I guess the best thing that I can say is that I am surprised that I failed so badly yesterday. I really did not expect failure, but it found me at around 7:30 last night. I really planned to ride 100 miles in one day. We began riding at at 3:15 in the morning and I gave up after only 65 miles. I may be joining the ranks of the many who have discovered that they not only are not the men they once were, but that they were never the men that they once were.
Failure was perhaps foreseeable, but what happened on the first leg of the effort was not. I often forget to remove my glasses when riding in the dark. (They are tinted and reduce even the small amount of light that exists in the woods at night from reaching my corneas.)As we set out after 3:00 am I remembered to take them off.
Without my glasses I have very poor vision. I have gotten used to not being able to see things that are there but am still entertained by the fact that without my glasses I often see things that are not there. For example, when riding in the darkness I often find myself swerving to avoid trees that are clearly directly in my path and could cause serious injury to me or my horse, but for the fact that they do not exist. The illusions are interesting. I had several such illusions yesterday morning but then I encountered something that was a bit chilling. (This is not a joke).
Lydia was riding Owl Prophet who prefers to hang back a bit from the horse ahead of him, even in the day light. She was far enough behind me so that I could not hear his hooves strike the ground as we cantered along. (Again, no big deal in that, aside from needing glasses and having only a few more teeth than the average rooster, my hearing is beyond impaired.)
On occasion when riding in the darkness I see patches of lighter spaces a head of me. I assume that they are spots where moonbeams reach the forest floor. What I saw ahead of me was not a patch of lightness. About fifty yards ahead of me the trail was glowing. I yelled back to Lydia to ask her what was going on in front of us. I had never seen such a burst of light.
She told me that there was nothing there. She said that she could not see any light in front off us at all. As she is telling me this I continued to see the path ahead of me lit up like the premier screening of a movie in the 1930's.
We changed direction. We got on with the ride. Obviously, what ever I saw was merely an illusion resulting from the darkness and my poor eye sight. Obviously, that must be the case because Lydia saw nothing. I am a grown, and often rational man. Obviously I should never have any concern about riding through there again in the darkness, even by myself.
But I will not do that even though Lydia saw nothing. I was riding Holland. Holland does not rear, ever. When someone turned on the lights in the middle of the woods Holland began rearing. Lydia did not see anything, but Holland and I did.
This is a picture of Holland, my great Shackleford Spanish mustang, a few days after he came to live with me. He is a calm, rational horse.
Like Mark Twain, he does not believe in ghosts at all but he is afraid of them.
Honestly Steve, you are the only person I know who has failed to make a 100 mile ride in 1 day. But then to be perfectly honest, you are the only person I know who has tried to make a 100 mile ride in one day. Maybe try for 75 the next time.
ReplyDeleteAs to riding after dark, slacken the rein and let your horse choose the way. He will avoid any real trees (and anything else to be avoided).
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ReplyDeleteVery cool (even if a bit spooky).. Your attempt at the supernatural (I agree with you Dianne!) perhaps stirred up the supernatural. do-do-do-do. Being clothed in pure goodness is a scary thing to scary things, so not to worry too much. Right?
ReplyDeleteWell, I am not claiming to have the best eyes in the world but honestly I could see nothing. And Owl Prophet was not reacting at all which is weird if Holland was. It was creepy enough to make me stick much closer to you from then on. I agree though, I don't think I will ever go riding by myself down that path in any kind of darkness and I probably won't even go riding by myself at night.
ReplyDeleteHolland could have picked up on your hesitation or uncertainty and he reacted to it. My eyesight is much poorer than yours Steve as I am blind in my left eye. I would never go riding in the dark so I applaude your efforts! As to what you may have seen, I sometimes see flashes of light or floaters in my eyes but it does not stay there---it is a flash and then it is gone. Just be careful out there in the dark---might be haints walking along the path!
ReplyDeleteWell Holland saw more than you did. Animals most definately see spirits. Mine do. Your spirit or spirits were bathed in light which means goodness. It might of been a spirit that knew you were coming or the spirits of Native American Indians. When you work deeply with animals like you do means that you are " a sensitive " and your channels are deep. I would keep riding down that same path cause chances are you'll see spirits elsewhere. Just figure out how to despook[get it]the horses you are riding LOL
ReplyDeleteA comment to the person that said it may have been spirits. If it had been a good one the horse would not have reacted badly.
ReplyDeleteWhatever it was spirit or moss (which I would really love to see! Glowing moss has me intrigued.) Trust your horse. He sensed something he didn't like and these guys are rarely wrong when there is something wrong. Dancer kept me from having a tree fall on me once. I was leading her throught the woods and she heard something I didn't. She refused to take another step and when I insisted she started rearing and bucking on the lead. While fighting with her I moved away from where she stopped and I heard a bunch of snapping and groaning and then the tree came down right where we were standing.