Cry For The Species Equus

I got it straight from the horse’s mouth. Our chestnut mare Tahoe was laying on the ground in a stall at our rescue ranch with the winter sun shining on her face. She was too weak to stand for very long periods. I was attending to her with a very heavy heart. We were in the process of making the decision to euthanize her, and I was stroking her face.

“Hey Albert,” she said with her big brown eyes. “If horses are God’s gift to man, why would man treat them so badly? Why would they take the best years that we have to offer and use us up until we are spent, and then turn us out to the auction barns to be purchased by the killers? You know, it’s alright. I am tired, and I don’t have the strength to go on. I’m ready to let go. It is time.”

The scene has replayed in my mind a thousand times, especially each time that I helped another abused or dying horse move on. The answer has never come. The question still remains imprinted into my minds eye. I search for the answer. Not long after laying Tahoe to rest, both Kathy and I re-read Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty, but our broken hearts found no solace. We only found a greater unanswered question in her words. Why would man mistreat beasts of burden so poorly and carelessly?

I spent many days backside at the Finger Lakes Race Track in Western New York State in the early 1980’s. I witnessed broken down thoroughbreds from Saratoga and Belmont with their front legs in ice buckets so that they would be able to run on arthritic and sore legs. I watched the blue goose (a horse ambulance) pull up to down horses with broken and shattered legs to remove them from the track so that the next race can begin. They were all former champions, and if you ever stood backside at a race horse barn when the bell rings and the gate opens, all the thoroughbreds are lined up with their chests pressed against the stalls ready and willing to run.

Willingness in animals shouldn’t be construed as a license for abuse. If you own an animal and it makes a living for you in any genre or form, then you owe it to them to treat them with the respect that they deserve. They at least deserve a dignified procession to the grave.

There is no genre of the horse world that is immune from it. I have had to protect my wife from barrel racing horses that were so stoved up and sore that to merely touch their flank they would try and kick her head off. She would still attempt to massage them so that they could run for their pretty little barrel racer.

I vividly remember the first time that my fingers slipped over the hair ball like protrusion on the nuchal ligament of a dressage horse that had been surgically altered. The purpose of the alteration was so that he couldn’t raise his head. I thought it was a spasm until my wife informed me it was a common practice to cosmetically correct conformation in some competitive circles. You snip the ligament at the base of the skull and it prevents the animal from standing with it’s head too high. They show better!

The American Mustang is standing in pens by the thousands as I write. They have nowhere to run. They are stuffed back to back and side to side. Collected by the thousands by the BLM, they are standing in urine and feces soaked surrounds with no chance of adoption. The economy has tanked, and no one is there to adopt them. They were supposedly rounded up because of the damage they are doing to grazing lands. They should inherit the earth, not the cattle that man wants to raise on it for their bloody thirst for meat.

My only answer came from our rescue quarter horse Sage, who we found in a barn full of miniatures, in the back dark recesses with sore and arthritic knees. One warm summer day, I was standing in the middle of one of our fields. I was watching a mother eagle teach her eaglet to fly. She would let it soar and when it got just far enough away she would give a shrill whistle and it would whistle back, then return to the nest. Sage walked up to me, stood alongside of me, and wrapped her neck and her big bucket head around my neck in an embrace. As a man, I have never been touched greater by animal husbandry.

Sometimes late at night, I’m ashamed to admit, that when I’m drifting off to sleep and my mind replays all the beautiful animals that it was my mission to bring to God, I cry for the species Equus.

Miracles Of Babaji

I was once a Godless cretin, carving a path of self serving destruction and manipulation of people, places, and events for my own benefit. The life that I led ended badly for me and I had to change. It was at that time that I discovered Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda. It was a book destined to rewrite my life, and introduce me to Mahavatar Babaji.

Babaji is a timeless Saint considered to be a Yogi-Christ of Modern India. Paramahansa Yogananda describes him as a deathless Avatar. An Avatar is unsubject to the universal economy. His pure body, visible as a light image is free from any debt to nature. He is solely responsible for bringing Kria Yoga back to humanity. This is a scientific method for achieving Nirbikalpa Samadhi, a state of changeless God-consciousness. The lineage of the Self-Realization Fellowship began with Babaji. He was guru to Lahiri Mahasaya, who became guru to Sri Yukteswar, who became guru to Paramahansa Yogananda, the final guru and founder of the fellowship.

I became a yogi of the order through initiation, and meditate and perform Kria Yoga daily. There have been a multitude of miracles in my life since enrolling in the fellowship. I would like to share them. Upon receiving a letter from The Self-Realization Fellowship, my then Property Manager (and boss) who grew up surfing on the beach in the shadows of the Encinitas, California Ashram took a second look at me and later became my wife.

