My favorite author is a woman named Linda Kohanov, who is a horse therapist in Arizona. She runs the Epona Center there. She uses her horse therapy herd to help heal emotionally-damaged people, especially women. She has three books, The Tao of Equus, Riding Between the Worlds, and Way of the Horse. I started riding when I was seven and have had horses most of my life. If you’ve never been involved in a close way with horses, you probably don’t realize when incredible animals they are. Because of my medical problems I no longer have horses and it's a grievous loss to me. I'm hoping to find someone near me with a horse that I can visit occasionally.
All my life I’ve been somewhat strange, never quite fitting in with most people, feeling more comfortable with animals than people, feeling terribly stressed in big cities, having psychic experiences, being somewhat of a loner, although that term is so misused now that it’s come to have the terrible connotation of total evil lunatics who prey on others. While I was very good at whatever job I had, I never felt I’d “come home” until I started my own size-positive business that I described to you earlier. My father was what is called a “job shopper” in the aerospace industry, going from company to company wherever he was needed, so we moved frequently when I was a child, never finishing a year of school in the same place until the 6th grade. I thought that was why I found it so difficult to maintain relationships yet longed so for connection and closeness, and that probably IS part of why, but then a year or so ago I read Linda’s Way of the Horse.
Here is the info from Linda Kohanov’s last book that seemed to explain it all. When I read this, the “ah ha” moment was at hand, the instant when the light bulb came on over my head and it all fell into place:
“Borderland (not borderline) Personalities and tribal peoples have one significant feature in common: a physic connection with nature inseparable from spiritual and physical health. In the modern world, Borderlands feel compelled to mediate between humanity and nature, a role for which their own culture simply does not prepare them. As a result, they’re often more comfortable around animals than people. Because they’re empathic, if not telepathic, they tend to feel uneasy in public situations. Like horses, Borderlands have a pronounced gift for sensing the negative, sometimes aggressive emotions under those smiling faces, and this leads to a profound mistrust of their own species. These people wonder how they’ll ever fit in. They feel out of time, out of place, trapped in a world that makes no sense to them, a culture that seems, in fact, to be a serious, life-threatening mistake.
“Borderlands also tend to suffer from a strong yet unfocused sense of calling. Some of these people float aimlessly from one job or course of study to the next, yet none of the available careers or degrees seem to fit. Others endure years of drudgery in a single unfulfilling position because they can’t think of anything they’d rather do more. As a result of these difficulties, many suffer bouts of severe depression, which is why an open-minded therapist in the Southwest had ample opportunity to study their perspective.”
I’ve had some strange psychic experiences over the years. What makes it scary to me is that I have no control over it. In other words, I can’t summon up the gift when it suits me consciously as some people can, those who help police departments and such. It’s difficult to explain because I have no idea how I simply absolutely, positively KNOW something is going to happen. Sometimes it’s something as simple as knowing the next number they’re going to call at the bingo games here or knowing I’m going to win the current game.
With Jerry, the last man I was involved with from 10/07 to 3/08, there were two episodes. When we’d been communicating by e-mail for only a short time, I was in Placerville and looked down a street to see if it was clear to pull out into traffic. I suddenly KNEW that an apartment complex a few blocks away was where he lived. I keep rather strange hours according to most people. I fall asleep fairly early, sleep for awhile, then am up for hours in the very early morning, then go back to sleep for awhile until I’m up for the day. Since I don’t have to go out for a job any longer it’s fine with me. After we’d been together for awhile I was just falling asleep again about 9:00 in the morning when I suddenly KNEW I should get up and go to Wal-Mart, which I’d intended to do later. I’ve learned not to ignore these feelings, so I got up, dressed, and hopped in the car. I pulled into the Wal-Mart parking lot and almost parked in a spot on the left of the aisle but something told me to go farther. I looked but couldn’t see an empty spot, but went ahead.. Hidden behind a van was a spot on the right. I parked, gather up my purse and list, got out and realized I was parked next to Jerry’s car. So I stopped, wrote him a little note, and went on it. Just as I was walking in he was walking out. This is all strange enough, but the timing went even more bizarre. He was picking up a prescription and it was delayed. He’d gotten a haircut earlier that delayed him even more, all of this to make the timing exactly so we’d meet! Don’t ask me how, I have no idea.
Other strange episodes over the years. In 1976 I bought a condo (my first home buy) in the Berryessa area of San Jose. After about six months I suddenly knew that it was going to burn. The really scary part is that I have no idea when, how bad, end result, just that without the tiniest doubt it WILL happen! I lived with this terror for 1-1/2 years and nothing happened so I began to doubt myself. I finally bought a house in Santa Clara and moved, thinking I had been wrong about the fire. A week after I moved a neighbor at the condo complex called me and said that my unit had burned the night before!
I used to have a friend named Jane who didn’t have a car, but rode her bicycle everywhere. I suddenly knew she was going to get hit by a car, but, again, no idea when, where, how bad. The dilemma is do I tell her or not? What would be the point when I can’t tell her to avoid a certain intersection or anything even remotely helpful? This feeling went on for about six months, then I got a call from Stanford Hospital that she was there, having been hit by a car. Fortunately, it wasn’t terribly bad. When the incident finally actually happens the pressure lifts from my shoulders and it’s such an enormous relief!
The third major episode involved a married man I got involved with (unknowingly, I swear). He was a field service engineer in Michigan for the company I worked for in Palo Alto. He came out to take classes a few times a year and we got involved. I found out he was married and ended things but always felt so bad that we’d never discussed it, never resolved it, just it was over. I didn’t hear a word from him for about three years. Suddenly one day I knew I needed to go home early from work, but no idea why. This was during the time I knew the condo was going to burn, so that was my first thought. I got home, walked all around, nothing seemed wrong. I’d been home about 10 minutes, still utterly confused, when the phone rang and it was this man. He told me he’d always felt bad about hurting me and had wanted to apologize but for some reason he finally got the nerve to actually do it this time and that if I hadn’t been there to answer the phone at that particular moment, he probably never would have called again. We talked for about half an hour and I felt more at peace about the situation then.
Jan
Fri Jul 31, 2009 4:25 pm