We buried our boy today.

Photo copyright Wings, 2016; all rights reserved.

A couple of days ago, as I was walking out to the studio, a mourning cloak danced past me on the breeze, headed eastward, and I felt something cold clutch at my heart. They are aptly named, these butterflies: They tend to appear when death is at the door, even if we don't know it yet.

I shook it off. Two of the horses had been in full laminitis flare for months; all three of the dogs had fought off a nasty reaction to something in the last couple of weeks. Griffin's CVS had just flared again, but that's by now an annual occurrence at this time of year, and there's little for it but time. He's always bounced back just fine, and there was no reason to think this would be any different.

It was different.

At five o'clock yesterday evening, with snow falling softly outside, our boy walked on, over the threshold and on along that western road to The Interstices and beyond, to the place where the Thunderbird flies, to a place where we cannot yet follow, and my heart is broken into too many pieces ever to be repaired.

I don't think I can make anyone understand. You have experienced this sort of relationship with another being, or you haven't, and if it's the latter, nothing I say will make the slightest bit of sense. I have never had such a one before, nor will I again; Griffin was entirely one of a kind, and there is no succeeding that.

Sky Spirits and Second Chances

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

Only yesterday, I was lamenting the fact that, thanks to the presence of the new girl in the round pen, the hitching post in it would go unused as a perch for raptors and other birds. It's one of their favorite spots, particularly for the one I call Nimishoomis. But when there's a horse in the pen, they tend to shy away.

So imagine my surprise when I went out to the studio with the camera to get shots of Wings's latest work, only to see in the distance a bird sitting atop it. It's not clear from the photos, but despite the clouds, I was facing directly into the sun in the southern sky, and the glare was impossible to navigate. I couldn't tell what sort of bird it was until I snapped the photo.

It's the one I call Grandfather.

Yes. The one who afforded us the fastest of glimpses two days ago, as he flew directly over my head to vanish into thin air. The one who, up to that point, I had not seen here for a month or more.

He was very decidedly, deliberately, seated atop the post, looking down on the new girl:

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

Rather than steering clear, he seemed to be watching over her.

I moved closer, trying to get a better shot, and he flew off, not seeming to need to gather himself at all, nor spring onto the air, before heading southward.

I also could not see him circle back around, but a split second later, he was north, not south. He had seated himself atop the giant blue spruce, where he could keep an eye on horse and me and the world at large:

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

After a few minutes, he tired of balancing there, and headed briefly westward. Just long enough, actually, to spiral upward in great sweeping circles, the glare too bright for me to find him anywhere against the dove-gray sky.

I took a shot, and took a shot, so to speak:

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

And there he was, so high that he seemed tinier than a hummingbird. He circled several more times, then suddenly zoomed straight toward me. He hovered a moment just overhead, then flew off in the direction of the mountains to the east, where he danced in and out of the peaks and valleys before vanishing, once again, seemingly into thin air.

Apparently, we are supposed to care for this horse.

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

She seemed better today, although "better" is very much a relative term. It's like the difference between being told you're dying and being told you'll probably die, but there's a chance they might save you: The survival instinct grabs onto every tiny shred of hope it can.

It's no less true for her.

We dosed her morning and evening with her meds, gave her her supplement, cleaned her up with Betadine, moisturized the horribly damaged tissue with spritzes of mineral oil, watched her go to town for a full quarter of an hour on a brand new salt-and-mineral block all for her.

We were her only human contact.

The sky spirits seem ed to take an interest in her, however.

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

This is the week of All Souls, a time when the spirits walk, when the ordinary course of days is upended, when day is night and down is up and east is west.

Tonight, east was most definitely west, with a stellar sunset the likes of which neither of us has ever seen . . . in the eastern sky above the peaks.

It feels like a benediction on the new girl, a chance at salvation for her. And for our grandfather spirits who have returned, as well. 

And, it would seem, for us.


All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Of Suns and Sorrows, Signs and Spirits

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

Once again, I was up before dawn. I've lost count of the number of days in a row I've awakened the same way, the pain in my skull so murderous that it hurts worse to lie down than it does to unlock my joints and get up. It's been weeks now, and every day begins exactly the same way.

It has one quite literal silver lining: Most mornings anymore, I'm guaranteed to see the sun rise. In summer, that's not such an amazing sight most of the time; at that hour, the skies are mostly clear, and the color goes from pale gold to pale blue in little more than a blink.

Now, though, we're into fall. Oh, I know what the calendar says, but it's wrong. Climate change is here, and so is our new seasonal schedule. Autumn arrived on last week's winds. The cottonwoods across the road began yellowing three days ago.

Today is a marker of sorts for me, yet another anniversary of a certain sort that holds grief, and guilt, and pain. And so awakening as I did this morning, in the pre-dawn dark, blind with physical pain, seemed fitting somehow, apt: starting the day off in the negative column, at a loss in more ways than one, and it nothing more nor less than I deserved anyway.

As the skies lightened, a large bird swooped into the upper reaches of the aspen nearest the arbor. I saw it only out of the corner of a pain-filled eye, just enough to register an impression of size, but nothing more. I thought perhaps a young raven, since the adults of the clan have been bringing the young ones around lately, but the split-second glimpse didn't look — or feel — black in color. I took out the camera and went outside in the cold air, but it had already vanished.

The sunrise was there instead.