UNSPOKEN MESSAGES

Intimations of immortality flow from life on a horse farm in this passionate debut memoir.

Rowland boarded and trained horses on his Kentucky farm, and he discusses the intense emotional ties he formed with animals there. Pride of place goes to equines like Buffy, “an old soul in a horse body,” who injured herself and was put down, and Pal, a horse so beloved by all that Rowland glimpsed the ghost of Pal’s former owner visiting him. Other companions whom he mourns include Whiskers, a barn cat, and Sarge, a golden retriever. Both “crossed over the rainbow bridge” to await reunion with him in the afterlife. Even a passing bee conveyed a message: Rowland stroked the bee after it landed on him and received “an intense feeling of peace and love for the world.” Rowland sets these stories against his own narrative of spiritual awakening amid health crises, including multiple myeloma. He presents a harsh but conflicted critique of Western medicine, blaming much of his ill health on drugs with toxic side effects. He prefers alternative medicine, including treatments he got from a naturopath, a reiki practitioner, and a psychic, and he recommends an organic diet, rigorously filtered water, meditation, and using the Law of Attraction, which helps him avoid red lights while driving. Rowland’s evocative prose brings animals and their antics to life—the slobbery Sarge was “the farm greeter, which is like being a Wal-Mart greeter only wetter”—while drawing larger lessons from them. Some of these scenes can seem glib—“What is supposed to happen will happen, one way or another,” he concludes after rescuing a chipmunk from Whiskers only to watch the rodent escape and unwittingly run back into the cat’s clutches—but other are deeply felt and moving. “Her eyes once again went to mine ever so briefly,” he writes of Buffy’s death vigil, “as if to tell me she knew and she understood her time in this physical world was coming to an end. Then she called to Peanut, and in that soft murmuring sound mares only make to their foals, she apparently said her good-byes.” Readers who have felt a bond with an animal will appreciate Rowland’s experiences.

A sentimental but often captivating New Age tribute to the soulfulness of animals.