being little, being big

There was once a little girl who loved horses. She traveled the world, searching for her favorite horse. She admired beautifully bejeweled horses with light fur and dark manes, wearing leis of marigolds;

strong, dark, honest horses garlanded with white beads and bones;

divine horses;

miniature horses;

farm horses;

city horses;

show horses;

a winged horse at a circus;

even sea horses!

She loved every horse she met, but she continued seeking her favorite horse.

Her parents sent her, one summer, to Hawaii to visit with her aunt. Their plan at the time was for their daughter to learn to accept peace from her aunty's spiritual way of life, but the young girl thought they were just trying to get some time to themselves. She obligingly went, dreaming of horses during the long flight to the distant volcano in the sea.

When she arrived, her old, wise aunty took one look at her and said, "You are a seeker."

The girl, a little surprised at her aunt's accuracy, replied, "Yes... what should I do? Where should I go? Where will I find that which I seek?"

Her old aunt shook her head, smiling, and turned back to the pot of boiling something she was stirring over the fire. "Child, you need not travel to find what you seek."

The girl frowned, wondering what her aunt could mean by that. Wasn't the path of the seeker a journey to the destination? She looked at her aunt. Perhaps the old woman was losing her mind -- her parents must have sent her to take care of her confused aunty.

The next day, the girl woke up, and not knowing what to do with herself, decided to wander around the volcanic island, to see if she could find any horses. She went to her aunt, who was sitting quietly, staring at the sea.

"Aunty, I am going now, I'll be back sometime soon."

Her old aunt squinted her green eyes slightly, but made no response beyond that.

"Goodbye, Aunty!" And with that, she packed some bananas for snacking and was off.

The girl walked down the hill.

She walked along the hot, dry coast, over crumbly black lava rock.

She jumped in the crystal ocean and meditated with wise sea turtles and played with friendly dolphins.

She walked through forests of coffee trees, smelling their sweet, syrupy breath.

She walked up another hill, through bright green farmland, dotted with cows and goats and sheep.

She walked through rainbow-colored gardens of towering dinosaur flowers; through jungle so thick it was as dark as the cave of night.

She soon found herself approaching a precipice that seemed like the edge of the world. All she could see beyond the edge was sky floating softly above ocean. As she neared the edge, she discovered it was a cliff and there was a path that led down the steep face into a misty, green valley. An adventurous seeker at heart, in love with the unknown, the girl started down the path.

Right away, the air felt cooler as she descended into the valley, then the temperature grew mild until she no longer felt the air at all, but felt, instead, as though it melted right into her skin, and her skin melted right into it. It was remarkably unnoticeable!

She continued her decent until she reached a completely silent cluster of towering palm trees. She stopped, and looked up at the fronds high above her, and felt herself shrink to the size of an ant. She heard a rustling beside the path and looked up to see the largest horse she had ever seen. It was clearly wild, as she could tell from its unkept mane, long eyelashes, and bold, expressive eyes. She wondered how close she could get to it, wondered if she could pet it, felt magnetically drawn to it.

Before she moved a muscle, she heard the soft, even voice of the horse inside herself, "You may approach me, but please do so with respect. And do not touch me, for I do not trust you yet."

Amazed that this horse had communicated to her, the girl stepped softly towards it. As she neared the giant horse, there was a strange sensation of shrinking and growing, and by the time she was close enough to feel the horse's warm breath on her skin, she stood at eye-level with the glowing creature.

The girl, overwhelmed by this magical experience, could not find words, but felt her heart beating and listened to it. She closed her eyes and listened very closely to this primal rhythm of her beating heart, the first sense of self she had ever experienced, floating in her mother's womb.

When she opened her eyes, she was staring at a girl, who was standing in a silent cluster of palm trees staring back at her. A moment passed before she realized that this girl was her -- it was as though she was staring at herself in a mirror. Then, she watched as the girl in the "mirror" brushed a stray hair from her forehead, while she, herself, remained still!

The girl herself became fearful, and started shifting her weight from foot to foot...to foot to foot? She looked down and realized she had, instead of two human legs, four dark hairy legs and four... hooves! Her consciousness had somehow left her own body and entered that of the wild horse! She took a deep breath and thought about how to get back into her own body. She remembered that the journey of her consciousness had taken place in the moments of listening deeply to her own heart beating. So, she closed her eyes and listened for the familiar rhythm. Sure enough, she found the sound. Only this time, it was the beating of the horse's big, steady heart. The beating grew louder as the beating of other hearts joined, then the softer rhythm of the insects' wings joined, then she perceived the even more subtle pulse of the plants' coursing energy, and then, very faintly, the low vibration of the Earth itself joined the chorus of the sounds of life. The girl slowly opened her eyes and found herself staring into the bold eyes of the horse once again.

The horse's voice spoke inside the girl again: "I am your favorite horse, as every horse is your favorite horse, as every being is your favorite being, as this life is your favorite life." The girl felt the nature of her journey shift. She walked slowly to the shoreline beyond the cluster of palm trees and watched everything and listened to every sound and felt the endless journey of every moment.