
Oh Blessed One