An Earth Side Memory From Toronado And Me
It was the most horrible winter the eastern plains in Colorado had seen in decades. The snow kept falling day after day. The wind was blowing it into seven- to ten-foot drifts. I didn’t see my mailbox for months. Newborn calves were freezing to death in the snow. Ranchers lost hundreds of cattle. My barn was on high enough ground to keep the horses out of the drifts, but the trek to the barn took me down into a ravine and up a hill to their barn. The first time I tried it, I fell into a seven-foot snow drift, and quickly disappeared out of sight. No one saw me. Fortunately, I was able to get myself out of it … after about 10 minutes of struggling. “That’s it. The horses have to be moved somewhere safe for them and for me.” I walked Brandy down to the stable below us, the back way, missing serious drifts. Someone helped me get Toronado to a stable east Hwy 24 near Peyton, Colorado. He wasn’t thrilled about going but I promised him he would have safety there and a pasture in which to wander.
As it turned out all of the horses were barn bound, because the snow kept coming down, day after day. The gate to the pasture had a huge snow drift on top of it, preventing any of the equines from being in the pasture. Besides, it was too dangerous for them to be out there in the high wind and the snow. As the sky began to clear a month after Toronado’s arrival, I took him walking outside to show him what problems we faced. The barn manager was on her tractor trying to dig out the gate to the pasture … unsuccessfully. I said to Toronado, “There is the pasture, here is the gate, and this is the problem.” He looked at me, looked at the snowdrift and then out to the pasture. He spied another unused gate leaning against a fence, looked at me and then again at the pasture. I got it immediately. I said to the manager, “Hey, how about cutting the fence over there where there is not much snow, install the gate, and allow the horses into the pasture that way?”
“How could I be so stupid. How did you think of that?”
“I didn’t, Toronado did!”
How many times have you viewed animals as lesser beings? Less evolved? Less intelligent? What would life be truly like if we worked in cooperation with each other? Perhaps our highly developed intelligence keeps us from seeing the answers that are right in front of us. Perhaps it’s our penchant to multi-task, multi-think and multi-track that are the very things keeping us from being in the moment, where the animals live, where the simple answers are.
If you want to open yourself up to being in the moment and are willing to go on a journey with me that allows you to develop the skills that will help you do this very thing, call me for a no-cost interview for life coaching and/or animal communication sessions or training.
Linda Nija Nations
Author of Remember Me: How my soul connection with animals helped me recover from a severe brain injury
(970) 823-0124
One year ago, this month, my fabulous horse companion, Toronado, was euthanized. My friends Julie and Paul assisted him in crossing Rainbow Bridge. My main steed, as I called him, had been my companion 18 of his 35 years. He died at 112 in people years. The day before his passing was horribly painful. He could barely hold himself up using his back legs. He wobbled so much. Finally, his back legs buckled causing him to fall backwards on his butt. Even in his weakened state, out of embarrassment, I suppose, he managed to get himself upright, back into a standing position. I held on to his neck and sobbed. I told Julie: “Not one more day is he going to stay in this body.”
“I agree,” she said. I didn’t watch, I couldn’t. I stayed home, holding sacred space for him. Moments after he was released from his quite ancient body, he said directly to me: “Where am I?” “You are now home, Toronado, the place you came from. Ask your angels and guides to show you what to do next.” Later that day, while walking our dog Ellie, I saw him in a shadow off to the side of the road. As I approached, I saw a bush that he had used to take his form, so that he could let me know he was around. I know that in deep grief, our minds can see what isn’t there. And I was certainly consumed with grief. But even now, a year later, I don’t think it was grief that made me imagine the contact, but rather grief that allowed me the contact.
Twelve days after Toronado’s transition to the other side, I participated in a requested session with an animal communicator for Toronado and me. Often we communicators call on other communicators in time of extreme grief. Toronado sent me several very powerful messages through Sky Heartsong.
“The day before I left was a very hard day for me, but it made it clear to you I needed to go. You were so devoted to me, you would have done anything to help me,” remarked Toronado.
“Were you in horrible pain?” I asked.
“Yes, but it was only a sliver of time in the whole picture of life,” he said.
I said to him, “Thank you for all the fun, the laughter, the great rides and our adventures together.”
“We had a great time. You always thought of me first when moving (and I moved a lot!). You always thought, how will it be for Toronado?”
“Are you remembering any other lifetimes we had together?” I asked.
“Many, many,” he said, showing Sky Heartsong a deck of cards being flipped through … too many to count.
“What is life like for you now,” I asked.
“I am in recovery now, but I won’t be here long.” Sky Heartsong said, “He will move on to his work pretty soon as he is such an old soul.”
I know this. I have always known this.
Toronado said, “They want me to be a teacher. I will be a teacher of horses who have been hurt or abused, to let them know there are many good people, and I will work with people who are scared.”
On earth he was always a teacher for me, my friends, the kids at the barn, my animal communication students, and the miniature horses, and the yearlings who were subject to his care.
“Do you see us working together still with you there and me here?” I said.
“Yes, a great deal … on spiritual issues. It will be easier from over here. I will always be a heartbeat away and will show up as a bright light as I did yesterday. The heart connection is what we were and are about.”
My main steed, my love.