White Horse Pilgrim

Doru - the beginning

I bought Doru back in the Autumn of 2006 without any particular notion of riding him. I'd just bought a white Lipizzaner-cross gelding to ride. Simply I needed another draught horse and Doru happened to be offered at the right moment. At the time I owned three big draught horses and needed a fourth to make two pairs. The vendor was a lumberjack and part-time horse dealer, who happened to be related to one of my employees. Everyone seemed to be related in that village. One day a pair of horses were driven up the long main street of the village, coming to a halt outside my yard, quite likely as a result of conversation between one of my employees and the dealer. One of the horses was a handsome roan stallion, Doru, the other an even larger bay stallion. At the time I liked Doru - he was robust and good natured - and paid around 600 Euro (about $800) for him. On reflection it's quite likely that some thought was put into procuring a horse that I was likely to find useful enough to buy. After I'd been in the village for a few years, the locals had realised that I knew a thing or two about horses and stopped trying to sell me their rejects. 

According to his papers Doru came from a village to the south, if I remember rightly one of the logging villages of the Bargau region (whose name, in Hungarian, gave rise to Bran Stoker's Borgo Pass.) That's an area of stout men and tough horses, and well-made houses as a result of the labours of man and beast. I never did take a riding tour down into the Bargau: there was no accommodation on which to base a circuit. Why should the vilagers delve into fickle tourism when a good living was to be made from forestry? 

Here's one of the first photos I took of Doru, on 10 February 2007. We were moving a new and very heavy central heating boiler from the street to the back of the guesthouse. Doru was paired with the sensible old gelding Gelu. To their left, in an idle pose with which I became very familiar, is Oprea, the son of Doru's vendor. By that point I had sufficient work on that I hired Oprea to join my team, who were all cousins or otherwise related with some variable degree of removal. 

Early on I didn't pay a great deal of attention to Doru. Simply he was a quiet, reliable and very strong work horse who could work with any of my geldings. My horsemen liked him, he coped well with the work, and that was enough. He saw a lot of draught work through that first winter. 

As with almost every working horse in Transylvania, Doru was steady on all manner of rough and even treacherous surfaces. Here's a spectacular stream crossing necessary to take hay to the far pasture. I never did get around to building a bridge here, in part because the land beyond was rented. It would have been a long span for a timber bridge too. 

On the other side Doru's power came into play. There was a heavy load of hay - probably about two thirds of a ton - to drag up a snowy hillside. The first part was muddy, and you can see how hard Doru is pulling. Seeing how strong and sound Doru was, you can see why I shall spare him the indignity of hobbling about crippled. 

Do notice how none of the horses were bridled in those photos. The driver steered them using the long pole of the cart, and by voice. You can see how tractable these horses were. (They would be bridled for driving on the road, when the driver was seated behind on the cart.) It was a pleasure to work with draught horses like this. I keenly miss working with them. 

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.

I must remind Doru...

I must remind the big hairy chocolate-brown retiree that just four years ago life was quite different.

Exactly four years ago to the day Doru was busy hauling hay back to the stables, hot heavy work even on a cold grey day. Here he is, tired and sweaty. As soon as he stopped, a thick blanket was draped over his body to avoid a chill. All the farmers blanketed their draught horses when stopped, then after work put them into stables to dry off.

But the work was hard. I'm glad that he's retired in a nice large field. As a foal he'd have been tied up, and as a working horse too, stalled all the time that he wasn't working. I gave him a little turnout there, but now he has a big space to wander about freely.

Brena worked hard for a couple of seasons, but not as Doru had to. Logging could be tough, and so was dragging hay across snowy meadows. Carrying me around trail rides must have been easy in comparison.

Those were memorable days, working pairs of big draught horses. I loved working with those powerful yet kind creatures. But would In return to all that?

Would Doru return willingly to a life where, as on a bitterly cold 19 December 2007, moisture froze on his coat even before he started working?

Wind

For the final ride before holiday I was given a windy day. The wind rushed across the hills, sweeping grass flat, tearing at trees, dragging clouds past in unseemly rush.

Riding into wind my hands were filled with blown mane, thick strands tangling with woven webbing reins. My ears took in the roar of swift air. My body was buffeted. The skewbald mare forged her way ahead.

Leaves pulled from trees soon to be skeletal whirled past in flurries, their driven path making me think of the snow that will fall in two or three months time. Well, one thing at a time. The horse chestnut trees are shedding prolifically whilst the beeches lag. Indeed I'm still due the finest colours. I can wait for a short warm late-October afternoon when nature presents her surprise.

I love the powerful authenticity of these days. Life has a special vitality when the wide world outside shows what she is made of. I appreciate a steady mare who walks on through all that nature has to offer, unconcerned save to grab as many mouthfuls of grass as possible.

