Confronting Transition and death.
I have been sitting in reflection this past week of how the month of November seemingly carries an energy where I have to often hold transition, loss and death during it.
As I walked the land this week processing that, I felt the land and trees tell me that all cycles in nature hold wisdom. November is the time before winter, where the stillness and quiet of death sits.
So naturally November in fall and shedding being the time before that will perhaps hold this energy for us.
November holds many anniversaries of loss for me, two horses, soon to be four, my own miscarriage, the depth and contrast to this month is something I feel unconsciously.
As we navigate two more transitions happening in our herd I wanted to share how I am navigating this and being with this space.
Jack has been walking this path with us since the summer, letting us know that he does not want to do another winter in his body, and not wait until his body fails us.
Most recently and somewhat unexpectedly our mare Aine has asked to leave as well as she faces some challenges in her body.
Each year I often get calls from people with older horses asking me to take them. The reason I believe some of this is because we don’t always know how to sit in this space of death and loss and grieving.
My horses have taught me a lot of teachings, how to be with transition and death is a significant one.
Transition is not only mirrored in physical loss, it can also be mirrored in the shedding of a dream, a business, a relationship, a stage of life. We can apply this to wherever that shows up for us.
The transition of my horses and walking that with them has given me the capacity to embrace and accept different transitions in life.
For them they look at their death not as a final shedding, but as a transition to something new, something that we sometimes forget while we are in it.
Our spirit is neverending, it doesn’t die, but the physical form of how we inhabit it does. This also includes the physical form of what we are maybe in the space of transition in.
In nature we can witness it in the shedding of the leaves on the trees, the growth of the grass slowing down and going stagnant, we can see signs of it around us.
A tree in shedding embraces that is where it is, leading into winter where things are dormant it knows that each season will bring something new and that the cycle continues.
When we get stuck in the death of something, we forget that there is another cycle coming, that we will not be in that space forever.
For me personally when I bought this ranch 9 years ago the thing I had to sit in the most was knowing the amount of loss I would face in my life.
I knew that taking on this big dream and this calling of giving homes to horses would mean I would walk this path of loss many times over and I had to sit in the honesty of reflection of it I could survive that, because truthfully a part of me wasn’t sure I would.
I feared grief and loss and what it would do to me, because grief feels that way, unrelenting, never ending, but it does pass.
Over the years and having to face loss of horses, of dreams, of businesses, relationships, partnerships and my own miscarriage. I have had to sit in the confrontation of this many times over.
Each initiation of this teaches me I have the strength for it, another layer gets uncovered, I know now with certainty that I can face the pain of it and come out on the other side.
I find comfort knowing and feeling the spirit of each horse, or dream or transition that I have to walk and finding the trust knowing there is no form coming to be.
To be sure it doesn’t make the act of walking this way any easier, I have cried many tears these last few weeks, I have felt the heaviness and anticipation of having to face loss again, and sometimes I feel ok with that and sometimes I don’t.
I am still a human being navigating the complexities of what loss and transition offer to me, and I do find that my capacity to be in the range of that experience has grown.
What has helped me in another way is listening to each horse and what they have to teach me about it, what they are showing me.
When our gelding Rudy left us 3 years ago he asked me to celebrate his rebirth and to hold his transition that way. That to him, he was witnessing and holding that for himself, that he was able to regain his spirit form.
Each loss I do my best to hold as sacred and in ceremony, whatever form they take, the ones that I have time to sit in, the ones that I don’t.
Even in emergency transitions I still find my way into how do I honor this one? How do I hold it as sacred? How do I honor what is being asked? How do I celebrate this being?
Cultivating a relationship with spirit gives me comfort, I can feel the horses when they depart, I can continue to tune into them when their physical is no longer there.
Having a perspective of seeing something from a different lens helps me have acceptance of it, including the other transitions I have had to hold.
There is a trust that we are being asked of in this, trust that we can sit in this space however difficult it feels, trust that there is something on the other side, trust that we have the capacity and strength for it even if we don’t feel that way when we are in it.
Every transition I walk gives me complexity and layers, a texture that adds to the wisdom of my being, the initiation of it doesn’t always feel kind, but I appreciate and am grateful for how it adds to the facet of my being.
This time around as I have to sit in this reality of saying goodbye to two horses at once, one that I was not “prepared” for instead of shying away from it, I am sitting with it, allowing each part of me that needs to feel their way through it to be witnessed.
I am letting the herd and the land hold me seeking out their wisdom and space holding to help me navigate this so I can show up as I am being asked to with these beautiful beings that are reaching their time of transition.
When we are in this space, we need to be held and to be tended to, and to lean into the forces that are around us to help us walk it.
We don’t have to be in this by ourselves. I even witness how the herd holds this for one another, and although it can feel vulnerable to be witnessed in our grief, we need that medicine of holding to move us through it.
If you find yourself in this space in whatever way that is showing up for you, sit in this.
How do I hold a sacred space for myself and this passage to help tend to it?
What support can I lean into or ask for to hold me in it?
What teaching or initiation is being asked of me in this?
How can I shift how I am orienting around what this death and transition mean?
Where can I look to nature or other places to offer me a different place to land around this?
Where can I find acceptance?
Where does the part of me that knows how to hold capacity for this live in me and what wisdom does it have to share with me?
I look at my journey with my horses and also my life in its totality, to not pick and choose what parts of that journey that I can be with, and instead ask myself how do I embrace all parts of it.
It is an honor to be in this space with my horses and to be taught by it, regardless of the pain of it.
It is honoring my responsibility to them as being in relationship to them, to walk it with them and to take responsibility for my own process.
I am better for it when I confront the things that feel hard it forges me, even if the forging doesn't feel like it is something I can survive.
You can too. You have the strength, the wisdom and the capacity to move through what is being asked of you right now, you do.
This is a part of the cycle, not the whole of it, remember that.
For a deepening, I have done a few podcasts around this on my women who run with horses podcast just sharing different spaces of the journey both with my horses in this and also in life. If you wanted to take a listen, you can find the podcast on all streaming platforms under women who run with horses.
Wherever this needed to land today.