This work is the joyful unfolding of a collective effort. The aim? To help establish in human consciousness a deeper sensitivity and awareness of the spiritual life that humanity shares with nonhuman nature - plants, animals, the Earth and her elements.

It is written with the view that nonhumans can enlighten, guide and help humans restore a lost chord of sacred truth and spiritual meaning in their lives. It is a meditation on a very deep, very old dream I have been nurturing for many lifetimes. It is the fulfillment of a promise I once made to myself to work when the circumstances were right to alleviate animal suffering, especially for horses, all over the world.

I promised mainly to help horses, especially in light of their mistreatment and exploitation as beasts of burden for so many centuries. I wanted horses to experience a sense of spiritual freedom to balance the torment they have endured for so long. Only since the resurgence of telepathic interspecies communication during the last two decades have nonhumans been able to proclaim their truth to the world.
 
In the early 1990s, I began to realize my long-held dream when I married my husband Greg, and moved to a 16-acre farm in Portland, Oregon. However, since the dream was so deeply embedded in my unconscious, it took more than ten years to excavate it from the depths of my soul.

I found my first horse, Buddy, fifteen years ago, and my dream began to resurface. He agreed to be my guardian spirit and my protector, and act as a support for my spiritual healing. Buddy was already tamed to human nature, but still had a fair amount of wildness left in him. In return, I would help him realize his dream, which then became our combined destiny.

One day during one of my animal communication workshops, Buddy told me he had come to the Earth to establish an organization, from the ground up, a sort of "grass roots," (yes, pun intended) organization to write books about Interspecies Communication. Buddy wanted humans to expand their view of communication, and discover how to disengage mental chatter in order to understand and learn from nonhuman nature. As Buddy said, "Every breath we take and give is a communication with Air. What does Air want us to know about our bodies? Where does Air get stuck inside us? Where does it sense we need more of it? What does Air want us to know about its relationship with us? If we follow the path of Air into our bodies and personify it and give it a voice, a face and a body, we find what information it has to share with us."

A year after Buddy came to live with me, I sensed he was lonely and needed a same-species partner to keep him company. When I asked whom he might want as a partner he showed me a mental image of a beautiful, white, wild-spirited Arabian mare with a long flowing mane and tail. I was new to the horse world at the time, and could not think of taming such a wild thing. So, I asked if he had anyone else in mind. He responded by showing me "a Bay Thoroughbred." Within a few weeks I found Ellie who became Buddy's lifetime mate. Although they were immediately enamored of each other, it took Buddy a while to let Ellie be the alpha mare she was meant to be. Once they knew they could trust each other completely, however, they never separated again.

So, with the help of Buddy and Ellie, and the guidance of my many mentors and invisible teachers in the supra natural world, this book can now benefit others who wish to enjoy a more intimate view of what Buddy calls The Spiritual Life of Horses.

Although it was Buddy's idea to write a book, over the years I, too, became more committed to the idea of raising voices around the world in a chorus of celebration for the evolving consciousness of the species Equus. For more than fifty million years, from prehistoric times to the dark battlefields of man during The Crusades, horses have been inspiring and persuasive mythological icons. When exalted, their indomitable spirit rises from the depths of an untold dream, perhaps conjured by a fantasy to fly, spiraling up from the ashes like a Phoenix, soaring into the light of new millenniums.

The mythology of the horse is, therefore the dream of the horse. As such, these myths and dreams are of the same mind-stuff.1 Another calling for me was to bring out of the undifferentiated stream of consciousness--the birthplace of all dreams and myths--an enlightened mythical narrative with horses to realize a glorious freedom and a mystical and mythological Renaissance.

Freeing their spirits in this way is a breakthrough no captive beast would hesitate to embrace. It is my heart-felt wish that after reading these myths and stories future writers and artists will accept the courageous task of unlocking the myriad myths other nonhuman species wish to tell. It is a 'great work,' which can further unleash creative minds to unify the collective wisdom inside the matrix of life.

With that said, I invite you to take off your shoes, light a candle, and have a pleasant flight.

In Loving Spirit,
Carole Devereux
La Center, WA ~ 2005