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Sometimes we are asked the question, "What have been the best three days of your life?"
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Among the three best days of my life was a beautiful, crisp April day when I was invited by two older work colleagues on a trip to a dude ranch in upstate New York for horseback riding.
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I was in my mid twenties and had never been horseback riding in my life. Indeed, my only interactions with horses were the occasional offerings of carrots to the carriage horses in Central Park. -- in other words, I was a complete novice, knowing virtually nothing about horses.
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I was in jovial company during the car trip upstate and the scenery was beautiful.
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When finally arriving to the dude ranch, I was first struck by the sense of being out of New York entirely. Country music played over the sound system and everyone walked around in cowboy gear. It felt like the middle of Texas -- a place I loved visiting and staying in for six months, when a child.
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One of the men I was with was a very experienced horse rider and known to the ranch and so we were allowed to leave the premises with our rented horses.
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Herb gave me some basic pointers on horse back riding 101 and though perhaps a little nervous in setting off on what was for me, a new adventure, I was reasonably confident and relaxed.
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The horse I was riding was a smallish, black horse named, Gypsy who also appeared very confident and relaxed.
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At first we navigated through some worn horse trails at a slow and leisurely pace. Everything felt beautiful -- the cool, crisp air, the sun shining brightly and the soothing clip clop of horses' hooves on dirt paths.
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But we eventually entered a wooded area and it was then that the experience transformed into some wondrous, fantastic dream that one could never imagine in real life.
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As if on some unknown cue, Gypsy broke into a fluid and seemingly fast moving canter as did the other two horses. -- So fast, that Gypsy's hooves seemed not to hit the ground at all.
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Suddenly, we were literally "flying" through the woods, sunlight flickering through the fast spinning trees and me feeling like I was, in one moment, transfixed and one with the horse and the universe entire.
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It was a feeling I never experienced before or since -- a sense of time stopping and yet swirling forward towards eternity. I perhaps should have felt frightened, but I wasn't. On the contrary, there was simply this overwhelming sense of peace, oneness and flying through time and space itself.
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It was a feeling and experience I never wanted to end.
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I don't know whether it was a few minutes or an hour later when we departed the woods and the horses again slowed to a walking pace. But I was speechless as all sense of words or reality had long since left. I was transfixed in bliss.
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Finally returning to the ranch, we dismounted the horses and I stood a while just petting and offering carrots to Gypsy and thanking him for what was an experience I could not put into words either at the time or even now.
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But when it comes to interactions and relationships between horses and humans, it seems words are not needed. Though he could not speak, I could sense that Gypsy felt proud and even happy that I was so pleased. He had a "job" to do and he obviously did it well and he seemed to know and take great delight in that.
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Herb, Hal and I then had lunch at the ranch and I couldn't believe how much I was enjoying the country music playing in the background (I was normally a rock fan). Everything was just so perfect and harmonious that day. Great friends, great horses, great weather and even the country twang of the music. It just all fit.
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It was nightfall by the time we finally made it back to the city. But, during the two or three hour drive back, I am not sure I said anything at all as I was so transfixed in trying to relive again, the memory of flying through woods on a crisp, sun-filled day on a horse named Gypsy. (Indeed, the only regret from that day is that I did not bring a camera. But the images and feelings are forever imbedded in brain and spirit as if they occurred yesterday. -- A feeling of oneness and spiritual partnership with a horse.)
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It has been decades since one of the three most wondrous experiences of my life. (The other two? The day my daughter was born and the night my grandmother accompanied me to a Bob Dylan concert.)
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Herb sadly died from cancer a few months after our horseback riding trip. He was one of the funniest and most warm hearted people I've ever known and his loss was profoundly felt by all who knew and worked with him.
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I did go horseback riding (locally) a number of times after the initial and mystical experience. Though always fantastically enjoyable, it was never quite the same as that magical day of flying in upstate woods with Gypsy and where everything was so harmonized and fitted right down to the country music and cowboy gear. Nothing could ever come close to equaling the sheer perfection and bliss of that beautiful day, particularly as exemplified in the proud and joyeus look on Gypsy's face at the completion of the ride.
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But, perhaps it is that experience that lives within me today in the struggle to keep our beloved carriage horses in New York City.
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The same look of confidence and pride in a job well done observed and felt so many years ago on Gypsy's beautiful, soft face is the same look seen a couple of weeks ago on a carriage horse named Harry's face.
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Whether in country woods or city streets, the partnership and connection between humans and horses is something to be forever cherished and jealously protected and guarded. It is to never be dismissed as to do so is to banish the possibility of perfection, bliss and yes, the splendor of the dream. -- PCA
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