Je m'appelle Geneviève

let a horse tell you her story

Je m'appelle Geneviève. Je suis la première dame de Bear Creek Farm.

My name is Geneviève. I am the First Lady of Bear Creek Farm.

La Première Dame. I have earned my position in ways you cannot imagine. I will leave it at that for the moment. I am not here to break your heart. Au contraire.

This was always meant to be, although it wasn’t always so.

While French is my language of lineage and my language of choice, there is no language I can’t converse in. Horses speak all languages fluently. We hear the intention behind the words, the intentions behind the worlds as well. We know what you feel before you know it yourself. We are fluent in Intent.

This knowing is why we’re still here. Here in this place we’ve always been.

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, I was. So were you, mon ami, so were you. We have always been.

I have been a war horse

and a plow horse

a mother and a mourner.

Bluebirds have rested in my mane

while babies crawled between my legs

Your babies and mine.

I have pulled logs out of swamps

and charged into battles.

I have been tired

so very tired.

And hungry

and weak

and somehow mighty even so

and eternally kind.

When the whippoorwills call, I can still hear my mother. An early spring breeze carries her scent, and I remember, deep in my bones I remember, how she loved me and how I loved her.

I thought that life must be love, the love of a mother, and that love must taste like milk and grass. I thought that love was tactile and had a scent. I still think that, even though I also know that all life isn’t love and all scents are not as sweet as spring grass. As sweet as my mother.

For a time, there was peace.

It didn't last though. Peace seldom does.

Only a human would see the Mystery's creation and think they could improve it. Manipulate it. Conquer it. Bend it and break it.

My age of innocence was brief. I’m glad I didn’t know at the time how brief it would be. I might have missed it in a fog of fear.

My journey to this place was long and wretched and plagued by grief and hunger.

While my age of innocence was brief, my fog of fear lasted much longer.

We endure though, do we not? These souls of ours?

We may be heavenly

but we come from the earth.

We are made of dirt and bone

and air and water

and all the ages

and the times between.

We are as young

as newborn lambs

you and me

and as old as stone.

In another place, a horse made of dawn was dreaming.

He dreamed of hills

this red horse

and cedar trees

and cold clean water

and wind

and motion

and stillness

and snow

and peace

He dreamed of mares

Mares in this place

of wind

and clean water

and cedars

and hills

he dreamed of

mountains that cradle you

and birds that

visit you

He dreamed of

Me.

I didn’t hear him right away, this horse made of dawn. I was hungry and tired and lived my days surrounded by deafening noise in a place where snakes fall from trees.

Horses made of dawn dream big.

They dream loud

louder than any cacophony

louder than exhaustion

or sadness

louder than fear.

Fear is loud, but he was persistent. I heard him.

“Je suis là, mon Amour,” I answered. “I am here, my Love.”

There are love stories we tell, and there are love stories we live.

There are places we love, and there are places that love us.

Our stories are old, and our stories are unfolding.

We tell them to each other, and we tell them to ourselves.

We are as real as rock and as ethereal as mist.

I spend my days on grassy hillsides.

I spend my days with a horse made of dawn.

I spend my days in a herd made of dreams.

In the springtime, when the air is soft and kind and laden with new hope, and the whippoorwills call from the woods by the creek, I can feel my mother. I can feel all of it, as I inhale the sweet scent of milk and grass and exhale my own dreams on a long soft sigh.

Je m'appelle Geneviève. Je suis la première dame de Bear Creek Farm.