INTO THE EYE OF A HORSE

By Aine Cailleach

During the opening ceremony of the Fountain of Life Womb of New Earth Retreat, I was initiated into a deep Shamanic Journey by The Eye of the Horse. It was nighttime, and we gathered in a circle to grieve for Gaia, to release the pain of Gaia and her children and afterwards to receive messages from the Spirit of the Aniyunwiya, the Ancient Cherokee tribe who were once here in the Great Mother Mountain of Appalachia where we gathered. I went into a deep visionary experience….

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I heard the moaning of the Earth, she had lost her Hum. I felt the Earth grieving, I was grieving with her, grieving the loss of the Mother.  I went into the Eye of the Horse, down into her womb and felt the galloping feet on the earth, rising up into my womb. There were souls of the Native People trapped in the Mother Mountains that needed to return home to the Great Womb.  I was riding a white horse with souls passing through the butterfly net of my womb, the water wheel spinning as the gong sounded in the Ani-yun-Wiya ceremony.  

I journeyed into the Eye of the Horse again, under her hoofs that kicked up the red dust of the earth. I was pulled into the Vacuum of the Vortex, my feet hovered over the molten core. I landed on my back on top of a water drum, feeling the reverberation of the earth below. Huge black V-shaped wings were flapping above me, 3 feathers were held up in front of my face. My nose turned into a Bird Beak. I had the head of an eagle. When I tried to open my eyes, I saw these golden, black eyes staring into my eyes.  My vision opened into the dark night.

My son was bitten by a Spider on the Summer Solstice.  I journeyed into the Horse eye again, descending on a thread, dropping deeper into my own womb space, deeper into the earthen womb, the medicine bowl. I met the Spider, her 8 feet sticky and magnetic, like suction cups, grounded to the earth. I was face to face with the Spider, Kali Creatrix of birth, death and rebirth. I had faced her before, but now she was holding my baby. She took him, with her flesh-eating teeth, raging through the skin of his leg, she was pulling him to her.  I met the face of the Divine Mother in the surgeon's face, wielding her sword with her two wild red streaks in her hair, I surrendered to her. The Spider brought me to my knees. I had to let go and trust, dropping into the void. I had to find the thread, the silken cord that would carry us back. She stitched and stitched, weaving her web, dissolving my fear. I let go of my attachments, trusting and surrendering, knowing that All is love, no matter what.  This was my initiation into the Great Earth Womb.

On the morning of the surgery, a hawk squawked so loud calling me out of the house. When my son was brought back to his room from recovery, the hawk sat outside his window like a guardian on the ledge of the hospital roof. A huge snapping turtle crossed in front of my car that day.  All 4 of my totem animals circled around me: Horse, Hawk, Turtle and Spider. While waiting for his surgery, I went to a vending machine for a bottle of water, there was no water left, but as a refund, a shiny gold Sacagawea coin popped out like a precipitous birth. I knew there was a message.

A few days later, I saw the horse eye again and started to journey.  As I started to drop into the vortex, my left leg jolted strongly. I saw my left foot pointing downward and had a moccasin on my left foot, lost the right one. I started traveling down into a chasm. I heard a whistling sound as I dropped deeper. I felt deerskin clothing flapping around me. I saw the wise eyes of a grandmother. Then I descended to another level. I felt wings opening at the back of my heart, spreading out from the scapula. My arms were overhead and I was hovering, legs and feet dangling. But I started swinging out from the deep core of my womb, the primal center of gravity. My legs and feet were circling around the earth's core with such velocity there was a singing vibration coming up from the earth womb and I dissolved into the sound.

I was coming full circle with all our grandmothers whistling around us. In a vision, I saw Sacagawea  guiding me into the vortex. She was a feminine guide who embarked on a journey by boat while pregnant with her first child. She guided the masculine expedition through dangerous waterways to explore unknown territory and gave birth to a son at the beginning of the journey. The sight of a mother and child sent a message to the native people that this was a peaceful mission. She seemed connected to Isis nurturing the child, guiding the boat, the souls of men to rebirth. She was the interpreter who spoke the native snake language that connected the Womb Heart. Her presence honoring her place in the sacred web. Through her softness and courage she provided safe passage to the New Earth, without Her they never would have arrived, her Womb was the compass.

The Shoshone Snake Woman known as Grass Woman was later named Bird Woman when captured by the Hidatsa tribe. The interpretation of her name may have been confused with the Indian hand sign for flapping wings of a bird, when it probably was the sign for working the oars of a boat meaning “boat traveller.”  She was bought as a slave by her husband. Sacagawea was used by white men as a servant on the expedition as she guided them to the New World. She gathered plants and pulled snake venom from men with her hands healing them with medicines of the earth. Like Isis, she restored broken men so they could continue on the journey.  She was the water from the well offered to the weary travelers.