Together we started a rescue ranch for horses and I learned Equine Massage. I became a healer instead of a plunderer. We rescued a two day old colt with Congenital Flexural Deformity who was about to be euthanized. Through aggressive manual therapy, we straightened his crooked legs, and in time, he grew strait and tall. Unfortunately, he was taken from us in a horrific accident. We were devastated. Although our loss was great and our hearts were heavy, we moved forward with our mission to heal.

In the past, it would have served to close my heart and harden it. Instead, through Kria Yoga, my heart seemed even more open and full of love. I realized it was my mission to help ease the burden of these poor, tortured, and wretched creatures. The miracles came to us in all sizes, shapes, and needs.

Robin, a paint horse who fell seventy feet from a cliff and survived, her right leg was turned and bent. It was scarred, and practically frozen. Her body was lame, and she was being used as a brood mare. Her hooves were overgrown and splitting.

We watched our massage students work tirelessly to break up the scar tissue and stretch her stiff and sore muscles. Their efforts were rewarded when during a class session we looked out of the windows into the arena to see Robin loping around it.

Sid and Sam, a Percheron pair of behemoth brothers appeared. They were in excess of 2000 lbs a piece. Sid, the older brother, so overworked, had laid down on the trail while pulling a sleigh. I was to revel in the sound of his thunderous hooves as he and Sam would gallop to their grain in the morning.

A quarter horse mare named Sister stood over her lifeless foal. She was moaning and sighing. She turned and placed her giant head against my chest. My natural instinct was to cradle her as she stood and moaned. We found out later that the local vet had inadvertently taken a blood sample from her twin sister by mistake. His misdiagnosis allowed Sister to go untreated for Fescue Grass poisoning.

An unnamed horse came to us through the Silt, Colorado auction barn. Thin and frail, she collapsed as the arena gate was closed. We stepped in and purchased her before the killer bought her and we named her Tahoe, after where we were married. A wretch of a creature with open sores on her legs, and ulcerated nostrils causing nose bleeds. I labored constantly cleaning the water troughs because the other horses wouldn’t go near the bloody water. There was nothing that we could do for her. We comforted her with Veterinary Care and all that she could possible eat, as she hopelessly lost weight and wobbled around our fields. When the quality of her life became unbearable, we called the vet to euthanize her. We humanely ended her pain and suffering and it was at that time that my heart truly began to open and the years of bitterness disappear. I realized my calling was to help these creatures move on to a loving God.

Over the remaining years of the ranch, we had many tragedies as with Tahoe, and each one opened my hardened heart further. I didn’t think I had the capacity for any greater love and compassion. We always found the room in our hearts for more. We reveled in each individual success. Dreaming Doc, a double bred Doc Bar Quarter horse, was so special that we gave him to a young girl nicknamed Whistler, who had witnessed her own horse’s death. She renamed him Bullet. Whistler and the Bullet went on to win the Junior National Christian Rodeo Championships.

Our rescue ranch ended with our old quarter horse couple Kota’s Rookie Page, (Buddy) a grandson of the great Poco Bueno, and his wife Sage. Buddy was our first rescue from a wilderness outfitter. He was lame in his left front shoulder. Sage, an unwanted red dun quarter horse was rescued from the dark recesses of a breeding barn for miniatures. She was lame in both front legs. They lived out their golden years together, and were euthanized as a couple when the Vet advised us they could no longer survive another winter. This was a particularly difficult and heart breaking passage.

The final chapter to our rescue story was an E-mail from the woman that fell in love with and bought my Appaloosa named Snowy. He was a gray horse that succumbed to the skin cancers we so valiantly fought. My Pegasus finally got his wings.

Perhaps you are wondering why I’m telling you these stories of love, compassion, ignorance, and cruelty. The veil of Maya was lifted from my eyes and I am one of the world’s wretched creatures bathed in the light of Babaji’s saving grace. I am one of his miracles.

I ask for your help in saving the Haidakan Ashram in India. It is threatened by the Indian Government. They are planning to build a large dam at Jamrani near Haldwani in Uttarakhand. It will flood the valley and destroy the temple built more than 100 years ago with the hands of the spiritual saint It will destroy his Ashram, a Mecca to thousands of devotee’s. If you are not familiar with Babiji, I would recommend that you read Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda.

Please help by going to http://www.petiononline.com/Ramjani and signing the petition to save the Ashram. Albert Bianchine