The Power of the Wind Horse

I leash up Chloe, and we set off in the fading light for a walk up Cascade Drive.  This is Mill Valley’s premier street, according to the chamber of commerce; home to nature lovers and San Francisco money and aging hippies who have joined the establishment.  Yesterday, Dipsea runners were all over this place.  Now, all is quiet. Redwoods rise everywhere, cathedrals in the gathering gloom.  Mill Creek murmurs nearby, a bubbling, tumbling serpentine companion. I walk by a house festooned with Tibetan prayer flags, then another with the “Hate has no place here” sign.  

The houses are beautiful --- all wood and glass and interesting angles. They look like they belong here; living things that sprouted up among the trees.  In Mill Creek Park, I encounter a man who is setting up for a drum circle.  I wish him a fruitful session. He blesses Chloe—who has bounded exuberantly all over his stuff—thanking her for lending her animal spirit to his circle.

Mill Valley is a very cool town, with its soulful people, signature redwoods, and fog fingers creeping down the flanks of Mount Tam.  On the ninth anniversary of losing Carson, I have landed here, seeking solace from two things that are pretty reliable in giving it to me: redwood trees and the ocean.  Tomorrow, I head for Point Reyes.

Continuing up Cascade Drive, I see more prayer flags—probably the third or fourth set I have noticed since hitting town. The first time I remember seeing these was long ago on TV, in a documentary about Mount Everest. In one shot, an earnest white guy expounded at length about strength and courage and man’s in-born need to conquer nature.  He couldn’t really explain it, he said.  But boy did he keep trying.  In the background, lounging near their tents, the sherpas looked on dispassionately.  What must they be thinking, I wondered. “Who is this tool who is holding forth about what it takes to climb our mountain? Something we’ve done like, two dozen times?” 

Above the tents, a string of brightly colored flags snapped in the howling wind.  As white guy droned on, I wondered about the flags, which reappeared in shot after shot. At some point the narrator explained their significance.

In Tibetan culture, prayer flags are a symbol of the healing power of the universe.  Tibetans believe we can send our wishes of good will out into the world, directing them not just to people we know, but to all beings.  See a prayer flag fluttering?  Those are someone’s wishes for peace, for health, for good fortune, for freedom from suffering.  They travel on the wind to the far reaches of the world.

One prayer flag is called the Wind Horse.  In shamanic tradition, the creature symbolizes speedy and powerful transformation of bad fortune to good.  On some flags there are three jewels, representing Buddha, Buddhist teachings, and the Buddhist community.  On others, the horse is surrounded by a garuda (an eagle-like sun bird ridden by the Hindu god Vishnu), a dragon, a snow lion and a tiger. 

The Wind Horse symbolizes the collective yearnings of humanity. Ubiquitous as Amazon and a whole lot cheaper, the Wind Horse delivers our wishes of compassion, peace, healing, wisdom and unity, for all people everywhere.

In general, I don’t love the wind, especially when it’s cold.  It makes my eyes dry, my hair messy, my nerves jittery. Windy days tend to set me on edge.  But the Wind Horse got me to thinking. What if I stopped seeing this as an irritating climate event and started seeing it as the power of transformation?  What if the wind, and the prayers it carried, could heal the world?

The power of prayer is certainly not a new idea.  Nor is it the sole province of the Buddhists or the Hindus.  Most religions express some form of it. In the secular world, it is sometimes called manifestation, intention-setting or the power of positive thinking.

I see glimpses of it sometimes.  Right now in my neighborhood, former strangers are coming together around a man who has a medical crisis and no family nearby. We are committed to making his next chapter the best it can be. Will our daily wishes for his wellness cure him? Not sure. But I think they might be affecting him. I know they are transforming us, and the relationship of aloofness we previously had.

In my writing class last fall there were Zionist Jews and pro-Palestinian Muslims. All traumatized by the individual losses that brought them to Kara in the first place (Kara is the bereavement services organization I volunteer with) these people come together to support each other as authors and fellow travelers. When the war broke out in October, some of them were deeply affected, and wanted to talk about it. I resisted, worried that the topic would be polarizing. But the writers insisted, so I issued a prompt: how does the grief of the world shape your individual grief, and vice versa? I also set guidelines: no political diatribes. You all have built a beautiful place of healing here. Let's not mess that up.

Here’s what happened. They wrote beautiful pieces about their own heartbreak and their own commitment to collective healing.  They posed the question: can the respect and compassion we show each other here in this class ignite some kind of chain reaction that gets big enough to end this war? Is that laughably naïve?  Or is it possible? What if we acted like it was possible?  Should we try it, and see what happens?  Their humanity, and the way they ministered to each other, was one of the most profound things I have witnessed in a long time.

The morning after my walk up Cascade Drive, I woke up in my lovely little inn on the banks of Mill Creek. Chloe and I piled into the car and headed up Mount Tam to the Panoramic Highway.  Sun and fog were at war. One moment brilliant rays of light broke through the drippy gloom, revealing breathtaking views of mountains tumbling down to the sea.  In the next moment, the fog won, shrouding everything with a cloak of mystery. Of not quite knowing what was around the next bend.

On the high, winding ribbon of Panoramic Highway, gusts of wind caught my Subaru, pushing me around the road.  I had to keep my wits about me on this drive, gripping the steering wheel a little tighter. But instead of fighting the wind, I asked it: Where are you going? The Middle East? Ukraine? Washington DC? What wishes do you carry, and for whom?

And what if I wake up tomorrow, and see evidence that you worked? There’s a cease fire.  Floods have receded and fires have been extinguished. Children are no longer starving. Our leaders have come together for the good of the whole. What if those things -- or even some of those things --- happened? Will it be because of the prayer flags fluttering on Cascade Drive? Was the Wind Horse up here on Mount Tam, galloping alongside me and my little Subaru?

Could that be true? And do I create some kind of power when I believe it?