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Healing the Flayed Horse:
A Personal Experience of Healing through Dream Rentry
By Jenny Noble

As a provocative symbol, the hammer has played an immense role in my life for the past two years.  It was a renegade hammer, slipping in an instant from the stubborn nail I was prying loose, that re-wrote my life script. 

The butt end of that ordinary wooden handle slammed into my right eye with such force that it knocked me off my step ladder.  When I finally dared, several minutes later, to take my hand away from my face, what I saw transported me back into a powerful dream from years before. I titled this dream, “Bubble Menace”: 

I’ve brought several children to a beach to play in the water.  Within a wave, an immense bubble of dirty grey seawater expands monumentally as it rushes toward the shoreline.  The unwholesome brew of rotting seaweed, decaying fish carcasses and toxic debris will engulf us all unless I can lead the children to higher ground.  Our way is blocked by a high cliff, and the water is already swirling at our feet.  My husband has been working on an optical instrument of some kind, but it’s unclear whether he’ll be able to repair it. 

The light that entered my eye, after the hammer blow, looked exactly like that bubble. No I knew what the dream was showing me!”  Through all the ensuing drama -- helicopter ambulance, emergency surgery, weeks of painful debilitation and worry – part of me stood to the side tracking the manifestation of my dream, and groping for further dream guidance. I recognized the optical instrument in my dream as the scope the surgeon used to see inside the eye.

There was much for monkey-mind to do in the ensuing weeks.  Medications to research, holistic alternatives to pursue, philosophical perspectives to formulate, communications with loving friends and family, medical appointments, paperwork for my compensation claim.  I had wonderful care, and was proud I was staying on top of it all without my usual emotional melt-down. And then I met the flayed horse:

I hike through an ideal biodynamic farm, where plants, animals, soil and people live in perfect balance and communion.  On my return trip, I see that everything’s destroyed, burned to charcoal.  The cows’ bellies and chests have been slit open, revealing their great wounded hearts; many animals are dead and others have run away terrified.  As I cross a bridge, a mutilated horse approaches, its skin peeled off, hooves hacked off.  Its eyes plead for comfort, help, but I’m repelled and run away. 

I woke feeling shame, grief, and horror.  All day I knew I had to re-enter this dream and respond with compassion to this suffering creature.  Playing Robert’s drumming CD, I return immediately to the bridge and make eye contact with the horse.   I’m stunned to realize I’m looking into my own eyes and know it’s my own wounded, frightened being that needs my compassion. 

In my conscious dream journey, a healer gives me a bottle of crystal water, which I pour over the horse’s exposed flesh.  I fan it with a raven’s wing. The entire raven springs from the wing and flies around and around us, cooling the horse’s burning flesh.  I place a crystal globe on her left eye and apophyllite quartz on the right.  The horse lies down on the cool green grass, and I lie on top of her, extending my skin to cover her.  We grow together, and I acknowledge that I am indeed hurt, scared and vulnerable.  We move, one organism now, to a deep hay nest in a stall, and sleep while the magic skin continues to protect us both.  As Robert’s drum calls me back, I return swiftly across the bridge, but part of me remained with the horse, safe in healing sleep.. 

Later, when my eye was burning in reaction to medication, I imagined myself crawling inside her ribcage.  As my skin had enveloped her, she now enfolded and mothered me. 

Following this journey, I allowed myself to grieve what had happened to me, to feel the fear in my situation, to fall apart and accept help.  My need to feel I was handling everything had been diverting energy that was needed for healing.  I discovered that my apophyllite quartz has a concavity that exactly matches the curve of my eyeball, and fitting them together soothes the eye. My dream reentry taught me to offer whatever I can to people in need or pain, with the help of my animal friends.  I’m learning to be kinder to myself, not to “hammer” myself for my mistakes.  And what do you know, apophyllite turns out to be a stone for dreaming and channeling, allowing one to see the truth and act on it, promoting introspection, releasing suppressed emotions, calming and grounding the spirit.