My mind went back to windy days in the Carpathian mountains. One Autumn day we crossed an exposed ridge where the sheer power of the wind forced us to dismount. Our horses were well behaved, only the sheer speed of the wind made it hard to breath mounted whilst a strong gust might easily have knocked a rider off. The wind really was that strong: raw, elemental, stunning.

Today, therefore, was easy. The wind was impressive in proportion to the low hills and copses of this predictable land. But not in absolute terms. I will experience nothing here like a night in my former mountain village home when a roar like a long heavy freight train continued for hours, keeping me awake, impressed and a little alarmed. It was a tremendous gale rampaging through the forested ridges. Morning brought a scene of fearful destruction at higher altitudes.

It was our final riding excursion with the old truck too. I've decided to change vehicles, given the truck's age, low performance and increasing tendency to require costly repairs. I'll keep you waiting just a couple of days to be introduced to the replacement. I am pleased with what is coming.

 

 

Light and hay

I did enjoy the wonderful light over the weekend, a product of a cold front driven by a stiff breeze. The beauty is a bonus of living on a large island, and the rain a collateral penalty. I miss living far inland where the weather was drier and brighter, however that place for the most part lacked the spectacular light that we enjoy here. Thanks to all that damp air we just get more "weather" here.

Four years ago I was getting hay in. A long hard winter beckoned. By then every farmer for miles around knew that I bought good quality hay for a fair price and that I weighed loads accurately. Hay came loose in carts, to be unloaded and stacked by hand. For my herd I needed around a hundred and fifty tons of hay, so I built two splendid great barns one of which is seen here.

These activities epitomised the dual romance and struggle of that life. One felt close to the earth, close to God too, if one thought at all about these things. Even the unthinking sensed it. There was an honesty in the natural rhythm of life. Yet also it was hard, very hard. Physical exhaustion was the norm. Bodies became bent and hurting before true old age was reached. At its worst a grinding dullness pervaded labour. But it was lust for money that turned people against rural life. I did not covet wealth therefore I loved the outdoor life to the last. I am strange, and perhaps the more resillient for it.

Those barns make me think of Gin's story. I feel for her. I built and created as if I would spend a lifetime in that place. Then it became clear that the time was ripe to move on. I did not have much choice in the matter, having worked through the options to stay and found them wanting. To leave things that one has made with love and thought is an ill fate. It's a horrible shock, a stripping away of security, and a psychic tragedy.

However, as Jung wrote, life demands for its completion and fulfilment a balance between joy and sorrow. Happiness is itself poisoned if the measure of suffering has not been fulfilled. Some sadness back then should lead to a better appreciation of happiness now. Besides, true happiness comes from inner enlightenment rather than the amassing of possessions. It's not that a nice barn is a bad thing, far from it, only it's not necessary. But if I do gain what I don't need and know that I'm not entitled to, I'll appreciate all the more. It may be trite to say that much to another, but I can address myself thus without criticism.

Standing around was normal out there. Our life was not so stressful. Or, rather, life was not worrisome for my employees with their simple peasant outlook. Only I worried, for I had to manage the finances and attract sufficient trade in a weak economy. They had straightforward lives, and I was glad to have happy staff. I cared about them. There was something nearly feudal in this, and not in a negative sense. The bad thing was that, with concern deferred to the top of the chain, hardly anyone took responsibility for their work (or idleness). I had to think for everyone. That made for an inefficient business (mirroring the whole country), and it was the lack of wealth (for I was no Count Banffy) to pay for such a straightforward happy system that led to its demise.

Reflection

Here's another image full of meaning for me. I expect that Ariella will remember such scenes too. I used to ride out a lot with Cornel. Here he is, a man who never received a single formal riding lesson, comfortable and secure on a Huzul mare. We were up visiting the shepherds that day, which was 14 May 2004.

The picture sums up much about our intertwined lives and the things that we did together. There were many miles on the trail and countless hours with horses. We were the first to run a business of that kind in Transylvania: pioneers and experimenters. Intuition tells me that these characteristics will continue to see use.

I've spent a couple of days away on the second and final phase of a personal development course, which is why there have been no posts for a few days. This is something that my employer provides for selected managers. It's been an interesting time for reflection and for the gaining of feedback.

In general nothing about this should have surprised me. The course itself is, in my opinion, rather one-size-fits-all. Most participants gain something, a few nothing, and the occasional one doesn't see the point of it. I went there first time seeking a lot - more that the process was geared up to give. Being stubborn, I pushed myself using a forced meditation technique that proved a little more disturbing than anticipated. That was just the sort of 'shock' that Jung noted as a catalyst for growth. However I hadn't read that far in his works, and was acting on intuition. I had directed myself along a hard trail.

Months of study and therapy have explained that intuition, and much more. They have allowed the Shadow to be integrated, the Anima in part too. Acceptance of the Wise Old Man is underway. I went back with a more rounded personality and greater wisdom.

