In Hopi mythology, the Blue Star Kachina is a spirit that will signify the coming of the beginning of the new world, the new beginning by appearing in the form of a blue star. According to the Hopi prophecy, after the earth is threatened the True White Brother will come to earth in search of those who adhere to the ancient teachings. If the True White Brother is successful in finding others who follow the true Hopi way of life, the world will be created anew and all of the faithful will be saved from destruction.

There is an alternative vision. If the True White Brother fails in his mission and is unable to find uncorrupted people, then the earth will be destroyed and none will be spared.

Blue Star Equiculture is named for this new beginning. The story is all too relevant to our time. We have forgotten how to love one another, the earth is bleeding from our deprivations, it can only be saved  by the pure at heart.

Pamela Rickenbach, Blue Star’s founder, says it is time to begin turning the farm and the horses over to the young, the uncorrupted, so they can purify it and honor the vision and the prophecy. She says it is time for her to give way to them, to let them grow and emerge. This is happening, it can be seen, but Pamela is not a person who can fade into any background.

She is a regal presence, the Queen of the place. She is tall and imposing, her faced etched in character and feeling. She is almost always the tallest person anywhere she is, she stands out, she dresses in the colors and individuality of the tribal people she grew up with in South America and worships with on Native American reservations.

She radiates a charisma and a presence that is unusual, that is striking.  I think of her as the Queen of Blue Star. The horses are spiritual beings to Pamela, they are spirits that live to remind us of our duty to be good to the earth and to one another, they have come to heal us and save us from the deprivations of people. In restoring our bond with them, she believes, we can heal ourselves and purify our world. They are radiant beings to her, treated with love and respect, understood in a particular way.

There is a powerful streak in human history of people like this, they seem always to be persecuted, even hunted for their strange and heretic views, they seem to exist in opposition to the powerful institutions that human beings need to create and bend their knees to. They are often women, they call them witches and devils and burn them alive or find other cruel ways to kill them.

And Pamela has been persecuted for her views, she is treated cruelly, insulted and harassed, hated and condemned because she believes that horses are sacred and their bond with human beings is sacred. She has lost her partner, Paul, in part, I believe because of all the cruelty and anger that swirled about the Blue Star vision, and surrounds it still.

I am a watcher, not a believer, an observer, not a disciple. I am fascinated by Pamela’s ideas, I feel the power of the horses, they have altered my life as well as Maria’s. But I don’t always know what to make of what she believes, I am listening and learning, opening myself to something larger than me, scraping away at my cynicism and caution and detachment.  I don’t know where I am going, or where it will take me, and I don’t need to know. It will reveal itself to me.

I know that I feel the prophecy at Blue Star, I see the outlines of a new beginning, I see uncorrupted young people drawn to the idea of a new way. Human history is littered with the remnants of movements like this, the systems that run the earth always seem to find a way to crush them or quiet them.

I am not a prophet, I cannot tell the future. I can just open my eyes and my heart and try to feel the place. Pamela was touched with this spirit, so was Paul Moshimer, her husband, my friend. He believed in it very strongly, in one of his last messages to me he told me that he was astonished at how quickly I had seen it, felt it, been drawn to it. I was, as usual, surprised to hear it. So that’s where I am, I don’t know any more than that.

When I go to Blue Star, my camera is always drawn to the presence of Pamela, a Queenly figure, and when I look through my photos, she is there, standing out, radiating her message, speaking it, feeling it and believing it. All I can do is write what I feel and see and take photos of what I feel. I am not a preacher,  I am not her to persuade anyone of anything, I am a story-teller, everyone must find their own path. In my heart, I imagine that if and when the True White Brother comes to the earth, he may end up at Blue Star, he may find the uncorrupted believers that will save the world.