True Native American Tradition & Our Appaloosa Horse

Who wants Watta Spots = not water-spots, but the bunched up spots on the rump of a little Appaloosa mare. When my youngest child, who like her grandmother is a horse person, was nine she got her first horse. My children are evidence of there being a cellular memory, as two out of three came by a passion for horses so strong neither could live successfully without them. Their love of horses completes the people they are. Without any horse experience of my own, I took on the challenge of helping them develop what their father had always resented about his own mother. This little mare was not the horse my daughter wanted to prefect her riding skills on, but she was all I could afford at the time. I thought giving my feisty little filly a charge with similar personality to her own, would be the most efficient way to tame her. A few years later, when boys became the prime interest, my training aid failed and her brother took over the mares care. She really wasn't what he wanted in a horse either, but he was sensitive to the fact she was family; he decided to breed her so she could earn her keep. This in itself was part of his life's blueprint, as it lead to his finding the horse of his life. Ya with another it would be the love of their life, but with him it was the horse of his life.

Many of the building blocks in my own life and horse experience were centered around this little Watta-spot mare. Even so we clashed personalities, as she didn't like other females having the upper hand. Eventually at twelve she was moved out of state, and I only saw her a couple of times over the next twenty years. At this time so much drama existed in my own life there was no time to miss the characters that had once played minor rolls. However, I knew this little horse I'd brought into my heart , would continue to be well cared for and have a good life with my son. Over a twenty year period she dropped a few nice foals, between which she practiced her favorite pass time of grazing green fields and occasionally trail ride as companion to my sons other riding stock. Not his favorite horse or what he wanted, she was still loved quite deeply and appreciated for the feisty little gal with strong a constitution and character she carried in her gens.

She was thirty-two when again she stepped off a trailer and was lead to the small green field I'd brought her to twenty nine years earlier. This time blind in one eye and mellowed with age, she came with another riding mare and the gelding that in his day sired some of her foals. Again she wasn't what I wanted, but she was welcomed by me and the land she seemed to remember, as my son and her returned to their original roots. Her familiarity with the surroundings and with me seemed to move her up in pecking order. There was a new confidence of take charge in her attitude, as she seemed to settle in well in spite of the trauma of tailoring she was not use to. (Now for non horse people, this is an aged mare who is considered to be at the end of horse life, and blindness in one eye would normally tend to make a calm horse skittish and she had been skittish to begin with. Also domestication is the exact opposite of what is good for equine, but we do the best with what we have and their shorten life span with medications and unnatural rich feeds.) The first month she seemed to do well, then signs of ill health reared during freezing mid-winter conditions. We found she had contracted illness earlier in life, and managed to survived it undetected; with the stress of the move it was now reclaiming her little Watta-spots.

Through the winter, my son who never really wanted this horse, spent every non working hour with her and a small fortune on vet bills, medication and supplements; nothing improved condition, her body had obviously give up the fight. We felt she knew she'd returned home to spend her last days, as it had always been my sons intention to allow her final rest next to her first love, the family Morgan horse named Ted. What a sad thing I thought, until I realized, this little mare knew what it was all about. She'd lived her life with prudence and purpose, and in the end came home to return the favor by nourishing Mother Earth where she had been given her firstchance for life as Watta-spots no one really wanted.

Today, the day after she told us it was her time for passing, I feel tears of love and appreciation in my heart for Watta-spots that no one really wanted. She lived her incarnation well, I'm honored to have been part of assisting her to do that. I think she taught my daughter some small bit about ego management and responsibility toward others. I know she helped my son, the last of the ol cowboys, to develop a high standard of responsibility and to define levels of
love and priorities. In her very last months she accepted a once mistreated male dog as trusted friend, and helped him advance his understanding life is good and regardless of species we are all interconnected. She gave my son a reason to return home; and gave me a transformation format with a new meaning to life. She was masterful in achieving her incarnations task, as none of this would of aspired had it not been for the Watta-spots no one wanted.

With the honor due one who lived above being what no one really wanted; Three Goose Feathers were found next to where her body was being placed. This is were she has spent the last days grazing contentedly, it was her favorite spot tucked away in a corner secluded from the others. She was honored, someone had been teaching her to fly the way she soared above adversity in this life. A little Watta-spot no one really wanted, but then who really wants the spot that gives us a reason to take responsibility for learning those tediously lessons we come here to learn from. Thank You Moo

In true Native American tradition this Appaloosa horse left us her totem of 3 Goose feathers. The traditional meaning behind the goose spirit energy is Safe Return, Love of Home,teaching and being self-demanding, reliable, prudent and productive. You were all that dear Moo, as we nick named you, is this not
appropriate for one who lived their life with such ethic and dignity in the shadows even behind a nick name refering to a cow not a horse. You honored your
power, teaching us to pay attention and we will learn ethics.