- Mar 23
- 4 min read
CHAPTER — RED FEATHER
a horse of folklore, memory, and spirit
Some paintings begin with an idea.This one began with the feeling that something was walking beside me long before I could see it.
For months, maybe longer, I kept sensing the presence of a horse in the stories I was writing. Not clearly. Not in a way I could explain. Just the feeling of hooves somewhere behind me, steady and patient, like something waiting for the moment when I would finally notice it.
The horse was never the main character in the story.
She stood in the distance.
Near the edge of the road.
On the other side of the river.
Watching.
Every time I tried to move the story forward, she was there again, quiet but impossible to ignore.
Around that same time, I kept hearing the same words over and over again.
The Year of the Horse.
Not in one place, but everywhere.In astrology, in old folklore, in conversations, in the strange way certain ideas start repeating until they stop feeling like coincidence and start feeling like instruction.
In many traditions, the Year of the Horse is not a year of rest.It is a year of movement.A year of fire.
A year of courage.
A year when you are asked to ride forward even if you don’t know where the road leads.
The horse carries you across the part you cannot cross alone.
When I finally sat down to paint her,
I knew the landscape had to feel like the desert I keep returning to in my mind.
Pilar, New Mexico.
That stretch of land along the Rio Grande where the air feels older than the moment you’re standing in.
Where the river cuts through the earth like it has been telling the same story for centuries.
Where the sky gets so wide it makes you feel small in the best possible way.
There is something about that place that always feels like a doorway to me.
Like if you stand there long enough, you start to hear things you normally can’t hear.
That’s where she lives.
Out there near the river, where the land feels sacred without needing a reason.
She didn’t come into the painting wild.
She didn’t come running.
She walked straight toward me.
Steady.
Certain.
Completely unafraid.
That’s when I knew she wasn’t just a horse.
She was a guide.
In my writings, the horse appears when something in your life is about to change.
Not to stop you.
Not to rescue you.
To protect you while you move forward.
While I was painting her, I kept feeling the same word in my body.
Ride.
Not run away.
Not wait.
Ride.
Ride into the work.
Ride into the story.
Ride into the life that keeps asking for more courage than you think you have.
The red feather came near the end.
I didn’t plan it.
It felt like she needed a mark, something that meant she belonged to the same world as the Spirit Guides.
In the stories, the red feather is never explained.
It appears when you are standing at the edge of something new and you are being asked to trust the path before you understand it.
This is a horse that finds you when you are standing at the edge of a new life.
She doesn’t push you forward.
She doesn’t pull you back.
She stands there, calm and steady, until you realize the only direction left to go is ahead.
She walks beside the river.
She watches the road.
She waits until you are ready to climb on.
Like this horse has been walking beside me for a long time, and I am only now able to see her clearly enough to paint her.
That’s how the Spirit Guides always arrive.
Not as ideas.
Not as characters.
As protection.
As presence.
As something that shows up the moment you decide to keep going even when you don’t know where the road leads.
This year feels like that.
The Year of the Horse.
The year of riding forward.The year of trusting movement.
The year of letting the story carry you farther than you planned to go.
Red Feather came to remind me.
She wears the feather of protection.
She walks the road before you do.
She waits until you are ready.
And when she finds you,
there is only one thing left to do.
Let’s ride.
The Year of the Horse asks us to move,
to trust the road,
to follow the guide even when we don’t know where it leads.
While I was painting Red Feather,
I recorded a guided meditation for this year’s energy — something to help step into momentum, courage, and protection.
It’s my first time recording one, so be gentle with your critiques.
This year feels like it’s about trying things we haven’t done before… and riding anyway.
XO,Missy
The Poem
By MTR 2026
Red Feather
I did not go looking for the horse.
She was already there,
standing where the river bends near Pilar,where the Rio Grande moves the way old stories move—slow, certain, never asking permission.
The light was the color of dust and evening,
that hour when the desert feels awake
even though nothing is moving.
She lifted her head as if she had been waiting.
There was a feather caught in her coat,
red as the last line of sunset,
red as the small brave part of the heart
that keeps saying yes
even when the road disappears.
No one told me she was mine to follow.
No one told me what she meant.
But the air changed,
and the ground felt steadier under my feet,
and I understood the way animals understand—without words,
without doubt.
Some guides do not speak.
Some guides do not lead.
They walk beside you
until you remember
you were never walking alone.
The river kept moving.
The sky kept opening.
The horse took one step forward
and then another,
as if to say—
this is the year for riding,
this is the year for crossing,
this is the year you trust the dust
,the wind,
the sound of hooves
where there was nothing before.
I stood there a long time
watching her breathe.
And when she turned toward the road,
I followed, like someone who finally understood that courage is not loud,
it is simply the moment you decide to go.
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