Jet

So many times I have communications with animals that go beyond what words can describe. The conversation I had with Jet fits into that category; although, words, or no words, it is one that needs to be shared.
Jet was one of a group of PMU mares that a local rescue group had rescued from slaughter. (PMU stands for Pregnant Mare Urine. Their urine is collected to make hormone therapies for women, and their foals are often sold as a by product of the urine). The rescue group had contacted me asking if I would speak to some of the horses to help them acclimate to their new environment. By the time I spoke with Jet, I had already talked to 4-5 of the other horses. At that point they had all had similar stories and attitudes to share: They all felt they were in this world to work with humans, and that their PMU job had just been part of that role. None of them had any anger or grudges towards people for their past, and it seemed like for the most part they had been well cared for.
I had no reason to think that Jet would share anything different.
As it turned out, Jet came from a different farm from the other horses.
Here are my session notes for Jet, the purest way I know to share what she wants to share with the world:
First of all, I pick up a great sadness around Jet, and a lot of mistrust towards people. She does not have that "curious" or "interested" attitude that many of the (PMU) horses I have talked to have. She seems *extremely* perceptive, with a huge heart.
She wonders, before I can begin talking to her, what are they going to do when my foal comes out?
Before I can answer, she flashes back this image to me of death. She says her foal is "not registered," and will go to slaughter.
I try to explain to her that her situation is different now, that she and her foal will be treated with the upmost of care.
But she seems unable to really hear me. She explains again that her foal is only a grade foal--nothing fancy--and that people will take him away and kill him.
She sends me some intense images of her time as a PMU mare. These images are like the pictures that rescue groups used to gain awareness of the PMU mare's plight years ago--crowded barns filled with horses, stalls filled with manure. She also keeps sending me this "death" image--foals dying in the stalls. No one doing anything to save them. There is great sadness and pain there (I feel like crying), and she says, what is a mare to do?
I say, nothing, except dream of a better life for her and her future foals. And that life has now come.
Before she can see that, though, it is important for me to view her past situation purely, and so I do.
She says, here it is the "law" that the foals are sold. It is like this corrupt society, where babies are born and die, all as a sort of perverse sustenance for humans--the scene in the matrix comes to mind for me, where humans are grown and harvested. It was like this for the horses.
I tell her, now she is in a new country with new laws.
She says, even here horses are eaten for food.
She has this innate perception of slaughter--what it is, how it is done. She understands that this is where her past foals have gone--the ones who have survived. She continually shows me that many of the foals did not survive. That they died in dirty stalls with no one to help them. And to add to the pervisity, there were the buckets of urine collected from them. This was absolutely degrading to her just as it would me for you and me. And flies, swarming over piles of manure. And even worse, maggots. Maggots swarming around dead babies, and blood from the birthing. And all of this mixed in with the cries of the mares, over their lost babies. Over the hopelessness of the situation. Who were they crying for, she wonders? Who ever heard their cries? Not the people they were with.
I say, somebody like you and me. These groups of people who rescue horses out of situations like this. And I tell her again, you have been rescued. There are good people in the world. You are in a new place, where people honor horses just like they do their own children. I tell her again, NO HARM WILL COME TO YOUR FOAL. And "YOU WILL BE HIS MOTHER THIS TIME."
She says, no they will take my foal just like they always do. They have no use for me but for my foal and my pee. She feels this great hopelessness and depression, like someone who has been stuck in a situation so long and nothing has ever changed that she can't believe it will. She says, many times I wanted to die. Many times I had given up.
I remind her again, things are different now. I wonder, can she give it one more try? One try to see her baby grow into a horse. One try to see people treat horses the way they are meant to be treated?
She isn't sure. She is starting to hear me, but she says, every year in the spring we do it all over again. There is that feeling that even though she has had a reprieve it will all start again very soon.
I tell her, no, not this time. This time she really is starting new. I tell her the people there want nothing of her but to give her and her foal a good life. To show them how people can relate to horses the way they were supposed to. I tell her there the horses are like queens and kings and her baby will be a prince or a princess.
She really loves this idea. Of her baby being treated like royalty. She grasps on to this more than anything else. This is something to give her hope, that her baby might know something different than she and all the other babies before it.
She thinks, as we talk, that she might be able to experience life anew through her foal--that she might be able to learn about these people here from watching how they treat her foal. This might be a way she can begin to relate to people and to forgive. She does not want human contact forced on her, but if she likes what she sees with her foal, she may surprise you someday by volunteering to give it a try.
I tell her about what will happen when she foals, that people will love her baby so much, just like she does, that they will want to touch it--just like she will want to nuzzle it with her nose. She says, see I told you they would come in to take it away from me.
And I explain again, no, the people's love for your foal will be so great they they will want to come in and love it physically, just like your love compels you to nuzzle your foal when it is born. This is why they will come in. I tell her again "NO HARM WILL COME TO YOUR FOAL"
I remind her of the reason horses and people were brought together in the first place (I have had horses tell me of this before.) I try to show her a vision of how it could be--was supposed to be--will be.
She asks me, "But why does man do this?" (Meaning what was done to her and the other horses.)
I hesitate, and say, well, I believe it is because God has given man free will. And some men chose to walk far towards the darkness, and some men chose to walk towards the light.
She remembers this now (and now I believe I am talking to her more on a spiritual level.) She remembers that certain animals, including horses, have chosen to walk the walk with man in order to continually guide them towards the light.
And then she thinks of what she knows of slaughter, and gets angry. She says, this is not the relationship that horses were supposed to have with man. This is not the pact that they entered into. Horses entered into a pact with man to walk with him in this earthly journey. To carry his heart--both physically and emotionally. But what man has done with horses (in horse slaughter) has broken our pact with them. Horses never entered into this pact (being eaten) with man. Other animals did, but not horses. Horses were meant to sustain man spiritually and emotionally--not through their meat and their blood. Horses came to carry mans' burdens, both physical and otherwise. But horses never agreed to serve man in this manner. Horse slaughter is a betrayal of the highest order! It hurts everything that the horse/human pact has been working towards. It is a wound to the soul of every horse who has come to serve a human. A "black mark" on the history between man and animal.
She says, we (man) need to treat all animals with respect and care, but most of all the "beasts of burden" who have come down to work *with* man and help him in his journey. It defiles their spirit to treat them in this way. It sets back the evolution of man and of the planet.
I ask her what we can do to remedy this wounding.
She says "We should all be working to free the souls of those who are trapped in this darkness" (Meaning the horses in a situation like she was in--and the men who put them there).
She feels encouraged knowing about people like those in the rescue group, and people like me who are willing to tell the horse's story. I reassure her that I will tell her story. That I have plans to put her story and her words on my blog, and that I imagine writing a book some day compiled of horse's stories similar to hers. That I give classes and trainings to help people hear the words she has spoken.
This is a relief to her. This is the kind of job she wants, to educate people about how things should be between man and horse, and about how wrong they have become in situations like hers.
She is tired after this session, but more hopeful.
I leave her to process what we have spoken of. I leave her feeling hopeful for her as well, but indescribably saddened about what she has shown me. With the sadness, though, there is also a fullness in my heart. A fullness of knowing what I have been put on this earth for. A fullness of knowing that I am beginning to fulfill my path of helping to heal the wound between man and animal.