Flashes of Insight

BUT I DON’T KNOW NUTHIN’ ‘BOUT BIRTHIN’ NO BABY!! By Flash Silvermoon

One of the most profound experiences that I have had with an animal occurred several years ago while making a pit stop for some horse feed. This was to be a 5 minute errand on a trip that would bring my friend Julie to a woman who would introduce her to the owner of a tiger rescue downstate where she was seeking employment.
Julie spared no effort in picking the perfect attire for this interview. She was wearing a lovely pale pink shirt with matching slacks and she agonized over not curling her hair as we were running out of time. I assured her that anyone who could work with tigers didn’t need curled hair.

Our detour would take us to the BloomNSpot Appaloosa farm that belonged to my friend Betsy Bloom to pick up the feed that she had gotten for me. Betsy was off on another errand and so her young son Danny helped us get the3 bags of feed. All was going smoothly as could be until I noticed that a horse in the back pasture was lying strangely with her back leg up in the air. I brought this to Danny’s attention and fear flushed across his young face. “Oh no Flash,she’s having her baby, you have got to do something,you’re all she’s got!” he pleaded.

Turns out this mare was now in full labor and they had been waiting for days for this blessed event to occur. The father was a very famous foundation Appaloosa stallion from the West Coast and this was to be his last offspring as he was dying of cancer.
This was a most critical time but I could not resist saying,”Danny I don’t know nuthin’ ’bout birthin’ no baby.” Just a little comic relief to hide my panic. With that being said, Julie nimbly jumped over the fence while I went around through the gate. The poor mare was now trying to give birth standing up because the foal was breech,being born backwards. If we didn’t stop this and assist the baby horse could fall out and break its neck, if it could even get out. This much we knew but little else.

Here was a scary case of the blind leading the blind or rather the Mare Goddess leading us all! Neither of us had ever dealt with anything like this before so we simply had to follow our instincts and do the next right thing. Thankfully, Julie took the hind end and I began working on the front end wrapping my arms around her sides while pressing my chest against hers to calm her. I started breathing with her following her rhythm and using my hands to push and massage her belly. How I knew to do this was a mystery to me and there was no time to think or examine my empty memory bank. There was something that just felt right about what I was doing and the mare seemed to like it as well.
In no time flat, Julie in her pristine pink outfit was up to her shoulders inside the mare’s vagina gently and simultaneously pulling and turning the endangered foal. How she knew to turn the foal til the legs could come out simply amazed me and I think that she amazed herself as well. The silent coordination of my pushing and Julie’s pulling and turning the foal seemed to be working the newborns body slowly out of the birth canal. At some point I believe that I also gave the mare some flower essences to relax her weary body.
While we worked, a circle of mares had formed around us perhaps guarding their sister or maybe even psychically communicating necessary mare wisdom to her ignorant but courageous rescuers.

We could have become concerned for our own safety but there was no time for that.
If we failed both horses could lose their lives. This pushing and pulling seemed to go on forever and our muscles were getting sore but we would not and could not pause, too much was at stake and we knew it.

Finally, the most beautiful, gangly, glistening Appaloosa filly slid out into Julie’s waiting arms.
By this time Julie was totally covered in blood and physically exhausted from the ordeal.
Without discussion, I took over holding the foal who had just gotten to her feet and I let her lean against me for some time until her own legs and balance grew stronger.
My heart was so full that I thought that it would burst wide open with joy and pride. “We did it, we did it we shrieked to Danny, ourselves,and the universe.Mother and child were both alive. I stroked this precious filly’s neck and sides entranced with the softness of her newborn fur.”You are so very beautiful little one”, I cooed in her ear. With each stroke, I could feel her relax under my touch and I was in ecstasy.I think we had all been waiting to finally exhale and we shared these quiet moments to bask in our success while Danny clicked away on his camera.

In awhile, I gazed over at the mare looking for cues from her that she was fine or not with our intervention. After all this was an unknown horse in a difficult situation but all I could feel from her serene countenance was extreme gratitude. I could swear that I heard a soft “Thank You.” Had we not shown up when we did she would have died a long painful death struggling to release her foal who would have been trapped inside her.
At long last the long-legged filly toddled over to her mother who was waiting to suckle and lick the afterbirth from her unsteady body.

Without knowing it, I had done what the experts call “imprinting” by standing with the foal until she could walk to her mother’s side. The young horse was absolutely gorgeous with long silky eyelashes over her doe like eyes. She looked to be a combination of a Leopard Appaloosa and a Ghostwind Appaloosa with an abundance of black and brown spots dappling her white body. She had a very sweet and gentle disposition and would be a very prized horse indeed.

Meanwhile, this little excursion made us 2 hrs late for Julie’s appointment with Nancy who was meeting us in her van outside of the Hitching Post Restaurant. We tried calling her cell but didn’t reach her so we just continued our journey to meet her feeling both embarrassed by such tardiness yet knowing that she would have to understand, being the animal person that she was. When we finally arrived she was of course a bit perturbed and did understand after we explained our amazing story. We decided to go inside and have some dinner as it was now 5 PM and we were all starving.

Nancy and I sat down to read the simple country menu while Julie sought the meager cleansing comforts of the ladies room. Moments later, the 2 waitresses cautiously approached our table. “Is your friend all right one whispered with a thick Southern drawl?” “Yeah she’s fine” I casually responded, ” she just went to the rest room.”
I was so hungry and so wrapped up in our recent adventure that it never occurred to me that we would look the least bit odd in our bloodstained clothing.
“Well honey, the other waitress confided, you two came in here off the road all covered in blood and all and we figured that if you had just killed your husbands, we would give you our addresses and you could go kill ours!”

This is the gospel truth and we had all that we could do to not fall off our chairs in peals of hysterical laughter. It had been a very very long and crazy day. I rode back home with a wide grin plastered across my face feeling both deeply satisfied and amused.