I asked Autumn Sun to come with me to meet the new horse, Blaze. He was 15 years old, and had arrived from Pennsylvania the previous week. Gaunt from being undernourished, his ribs showed, even though his previous owner had been gradually fattening him up for the past six months.

We went up to the woods where the horses usually graze, and kept going to the barn since we couldn't see them. They weren't at the barn either, so I got the bucket of grain for his morning meal, and headed back to the woods looking for Blaze. I spotted his white coat with red markings and began to call him. He moved up the hill, sensing the food. The sheep and the llama approached as well, and Chouklah, the Arabian mix quarter-horse gelding headed straight for the bucket, figuring he'd take over.

I sidestepped the other animals, and walked toward Blaze, offering him the grain. He began to chew, slowly and methodically grinding the grain, rather than sucking it down like Chouklah did. He took about half of the grain, then he walked away from me, downhill, favoring his right hind leg. He laid down and tried to roll up hill.

The angle was too steep, however, and so he just lay there. I walked over to him, and laid my hand on his head. He closed his eyes, and seemed to just want to sleep.

I urged him to get up, and he did. Only to walk over to a tree and lie down, pressing his belly against the trunk of the tree. He lay there once again, with his eyes closed, and I wondered if he was ready to die.

I asked him if he was planning on doing a giveaway, if he wanted to go over into Spirit World. As soon as I asked the question, he began to paw the ground and tried to get up. I figured that meant he wanted to live, and Autumn Sun and I tugged at his legs and tried to help him get up, but the tree blocked him. He couldn't move.

Cougar rode up on Chouklah, and studied the situation. He shouted, "Get him up, he's going to die." Then he turned and headed up the hill, yelling over his shoulder that he was going to call the vet.

Autumn Sun and I ran behind him, and began to gather some people to help us. Cougar's report from the vet was that we had to get Blaze on his feet or he would die. That he probably had colic and we had to give him a gallon of mineral oil and 40 aspirins, and walk him until he passed gas or feces.

It took several of us to roll Blaze off the tree, up hill, and force him to his feet. We practically dragged him out of the woods and back into the corraled pasture by the barn. Cougar took the first turn and began walking him, as we delegated others to collect the money to buy mineral oil and aspirin and to run into town to get the stuff. We agreed to check back periodically to spell Cougar.

During that first hour, Blaze went down five times. Cougar screamed and fought to force him back on his feet, and wondered if he would be able to get him up the last time he fell, because he was so physically exhausted from working him.

Reinforcements showed up soon, though, and we began to run teams of people throughout the afternoon, keeping two at a time, walking and walking and walking, back and forth, up and down the pasture. Keeping alert that as we turned the corners, Blaze would show he was going to take advantage of the turn and lay down, so we learned to lean into him and push him back on his feet.

Several times he appeared to be doing better, and we relaxed, hoping things were getting resolved. Then, he suddenly laid down. We converged on him, whooping and hollering, snatching small sticks and stinging his rear end, pushing on his legs to force him back on his feet, and literally dragging him ahead. "Live Blaze, Live. You can do it." We talked to him, we encouraged him, we told him we weren't going to leave him until he made it.

Hours rolled by and finally one of the clan mothers asked if we had called Grandmother. We had been so busy with Blaze, we hadn't taken the time to call her other than in prayer. So, we got on the phone, right about the time that the Vet showed up and told us that Blaze was dying from a twisted gut, and that we ought to be merciful and put him to sleep.

I called my sister, who had been our liason to get the horse, and she asked if the vet had tried to straighten out the gut through the rectum. I turned her over to the horse doctor, and let her walk him through her questions. The upshot seemed to be the same. He was unlikely to live to get to Columbus which was where we had to go for surgery, and the pain killers weren't working, and there wasn't anything else to do.

Grandmother asked people to meditate on the situation, and she called to Waya, the South GateKeeper, the place of family and relationships, to assist, if assistance was needed in this situation. A spark flew out of her fire and landed on her blanket, and she told us that Blaze wanted to live.

