White Horse Pilgrim

Letting go

I've just sold one of my three good saddles. It's the narrowest of the three, formerly used on an Arabian, and is nowhere near fitting Brena. Tomorrow a courier will take it to a new home for a fresh and busy life. That's another piece of my old life gone. I'm glad. It will be well used where it's going, which is better than being wasted here unused and useless.

Google satellite has updated its images of the village where I spent eight years in exile. Now I can see that my former home has been wrecked, much of the roof ripped off, the grounds derelict. It was a large house with spacious barns, carefully planned, and now looted to pieces. I wasn't happy to see that picture. Better that someone - anyone - had moved in to make some use of the place.

The boat that carried me across the river beyond exile has been sunk. The far bank of eight years sojourn is in chaos, my former home taken by a whirlwind. There is no further need to dream of that place. It's gone, past, out of sight. From the point of view of those left out there, it might as well never have existed. The benefits of those eight years I carry within me: wisdom and memories. Knowledge and lessons were available to all, but only I made the effort to assimilate them. How wasteful and peculiar is that?

Now I'm glad to be away. If the legacy of my business isn't valued where I lived, better not to be there or waste too much more time thinking about it. Today I'm in a place where fresh growth is taking place, indeed at a pace that surprises and thrills me. The stimuli are here and the challenges, the wise mentor too, plenty of material to study, and a measure of security.

I'm going through that last painstaking trawl of The Riding Holiday Centre Handbook. Back when I operated that kind of a business there wasn't the remotest possibility of me writing about it. Now I can record a couple of hundred pages of wisdom that will benefits others further back on that tough trail. I've received some very helpful and encouraging professional feedback on my embryonic novel, Spirit Horse. It's nearly there, just needs one more thoughtful rewrite. I've begun the second part of that trilogy, and the third is sketched in outline. I do look forward to all that writing. No, I wouldn't have ended up writing more than blog posts in exile. What a change four years of engagement have brought.

I don't regret exile. I've just let go of exile after it served its purpose. It never promised to celebrate me, just to let me live there awhile: and that was generous enough. Those years in Transylvania helped form me into what I am today. They gave me a clean break with the past. And what a foundation they provided. How they blew the dust and cobwebs away to show me just what determination and versatility I can demonstrate in time of need. I'm sorry not to have left more of a legacy where I lived. But any legacy needs a willing receiver. Anyway lessons tend to be transferable. Hence The Riding Holiday Centre Handbook. If the soil isn't fertile in one place, it may prove bountiful in another. Someone, somewhere will take a seed, nurture it and see a lovely plant grow. I'm looking forward to that.

Activity

A prolific runner commented that humans are meant to be an active species. It's when we become sedentary, he commented, that our minds and bodies start to go wrong. How true.

The trainer at the barn asked another boarder how it is, seeing that I am out riding almost every day through the summer, that I stay sane through winter. I wonder too.

Something has to keep moving: mind or body.

Preferably both.

Last winter it was writing that kept me going. A mass of writing, intense, vibrant, drawing from deep within me. Getting through winter still required a certain gritting of the teeth, a fixing of my gaze upon a spring somewhere in an indeterminate future. But there was intellectual motion. And as much weekend riding as daylight and weather permitted.

Which was too little.

And I read. I love reading. Leo Tolstoy. Carl Jung. Joseph Roth. Honestly, it's hard to find anything to succeed Miklos Banffy's Transylvanian Trilogy. Reading the trilogy, I realised just how much emotional energy I have invested in Transylvania. And there was plenty of activity out there.

Activity to emulate.

I am learning that residual riding activity isn't enough. Compared to riding professionally I don't do much nowadays. In summer a quarter of my former weekly mileage. So I need to add some activity at work. Travel to other locations. Going to meetings. Site visits. Walking. Getting up and moving about the office. Anything to keep moving.

I'd thought about keeping moving for health. But also for morale and psychological balance - that makes sense. And not just physical activity but mental too. That makes sense as well.

On memory and shadow

I've just finished reading Joseph Roth's The Radetzky March.

In the years before the Great War, at the time the events chronicled in these pages took place, it was not yet a matter of indifference whether a man lived or died. When someone was expunged from the lists of the living, someone else did not immediately step up to take his place, but a gap was left to show where he had been and those who knew the man who had died or disappeared, well or even less well, fell silent when they saw the gap. When a fire happened to consume a particular dwelling in a row of dwellings, the site of the conflagration remained for a long time afterwards. For masons and bricklayers worked slowly and thoughtfully, and when they walked past the ruins, neighbours and passers-by alike recalled the form and the walls of the house that had once stood there. That's how it was then! Everything that grew took long to grow; and everything that ended took a long time to be forgotten. Everything that existed left behind traces of itself, and people then lived by their memories, just as we nowadays live by our capacity to forget, quickly and comprehensively. For a long time afterwards, the feelings of the officers and men of the dragoon regiment, and of the civilian inhabitants of the small town, were shaken and troubled by the deaths of the regimental doctor and Count Tattenbach.