Unsurprisingly, feedback was that I am an unusual individual filled with peculiar but often insightful experience. For a while I had pretended that I am really quite "normal" but with an eccentric streak. Now I have been disbursed of that convenient fiction. There shall be no peace for me yet.

This points me towards a career path that won't be run-of-the-mill. What that might be is not clear. The idea of a vision quest came to me a few days ago. It won't be the first. Back in 1994 I spent two months on a horseback journey across Transylvania and Moldavia. Slowly but surely the experiences of that journey led to eight years in the depths of the Carpathian mountains. Now the time for another vision quest is approaching. On this occasion the question might revolve more around what to do than where to go. Answers may reflect what I have to learn rather than what place I should live. Indeed the quest might not be a physical journey at all, but rather the writing of a book.

That book has been looming. It details the aftermath of that first informal and hitherto unrecognised vision quest - not just eight years in Transylvania but a journey towards wholeness. There was beauty in those mountains, and a few shattering shocks too. All of these prepared me for a healing process, a gaining of wisdom, and a growth in stature. This is ongoing, of course. The quest, it seems, may be to record and understand what has happened in order to build the foundations of my future - and provide a gift of learning for others.

The fact that structure for the book has proven elusive tells me that its time is not quite ripe. Difficulty infers that success will be meaningful. The sheer volume of material implies that I have much to learn. I am excited, nervous, keen and yet staying my hand until the moment seems right.

A look back

Here's a view back to a summer seven years ago. To be precise, to 8 August 2004.

I've changed. To begin with, I don't have a beard anymore, and haven't work one that ragged for a while. However I was wearing the same raincoat this morning. It's old, but good for tying on a saddle as a precaution against possible precipitation.

That's Cornel in the background. He was my chief horseman for seven years, during which time we travelled many miles together. We had a lot of lunch stops like that one, quick and rudimentary consuming whatever we'd managed to pack. When there wasn't food, Cornel seemed to be able to go on nearly indefinitely sustained by one strong filter-less cigarette after another. Although I don't smoke, I used to keep a couple of packets in my saddlebags in case of need.

Cornel became a good accomplice and eventually a friend. I miss working with him. He had his faults, I had mine, and despite these (or because of the kinship that our mutually compatible weaknesses gave us) we were an effective team.

It's a long time since I've sat on a high windswept hillside below a dense bank of pine trees. I'm trying to remember where that photo was taken - I think, at a particular abandoned sheepfold just off a regular day ride trail. We dropped down there to eat lunch in a more sheltered place than the bare ridge behind. There was always shelter somewhere at hand.

Only now with the benefit of Google Satellite can I see how those trails trace out. We had no accurate maps. I found trails because Cornel showed me the ones that he knew and together we explored the others. I found overnight stops for people whilst he found stables for our horses. We were a good team. We were pioneers.

 

Oddest thing I picked up riding

I found this on a high ridge in the Eastern Carpathian range. I took this hoof capsule because it showed very clearly just what was inside, notably the lines of the laminae and the inside of the frog.

The remains comprised just a very smelly skeleton picked clean by bears at the point when I rode by. The locals did dispose of carcases up there. I suppose that this came from a brood mare as, oddly, there are no marks from nails. All the working horses were shod.

Even wrapped in a plastic bag it stank in my saddlebags, and did so for the rest of the trail ride. Afterwards I soaked the hoof in water at which point its odour assumed more benign proportions.

The ridge of the Obcina Mestecanis was a wild beautiful place frequented only by shepherds, woodsmen and horse breeders. 

It was a high terrain of alternating rough pasture and dense coniferious woodland. The ridge-top track was associated in folklore with the Tatars, and indeed some residents of the deep valleys possessed a dark swarthy appearance that spoke of well-travelled ancestors. The Mongol Horde had passed that way, and so had its successors.

From there the land fell away to the northeast in a succession of ridges that ended only at the march of the steppes. Scarcely a trail was direct amidst the jumble of high ground dissected by myriad streams and cut by powerful rivers. Yet in its remote mystery the Obcina was a rewarding landscape to visit.

We rode those trails three or four times a year, basically whenever I could draw together a group for a two week trek. Three days we journeyed to get there, and three back, crossing a seven thousand foot mountain on the way. Four days we ducked and dived amidst a terrain fractured and fascinating. In all that time we crossed two metalled roads.

There it was far away in a place visited by no other tourists that I collected this dessicated hoof of an unknown horse. Perhaps my guests thought it a strange scavenging? However I am a collecter and a hoarder of curios.

Finally, looking at this body part and pondering how far off the beaten track I found it, I begin to realise the bravery of that business and of those trails. It was a pioneering venture in a wild place. I was lucky.