We decided that we wanted to help Blaze by getting him to Columbus, for surgery if necessary. The vet kept warning us that the cost estimates they gave us at OSU of $3-5000 were light, and that we were facing a $7000.00 bill if we sent him in for surgery. We decided that we would fight all the way for his life. I called OSU Veterinary Hospital, got connected to Dr. Belucci, and gave her the clinical history. She said to call when we had him loaded, and again when we were half an hour from Columbus, and they would have the Colic Team on hand when we arrived.

We cheered up because the news coming from the barn was that the vet had gone back down and tried more manipulations, and had been able to release Blaze's bladder. It had inflated to the size of a basketball, but we gained tremendous hope when he peed. He also was able to manually remove some of the impacted feces and straighten out some of the gut. He was amazed at the change in the horse. We realized he now had a very good chance of making it to Columbus. The next hurdle to overcome was the fact that we had no horse trailer. We began to canvas the countryside, only to find that virtually everybody associated with horses was at a Barnesville show. Neighbor after neighbor said, "No, we can't help you," but we kept calling. We drove to the Amish and asked them for assistance. The blacksmith gave us three names and phone numbers of people with horse trailers. The Amish farmer down the road gave us an old remedy for colic: Pour boiling water over the horses' own manure and get him to drink the tea.

We checked with Grandmother, and she remembered her own grandmother giving the same remedy to horses, so we began to prepare the brew. That coincided with us connecting at last with Kenny Carpenter, who said he'd loan us his trailer and meet us on the road.

We drove at breakneck speeds on winding roads across the mountainous terrain, aware of the full moon covered with step ladders of clouds. The sense of mystic involvement was inescapable, as we careened around the final corner and located the maroon Ford, waiting at the roadside to guide us to the trailer.

Kenny asked us if we had a horse blanket. We shook our heads. We had only had this horse ten days, and were woefully short of the necessary equipment.

He scurried back to his barn and retrieved a brown blanket, and showed us how to tie it on him. The trailer dropped onto the hitch without a problem, and we headed back to the farm, certain that Blaze would make it now.

We quickly loaded him, grabbed some bagels and apples for the journey in, and made final contact with Grandmother and the hospital. All was well, so we got underway.

The journey went swiftly and we arrived at OSU to find the colic team in readiness. They descended on Blaze like a well trained SWAT team. We unloaded him, then they led him onto a scale and weighed him. I had never seen such a place. Room after room for animals lined the long hallway. The red vinyl floor, wet with recent washing, smelled horsey but also clean.

Blaze was in good hands.

They took him into a room they called ICU, and placed him into a set of parallel bars with ropes at the front and rear. They secured a hitch on his lip and Dr. Belucci began to discuss the clinical situation while she pulled on a clear plastic glove that covered her right arm to the shoulder. We watched, amazed, as she deftly inserted her entire arm into the horse's rectum, and poked around his insides. She pulled out small pellets of feces and picked strings out of them, matter of factly tossing them into the waste can beside us, and telling us it had taken several days for this to accumulate. She ordered blood tests and a stomach aspiration. They administered more mineral oil through a naso-gastric tube, and ultimately, she concluded that Blaze did not need surgery; he could be managed medically. They would continue to give him mineral oil and IV fluids and monitor him until he cleared his intestinal tract. We could come back in about three days and get him.

The entire diagnostic work-up and discussion took 45 minutes and we were on our way home.

Today Blaze came home. We discovered that he's also blind in his right eye, and that we're going to have to feed him more frequently and in smaller amounts. He will also have to be exercised after meals.

We bought Blaze as a gift for Grandmother. His white coat with red markings, his red mane and tail, and of course, his name, all seemed appropriate. He brought a lot of lessons with him though. Abused animals need a lot of care, and we are just beginning to learn how to do what is needed. But, we have always wanted to become a rehabilitation center for animals, and this horse has blazed a trail to help us understand what kind of things are involved in being able to care for animals.

We are excited that he will be able to live and thrive at the farm, giving the children a companion, and teaching us how to ride and take care of him. When we are the most certain that we are extending to someone else seems to be when we also must learn how to receive.

Welcome home Blaze!