Those words especially stuck in my mind. I am conscious of the past, of the things that are no more and the people who have disappeared. Indeed more so than ever now, with a growing awareness of a vanished birth mother who may be dead of alive, and living here or there if indeed she still lives. Suddenly a fresh mystery has come upon my life, and a new tension.

But, before that, I wandered my Transylvania of exile deeply aware of those who had gone before me: travellers, shepherds, soldiers, aristocrats, traders, invaders, bureaucrats and bandits. Their debris lay all about: old roads, crosses, battlefields, ruined castles, manor houses derelict or converted to state institutions, old border posts, multi-lingual place names and railways heading in peculiar directions. I noticed things that few of the inhabitants seemed aware of. Perhaps I could, who had not lived through communism, whose family had not bloodied its hands, directly or through association, during the fascist era. It was my freedom to see beyond the veils that clouded my neighbours' vision, and my choice to keep quiet or to speak.

Now here in my homeland, or what I suppose it to be, I am aware of the past. I feel the past and the footsteps of those who trod, rode and trudged ways now more or less busy. The main road is busy and clogged with vehicles, whilst the former Roman road sees an occasional pedestrian. I feel the gaps where once the farmer went with his horses, the train once crossed the bare hills, the cavalry exercised, labourers worked, and villagers went about their business. That is all gone, and we have forgotten them all. As Roth said, everything that existed left behind traces of itself. It still does. But when I walked around T E Lawrence's cottage yesterday the press of people caused memory to flee and hide. Tourists sought some glimpse of Lawrence the celebrity, but it was others that rendered him thus, and that reclusive man hated it. Of the private Lawrence, complex and requiring wisdom to understand, subject of an excellent biography by a psychiatrist (A Prince of Our Disorder by Professor John Mack), there was no trace. The guides did not know of Mack's book, and nothing was said to hint at Lawrence being anything other than a slightly eccentric hero who liked to relax in a quiet cottage.

Roth showed me another thing too: which I knew, of course, but had not articulated so clearly. In the final stages of The Radetzky March, as the First World War breaks out on the Eastern Front, the Habsburg regime went about a rather arbitrary selection and execution of "traitors". The retreating army left behind many corpses swinging from trees, whose only "crime" was belonging to the wrong ethnic group or religion. So, every regime has its dark side - a shadow and skeletons in the cupboard - however kindly the old emperor might appear. Every country and each corporation, and some religions too. I left exile sickened by the inescapable darkness of the nationality whose country I shared. But here in Britain there is a shadow too, even as we remove those skeletons. Where I work there is a shadow.

I spent a good few years talking up the positive side of Romania, where I lived, and making excuses for the faults. It was the Holocaust that stopped me, for I could not excuse the deeds of my neighbours' parents and grandparents let alone whitewash them when children and grandchildren neither cared nor repented.

Now I am finding a way to get on with life, aware of the national shadow back here in Britain, unable to do much about it, and a little constrained myself by the dark side. It's all about living with duality, I suppose. As well as those internal tensions between opposites, there is a great big duality beyond: fairness versus guarded privilege; civic values pitched against hubris; responsibility opposing unsustainability. Like Roth's characters we are caught up on a runaway train. Unlike those characters we may be able to adapt. The hardest part is to living hopefully. No, I shall not be making excuses for any shadow.

Lieutenant Carl Joseph, Baron von Trotta and Sipolje, the main protagonist of Roth's novel, a soldier for most of his life, longed to be a peasant just like his great-grandfather. Just before war broke out he attained that aim, earning a few brief months of happiness. Then all was sundered by events far beyond his control. I sought to work with horses in a remote mountain village, and that was taken from me by events far less momentous than a war. Unlike Trotta. my life was preserved, and health too. I could have fared much worse. It's best not to hang onto a dream whose fulfilment depends upon good fortune and the favourable outcome of events beyond ones control.

As for being aware of the past, the people and things that have gone, that is a bonus to enrich life.

That leaves the puzzle of what to read after Miklos Banffy and Joseph Roth. Tolstoy, perhaps?

Sunday's ride and reflection

Now the weekend seems an awfully long time ago. Since then I've spent an exhausting day interviewing graduates for employment and a second day on an intensive training course. The second day's course actually began on the previous evening an hour after the interview schedule wound to a close. I had little peace, then, over a busy 48 hours.