She prayed to the Great Spirit and made sacrifices to guide her back to her people again. This was her vision quest.  The rivers became impassable as she paddled downstream. When they came into the Shoshone camp Sacagawea recognized the land of her people. She was Shoshone by birth and  kidnapped by the Hidatsa as a child. She started a translation chain in her native language to negotiate with the Shoshone for horses. Not knowing her brother was the Chief of the Shoshone tribe. 

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In great recognition, they embraced in emotional reunion. The Chief agreed to provide all the horses they needed for the expedition. The Shoshone were known for their powerful Barb Horses.  Without horses, who knows if they would have been able to continue on the journey.

I journeyed into the hollow core of the earth through the Horse Eye a few days later. There was a sensation of deep openness and ecstatic warmth pouring down into my feminine crown opening my Womb Eye. Earth Mother was rising out of the water, mingling with the air of her breath and the fire of her heart into the void of everything.  She was the all-seeing eye of the Great Womb. Seer in the dark, navigator of the waters, looking out across the horizon where heaven and earth meet. She was the messenger between the Cosmic Womb and the Womb of Gaia. She was the utterance of the Mother Tongue linking the infinity loop of the Heart-Womb.

Sacagawea reminded me that it was time to stand in the canoe in my soft power and paddle quietly across the water listening for the Hum.  Her dark eyes were guiding me, the blue beads at her throat poured out a torrent of snake words. She was talking to me in a language I didn't understand, it was snake language. I was only able to catch pieces of the chant, later I was able to interpret it as Shoshone words.

Ba, Ba, Naga ha, Bunku, (water, water, halfway through, open eyes)
Saki Wiya Bunyana (boat pull woman shaman)
Beka, Beka Samara (blood, blood, vulva)
Sosoni, Ah we, Ah we, Oh (grass, dig roots)
Bu We Wa sen (whirlwind)
Bow ha Bun ku (medicine horse)

I started to journey down, spinning into the sound of the singing bowl of the earth. I saw a black snake, writhing sensuously, expanding and contracting with life force. It was full-bodied and almost oozing, then the skin started to shed and dissolve. I was meeting life and death in the ouroboros of the void.  Then the white head of an Eagle emerged, spreading wings of flight in rebirth.   There was a sense of merging the deep lunar primal earthy feminine with the penetrating solar masculine in Sacred Union. I remembered the sound of the earth moaning in grief and losing her Hum. I had also lost my hum. During the retreat, I had a dream that I was in the car with my husband, he was driving too close to a stone wall, almost scraping against it, I told him you're getting too close to the wall. I needed to surrender to love and trust, to dissolve the wall that separated me from the wild feminine and prevented
union with the masculine.

On the Autumnal Equinox, it was time to honor the journeys of the Summer Solstice.  In a completion ritual to help my son integrate the Spider Medicine, Seren Bertrand, co-founder of The Fountain of Life suggested that I bury his feet in the earth and sing him a lullaby while doing cranial work.  I massaged his head with Frankincense oil, along the occipital ridge and alta major to release the trauma of all his ancestors.  I was also releasing the trauma of his birth, he was born by c-section, the 3rd gate of my cervix closed during his birth, closing my womb eye. Tears streamed down my face at the completion of this ritual, great healing had taken place. He looked at me, said thank you and put his moccasins back on.

As I finished the ceremony, I remembered my maternal grandfather was thrown from his horse and killed.  My younger brother called me to say he had 2 horseshoes from a white horse for me. My older brother sent me a baby picture of my father on a pony. My husband and I met at the wall. There was deep healing of my masculine relationships and lineage in this horse medicine that also unleashed the wild feminine that had been held in captivity.   The web of life pulses in our womb/hara restoring the Hum when we listen to the ancestral grief we carry.

I remembered myself as a 20 year old maiden riding the wild shakti horse when I literally hit a stone wall that shut down my innocence and power. I sustained a serious head injury in the crash that disconnected me from my body. I had put up a wall of fear that closed my eyes. I was starting to heal the head trauma of my upper cervical region around the occipital area and Alta Major that closed my feminine 3rd eye and The Mouth of the Goddess. It was like the circuitry of my maidenhood was interrupted, shutting down my magical sense of vision, trust and innocence.

I was thrown from my car in a life and death initiation as a Womb Shaman riding the spirit horse.  I flew out the back window like a bird crossing the threshold of the dark void into the Cosmic Womb. Two men witnessed my flight as I landed on my belly, sliding unconsciously across the grass.  It has taken me almost 40 years to remember that I needed to take that solitary journey to find my soul purpose. My spirit guide was reminding me of my magical powers to see in the dark and fly into the Void, returning to the love and innocence of the maiden to guide souls back home to the Great Womb.

“Womb Awakening is more than a remembering of the feminine, though it includes that too. It is total rebirth which all shamanic traditions speak of. A Black Womb Hole takes everything within our being that is not love and dissolves it back into the primordial darkness and rebirths it into love. No experience, no trauma, no wound, no betrayal, no crime is too great for this infinite love that rebirths all within the radiant darkness of Her Womb.”
~Azra Bertrand, MD and Seren Bertrand, The Fountain of Life