Three years ago

Thinking of the wintry weather affecting a number of readers my eye fell upon this photo taken three years ago yesterday. The gauge shows -22C which is around -8F. It was quite a cold day.

The very coldest day, however, showed -34C at nine in the morning, or roughly -30F. That kind of cold gnawed at one's strength. A seat by a warm fire became a special place to be sought.

But those cold days were clear and beautiful, the sun bright and uplifting.

My car did start on both occasions, but only because I'd kept the battery in the house overnight. 

We didn't work the horses hard below about -20C because that would have caused uncomfortable icicles formed on their muzzles. That's OK self-inflicted on polar explorers but unfair to horses. But all the horses lived out unrugged and thrived.

Here are the horses returning home with hay. The sky had overcast so the temperature had risen. But still it was cold and we'd stopped at a roadside bar to grab a glass of brandy each.

The typical locally made double-distilled spirit offered a wonderful warming effect to tired people on a cold day.

A lot of drinking was done in the winter.

I shall not quickly forget that grubby little bar down a flight of steps where rows of merchandise - crockery, toys and plastic oddments spring to mind - flanked the short low counter. Nothing beyond beverages and edibles ever seemed to be sold. Behind was a freezer offering ice cream even in the depths of winter. A quiet middle aged lady kept bar to a clientele of prematurely ageing shabby men drinking brandy or refrigerated beer. (How one dreamt of warm dark ale from more northerly places!) If their wives or surprisingly young children came in there was ice cream for them.

With a pleasant inner glow we set off the last mile home. It was good to get my staff moving. One glass of the brandy wasn't enough, two were just right, but three again were not enough. It was peculiar like that. On the third glass someone had better feed and rug the horses for they'd have a while to stand.

Who was counted?

I’ve been reading Miklos Banffy’s Transylvanian Trilogy, a remarkable novel in three parts - They Were Counted, They Were Divided and They Were Found Wanting - set in the decade before the First World War. The work is massive and passionate like War and Peace rolled into one with Anna Karenina.

It’s especially poignant for me. I've seen many of the great houses described, all now desecrated or ruinous. Their occupants were scattered like chaff in the brutal winnowing of revolution or burnt in the crackling fire of war. I know the landscape, much of it still beautiful, indeed I've ridden through it.  I've sat on a horse atop a bare hill from which it seemed that I could see the whole of Transylvania about me ringed by distant mountains.

I can empathise with those of Banffy's characters stuck in poor relationships surrounded by bad influences. A lovely landscape makes human folly seem all the uglier.

I know the feeling of exile driven out taking just courage and memories, though I escaped more lightly than most of Banffy's compatriots.

Some of these feelings hardly can I express in words. Yet by thought and writing I can begin to draw out the easier of these sentiments in communicable form. There is water still to flow beneath that bridge, a flux drawn along healthily by the Transylvanian Trilogy. 

But exploring the places where Banffy's action took place is like wandering a wasteland inhabited chiefly by ghosts mingled with a new population unrelated to the former. They seem like two sides of a coin, or two oblivious casts separated by a curtain. Connections have been severed. That reminds me of Egypt. Present day Egyptians bear no relation to the people who built the pyramids and temples. They just live there and quite sensibly benefit as best they can from the situation. The past means little save as the guarantor of an income. Transylvanians in general, however, haven't quite worked out just what the past might be worth. Hence few relics do better than moulder, many are lost already and more will be lost.

I started off oblivious to the past too. The landscape I saw and the present day occupants. It all seemed so rustic, so fascinating after the dull modern place where I lived. But soon those people became mundane, their lives repetitive, their society devoid of culture. Then the ghosts stepped forward reminiscing of a past seemingly glorious but ultimately tragic. The first seeds of their destruction they sowed then others completed the deed. Wisdom had fled leaving a vacuum to be filled first by small-mindedness then by cruelty. Now the dust is settling on the ruins. A fascinating instability of character and culture has been crushed into safe stable sediment.

Today's people do not hear the ghosts for they speak another language. The ghosts present the bones of a culture that few can hear. Those few are eccentrics like me. It's strange to reach out and touch the past, to grasp a historical gnosis and enter a strange beautiful world that no longer exists. Even at this distance that knowledge enriches.

I'm left with a mass of emotions. All is more strongly flavoured there. Food tasted better. Drink was more powerful. Goodness is pronounced and evil depraved. The powerful love that I felt for that vast landscape with its bare-headed lowland hills stretching one after another to the wooded mountains will never leave me. Nor perhaps will the sense of regret at what that land might have been had good people taken responsibility in good time. Fascination at the life of a century ago excites me. The joy of being able to ride here and there is unforgettable. As for my experiences I hold on to the good and let time wash away the remainder. It's better that way. Besides I am living in 2011 and not, however vicariously, in the last days of Austro-Hungary or any other historical time.