At least Sunday's ride was pleasant. Indeed it went ahead in that sort of rewarding bubble where Brena and I were working happily in partnership. As Horse Ideology pointed out, Brena needs to be approached simply, honestly and confidently. Treated with appropriate openness and consideration she is a wonderful companion, plainly enjoying being out on a ride.

It was a bright day yet cool too, the breeze being northerly. Two days later it has brought snow to places further north, and rain here. But Sunday was dry. Indeed it was a good temperature for working a mare still carrying a part of her winter coat.

There was time to graze as well. Brena ate whilst I took photos and simply enjoyed the lovely weather. Visibility extended far over the hills whilst closer by Hawthorn blossomed and willow budded. Hares nibbled newly green fields whilst watchful Kites and Buzzards circled aloft. The whole world seemed newly alive and vibrant.

Brena found a few things to stare at. She does notice every unusual movement, whether human or an element of the local fauna, such as deer grazing or a flock of birds swooping. The mare will stare until a gentle squeeze of my legs sends her on again.

This was what attracted Brena's attention. The upper parts of two people skimming through the grass. These sights don't alarm her in the least. Simply she likes to look. Consequently she is rarely caught out.

We had a couple of good canters along gently rising tracks. The main ridge trail may be busy however the peripheral tracks are quiet, indeed almost unused. Whilst they twist and turn between hawthorn hedges, good stretches give plenty of visibility just in case someone is walking or cycling - or even riding. It amazes me how few riders I meet out here though horses are plentiful.

The hedges are growing, and with them briars. I caught a superficial cut on one cheek from a dangling wild rose. Wiping my face with a hand it looked like a fair amount of blood, however a little goes a long way. The loss might have filled a teaspoon. A small teaspoon.

Hours later I sat in an urban conference centre. How life has changed over just a few years. Exile threw me new work and fresh scenery. It brought the Trickster to me, the one who broke rules, lived unconventionally, challenged me deeply without necessarily intending to - not grasping how odd her behaviour could be - and then abruptly departed. So very much material was thrust into my head and dumped into my lap. To begin with the volume and intensity were overwhelming. But now - three years after exile, six winters from the Trickster's disappearance - the learning from those days is coming to an end. Much has been processed and assimilated. I'm running out of old material to examine.

Transylvania was my shadow-land, the place where my inner being - the Jungian Shadow - lived openly and without judgement. There my weaknesses, shortcomings and instincts were allowed to influence me freely. I could be the person to whom I gravitated freely, unmodified and uncorrected, just like my mountain neighbours. Creativity began to emerge, for that is rooted in the Shadow. And the animal within, raw, stripped bare and liberated. It was a rough instinctual life, one of simple joy and crude reaction, an existence based upon survival rather than growth or creation. No, I was just trying to survive, and not automatically becoming a better or wiser person through the process. That part would follow, and has followed. I should need to stand back in order to learn, and that meant leaving, isolating myself from the crudity of the place. And now all that material has been weighed, lessons learned, Shadow integrated and the honing of its creativity begun. And I have commenced work on new material from post-exile life. It's time to move on. But not forgetfully.

Intuition whispers that, having grasped the meaning of exile, the time to write about that place is near.

More cavalry

A little more research found this rare film. This is the kind of unit that my former neighbour belonged to. It's a pleasure to look at the riding and to appreciate the horsemanship. I'd like to be so agile that I could run alongside a horse on the lunge and simply spring aboard.

Occasionally I did come across that kind of lively spirit around horses, most often amongst young peasant men. Romania is not a country that I would associate with horsemanship. That is not to say that the farm horses were neglected - far from it - however for the most part they were equine tractors. I didn't come across many horse lovers, just a lot of men who could work a horse competently on a farm or in the forest.

I'd like to think that a couple of my staff were almost naturals with horses. They rode fluently despite little formal instruction. Theirs was a confidence that the horses seemed to recognise and respect. I loved going out riding in the mountains with Cornel. Most often he could be trusted. Provided that no drinking den detrained him, he would get to the other end in good order, his horse too. How I miss those rides.

Now in the busy technological West I struggle to find that old fluency. I'm nearest to it when hitching a trailer, loading my horse and going out to ride. Yes, cavalrymen made good mechanised soldiers through their dash and initiative. Having become a skilled trail rider did much the same for me, teaching me to treat life as a matter of finding a dynamic equilibrium across rough ground. Yet I feel as if I'm getting towards the end of those lessons, as if their range has been exhausted. Now the ground is too strange, not exactly rough but simply confusing. Sometimes pointless too. Well, I guess that most probably I've learned how to learn. That's the next trick to pull from my bag.

