Looking for Carl Raswan

"All my dreams came back to me, more real and more compelling than ever, and I said to Charlotte, 'Some day I must know these people of the desert. I must find the beautiful ancestral horse of the frieze on the Parthenon. But my quest may be for a mythical horse which no longer exists."-Carl Raswan from his book, Drinkers of the Wind

All my life, I feel like I have been on a quest, searching...looking...hunting...trying to find a special horse, a horse who is so elusive and yet, so precise...I know him...I can see him in my mind clearly but for some reason, I find it difficult to use just the right words to identify him, to define him, to give flesh and bone to this horse of the spirit, so that everyone else can see him too. For Carl Raswan, this special horse was an ancient Greek horse and this description, his words, are the ones he used to describe the horse he saw in his mind, overflowing with that special quality, "the something" which led him out of Egypt and into the desert to look for it.


Carl Raswan...there is so much written about the man. It seems like almost everyone has an opinion of a man they never met.  And in the case of Carl Raswan, much of what is said about Raswan concerns the many words that he used to describe the elusive something that he spent his whole life searching for. I understand him because I have difficulty finding the perfect words to describe something that I also yearn for deeply...the authentic Arabian horse. Not only do I find it challenging to use the right words to describe my perfect horse; my perfect horse is constantly evolving and changing. I may describe this ideal horse very differently today from the horse I see tomorrow. And in the process of describing him, I may totally contradict myself tomorrow, as compared to what I have said about him today. Such is the way with words and feelings...they never remain the same because as a person, I am not the same. I am different today from the man I was one month, six months, one year ago. Could Carl Raswan be any different than this?

So, this summer, I set out on a journey to find the real Carl Raswan. As difficult as the ideal horse is to describe; it is just as hard to hunt down the real voice of Carl Raswan, his heart, his spirit and passion, in the hope that I too, can find my own private Ghazal and Wudiyeh.

"But there was something about this emaciated little chestnut stallion that fascinated me, though he was not much to look at and certainly had not been groomed for ages past. He had four white feet, and a white star on his forehead--a head bold and angular as jagged rock. And his enormous eyes were like those of a gazelle." -Carl Raswan, from his book, Drinkers of the Wind

I am getting closer, hot on the heels of this special man who was looking for the same horse that I have been searching for. Not only do I look forward to finding the man but also coming face-to-face with that magical horse, who possesses every bit of that special something that I have been dreaming about.

EnJOY the happy summer...see you in the fall,
Ralph

PS Opening photo was taken by cell phone as I walked on the Cushetunk Trail, Round Valley State Park, Lebanon, NJ