Here's a picture of a German cavalryman in Africa before the First World War. There's more good simple equipment, though that rifle must have got in the way. Like my neightbour, nice equipment, pity about the cause.

Horsemen of the Apocalypse

I found this picture whilst delving into history. Most particularly I was looking into a part of the history of Eastern Europe where I used to live. One superficial thing that struck me about this picture is the way in which folded blankets are used between horses and saddles, just as I did at my riding centre and still do today. There is a lot to be said for a good army blanket. But that is by far the least important thing to draw from the picture.

A former neighbour told me a little about cavalry engagements during the Second World War, in his case fighting with the Romanian army supporting the Wehrmacht against the Soviet Union. The Eastern Front was a callous brutal business from which few men or horses returned. The Romanian army, so I was told, was so short of resources that the men of his unit needed to provide their own horses. My cavalry veteran informant got as far as the River Don by Summer 1942, over half way from his European home to the Caspian Sea deep in Asia. There at the Don Elbow he was injured sufficiently severely to be invalided out of the army. And that is why he lived. His fellows went on to Stalingrad, from which few returned.

Supposedly a book was written about the Romanian cavalry on the Eastern front, titled (I believe) Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I haven't succeeded in getting hold of a copy.

Most of my trail rides carried me across relics of that war. There were shell craters on the mountains, defensive trenches decaying on high ground, bunkers crumbling in the forest, and the wreckage of bridges blown up in 1944. There were more sights than memories, at least more physical remains than stories that anyone wanted to own up to. From 1945 to 1989 those stories were taboo, and by then much had been forgotten. But one thing was clear enough: there was no glory in any of it. There was none of the swank of Western peacetime cavalry in an aggressive invasion. The stories that I heard were, for the most part, the tales of men who rode out to settle scores both national and ethnic. The accounts of bored, frustrated men seeking adventure. In doing so they brought new defeat upon their people, though that wasn't the way their path seemed to lead in the beginning.

I am sorry for them, deluded as they were (and some still are, to judge by things that were said to me - which is one reason why for a while I fell a little out of sympathy with Romania). However I am more sorry for the horses that those men dragged into that bloody conflict. They at least were innocent.

On nostalgia

Nostalgia is a process that makes hard times seem better by focusing upon what good there was. Had those times been almost entirely good, one would move on buoyed by favourable memories. Or one would not have moved at all. Nostalgia is a sign of inability to move on. It's a fine technique for undermining present contentment. Therefore I try to avoid nostalgia.

A few winters ago we were breaking ice on the stream several times daily to water our horses. As winter progressed the stream got lower until just a trickle ran beneath thick ice. The well had just a few inches of water at the bottom. It was a struggle to find enough water for the horses. Where we broke the ice, we also dug out the stream bed for water to collect. I'm proud of our fortitude, but I don't want to go back to those days. We got by, but in the face of difficulty - and sometimes desperation. There is little space for nostalgia here.

If I had known thirteen years ago what I know today, I would not have started a riding holiday business. Perhaps I am getting soft? And it's not as if I didn't care about my horses back then. But when I think of the struggle to equip them and shoe them, the wastage along the way, was it worthwhile? Yes, I assembled good tack and - after considerable effort and a certain amount of wading through misinformation - managed to keep their feet in good order. But two horses shot due to broken limbs, one drowned, two euthanased because we couldn't resolve problem feet and another shot because of damaged lungs (worsened through a botched examination by an equine charity), and a pair retired with (probably) cracked pedal bones: that is a lot of wastage. There is no room for nostalgia.

Four of the horses that I had sold before leaving were stolen within months and most probably slaughtered for food. They were good horses all of them. I wish that I could have brought them with me, however limited finances precluded that. I had acquired them sincerely believing that I'd spend the rest of my days in that land.

I maintained around fifteen to eighteen riding horses several of which were used for draught work too. Maybe it wasn't a huge wastage rate. Perhaps some of those horses would have not made it even as lightly used hacks in the West? I don't know. All I do know is that I did the best possible for them all in a harsh environment with primitive veterinary facilities where practically medieval farriery was the norm.

Of course I had romanticised Transylvania before I moved there - picturesque countryside, rustic lifestyle and all that. Fertile grounds for subsequent nostalgia, one might think. Well I resist that temptation.

 

Things one does with horses

There were times when it seemed that guests visiting my equestrian business really did pay for me to do some strange and interesting things. It's true that such times were rare. However building and using the hay loading ramp was an occurrence of this type.

Filling the upper level of a barn with loose hay is quite a chore. So I decided to build a ramp and create a pulley arrangement whereby a horse could readily raise a loaded cart to the upper level. I'd never seen such a thing done before, however the principles seemed sound enough. I made some calculations, bought the materials, assembled them, and tried out what I had made. It worked.

Of course a horse needed to be harnessed and pull a cable across the field. But we had draught horses so that part wasn't going to be a problem. My staff needed a little persuading to try out the apparatus. Once the horse had started, there was no going back. Literally, in fact, as the cart had a lever dragging behind it with a spike on the end, stopping it from rolling back on a slope. The man leading the horse had an important job, and so especially did the man steering the cart by the pole.

There comes a moment when a horse seems to be thinking "just what do these people want me to do?"

However we'd done a lot of things with those horses - riding and driving, logging in some cases too, crossing rough terrain and negotiating steep slopes, staying in all sorts of overnight stops - so "unusual" did not have to be threatening.

It was certainly way more than just riding. I like to do a few different things with horses - even if just new rides and varied companions - in order to keep their minds active. If there is a river to ford or a narrow bridge, an odd bit of terrain or a tight wood to get through, all the better.

Sometimes I look back at those old photos and reflect on just what an interesting time I had. There were constraints, of course - calendar, financial and social - but also a freedom to try new and unusual things. Imagine trying to make a ramp like that at a barn here! It would be big and costly, with railings - not that anyone ever fell off our ramp - in which case it would be easier simply to buy a tractor with a front end loader like every other farmer.

But wouldn't it be fun to own a hundred acres on a hill and keep some horses with like-minded friends. We could hire a Balkan guest worker to make hand-cut hay (actually we'd need a couple as his wife would turn the hay whilst he cut), feed the horses, maybe keep a few sheep and make cheese with the milk, and generally behave in rustic ways. Oh what a dream!

Gratitude

I am glad that the snow isn't falling thick and fast. Picturesque it can be, but awkward. I've seen my share, quite enough not to require enforced re-acquaintance. However, I won't complain about a dusting.

Six years ago snow fell on my neighbour's yard and horse - rather unusually left out to eat hay - continuing until only the road was fit only for sleigh traffic. A couple of days later the temperature hit -20C (-4F).

Today I heard a little news about my former home of eight years. The economy is a mess: a 20 billion Euro bail-out is required. Sales tax has been raised to 24% and millions of workers have had their salaries cut by a quarter. Working people survive on as little as $200 a month. Corruption and poverty burgeon. A quarter of the forest has been clear-felled as a cash crop. Government is on the verge of collapse. I shudder at the prospect of running a tourist business under such conditions. Thank goodness D and I got out whilst we could.

Meanwhile my novel gained over a thousand words tonight. Writing is going well. A nice safe fantasy strand to life is proving quite a satisfaction. I am grateful for this.

Thinking back

Yesterday I gave an illustrated evening talk to a roomful of riding club members.

To prepare I needed only to pick a few dozen images and order them. The words would come. They always do: the guide's patter. Horses and history, geography and wild animals, folklore and odd experiences - they all slip out prompted by visual stimuli. An hour passed like a few minutes.

I glance at that far-off character who looks a little like me, and wonder. What a life he led! What a strange wild primitive place he lived in!

Could I go back to that life? Probably not, given the battering that my body has taken over the years.

And could I go back and live in a village like that? Oh, yes, with such interesting neighbours and lovely countryside all around, in a heartbeat. Obviously there would need to be the means to earn a living. (That is the point where, in a film, the viewer is asked to suspend belief as to how the hero has money in the bank.)

Perhaps I might regret making such a quick decision? An intuitive decision is fast, based upon a deep - indeed archetypal - understanding of oneself and the surrounding world, and imprecise. Pros and cons are weighed subjectively, assessed qualitatively and balanced by feel. There would be joy and regret, and each strong enough to capture attention. I've been there before...

I wrote "in a heartbeat", and that was one of Kelli's favourite phrases. She made her decisions intuitively, making for an interesting life. I was not slow to decide in that instance, and came away with both happy memories and bitter regrets. But with neither anger nor hatred. It was not entirely a bad decision that I took. I'd prefer to say: intuitive, inspired but risky and based upon too little knowledge. My burnt fingers healed.

So, no regrets. that life was there to be grasped, all of it or none. One could not take just a part of Transylvania. Characters came with the country, and temptations too. I yielded to a few, and learnt from the ensuing pain and penance. But the joys came to heal wounds and sooth hurt. So I walk whole again, and with a happily balanced perspective. It could be a lot worse than that.