The Return of the Blue Horses
- Kim McElroy
- Nov 18
- 9 min read
From the beginning of my artistic journey, Blue Horses have found their way into my work. They kept appearing as radiant and mysterious beings, carrying messages I could sense but not comprehend. It was only when I began exploring the history and mythology of blue horses around the world that I realized how universal their presence is. Perhaps they have been trying to tell us something all along.
It started with a pastel I created in 1987, a spirit horse named Halcyon. After that, blue horses began appearing again and again. Some emerged from visions that came to me in spontaneous creation, while others were inspired by horses I met. These horses seemed to carry that same frequency of color and presence, and it seemed as if they were asking to be seen in their true light.
Visions of Blue Horses
In 2006, while co-creating The Way of the Horse with Linda Kohanov, I began attending several equine-guided workshops. I was honored that Linda had chosen my painting Halcyon to represent the card for Intuition. It felt as though that choice became a keystone for what was unfolding in my own life. At that time, my intuition was beginning to emerge more clearly, not only in my art but also in my ability to receive waking visions that informed my encounters with horses in ways that felt both personal and universal.
During that period, I experienced a series of visions that seemed related. In the first, I saw an unborn blue foal curled in the fetal position with its eyes closed. In another, horse spirits gathered through a whirlwind as a transparent sphere rose through the crust of the earth, and within it was the same blue foal. Later, I saw the foal once more, and this time its eyes opened.
The Creation of Blue Horse for The Council of Horses Oracle
In 2019, I felt it was time for the Blue Horse to reappear in my art and for The Council of Horses Oracle. I. I remembered the wonder I had felt at that powerful time in my life when visions first began appearing to me. I vividly recalled the feeling that had lingered in my heart for years, the image of an unborn foal curled in a sphere of light.
As I began to compose the painting, concepts unfolded, and I followed them the way one follows a melody. In meditation I glimpsed a series of symbols. A musical phrase appeared, suggesting harmony and the Blue Horse listening to our visions and dreams. I learned afterward that the four-four rhythm I had intuitively chosen echoes the natural stride of a horse at a walk and the steady beat of a human heart. Other symbols emerged as well. The atom represented transformation, change, or a sudden release of energy. Alpha, the first letter, suggested the beginning of a journey. The human eye spoke of imagination and dreaming. I also discovered a Kanji symbol representing idea, mind, heart, thought, or desire. Together, the symbols that surrounded the Blue Horse began to feel like the language of creation itself.
I chose to depict the blue foal in space as a precursor to her emergence on Earth. I realized the sphere I had envisioned could be like a celestial womb. The foal took her place within it, resting in quiet suspension, her eyes just beginning to open. I created the faint image of her adult self, a serene presence watching over her, and us. In this vision, the foal represents the awakening soul just opening her eyes to a new world. Her adult self is as large as the stratosphere, watching over her and us. The Blue Horse becomes both the dreamer and the awakened dream, the timeless self, watching her rebirth through form. Below, the cloud forms on Earth revealed shapes of horses, as if the elements themselves are foretelling her arrival.
Creating the Blue Horse felt like fulfilling a promise I had made to her years before, to help her energies manifest on earth.
Echoes of the Blue Horse Through Time
When I began exploring the symbolism of the Blue Horse across cultures, I was astonished to discover how many traditions had touched upon this same being, each expressing a different facet of its mystery. It felt as though my creative process had tuned in to a conversation already unfolding through centuries of human experience.
Among the Diné people, the horse is part of the Sun’s sacred herds, moving through the four directions that sustain the balance of life. The turquoise or blue horse carries the medicine of the south and the vitality of the midday sun. To encounter this horse is to be blessed with renewal, clarity, and creative life force.
In Sikh history, the tenth spiritual teacher, Guru Gobind Singh, was known as the Rider of the Blue Horse. Neela is remembered almost as a sacred companion, a kind of living vehicle of divine purpose comparable to a deity’s vahana. Guru Sahib is sometimes known as "Neelay ghoray whalla" or "one with the blue horse". Neela led him into battle, and later into his own transcendence.
In ancient Japan, a remarkable tradition called Ao Uma no Sechie, the Ceremony of the Blue Horse, was practiced on the seventh day of the year before the Emperor and his court, dating back as early as the first century. During the procession, a white or steel-grey horse was led before the people while worshippers laid handkerchiefs and scarves on the path, hoping that the sacred horse would step upon them as it passed, blessing them with vitality and protection.
In Tibetan Buddhism, the image of the wind horse, or Lungta, is represented by the color blue as one of its sacred elements. Lung is interpreted as wind, and ta means horse. Lungta is described as a divine horse that lifts our life force and carries our prayers to the deities. The wind horse represents the uplift of one's life force and the power of spirit. It is often printed at the center of prayer flags, surrounded by the colors of the elements, with blue signifying sky and space. When the wind lifts those flags, prayers are said to ride upon the back of the horse, carried to the heavens.
In modern art, the painter Franz Marc created his visionary Blue Horses in 1911 as the antithesis of war. For him, blue was the color of the spiritual, a tone of infinity, tranquility, and divine presence. He felt that animals, and horses especially, were purer and more truthful than humans. His blue horses gazed beyond materialism, inviting us to join them in a more harmonious world.
“Maybe the desire to make something beautiful is the piece of God that is inside each of us. Now all four horses have come closer, are bending their faces toward me as if they have secrets to tell.” ~ Mary Oliver, Franz Marc’s Blue Horses
In dream interpretation and symbolic traditions from around the world, a blue horse often appears as an omen of inspiration, healing, and awakening. Some describe it as the embodiment of the throat chakra, the voice of truth, creative expression, and communication between worlds. Others see it as the messenger of the soul, signaling a time when intuitive knowing must take form. Reflecting on this, I realize how blue horses have continually guided me to find my voice through art, by intention and trusting in the process.
Interestingly, blue is one of the few colors that horses’ eyes can differentiate.
Of all these traditions, the one that has most deeply resonated with me is that of the Diné. Their teachings revealed these threads woven into my own visions. I could not have known it then, but these visions recently came home to me in a very real way, through story and ceremony.
Reflections from the Blue Horse
When I look back on my journey with these paintings, I realize I was never really directing the visions; I was following them. I was listening to something larger than myself. When the Blue Horse’s eyes first opened, perhaps they were showing me that my intuition was awakening, that a new level of awareness was beginning to unfold. Perhaps this is the role of the Blue Horse for all of us, a mirror and a messenger for our own becoming.
When I meditated with the Blue Horse of The Council of Horses Oracle, another vision revealed more layers.
The Blue Horse appears as small as an embryo, a tiny being poised at the cusp of becoming. Its eyes were open within the womb, awake before birth, seeming aware of the journey ahead. Blue Horses are not only healers in the etheric realms, but there are Blue Horses here on earth, souls born with a mission. Though they may take on any outer color or form, their inner essence remains blue, the hue of their spirit and purpose. Each is an ambassador between horses and humanity, challenging our assumptions and calling us to remember what we came here for. The Blue Horses remind us that awakening can come through joy or through sorrow, yet in both, they help us rise, carrying us when we are weary of traveling alone, and celebrating with us when we follow the path of our intuition.
The Living Teachings of the Blue Horse
When I sought out the stories of the Sun’s sacred horses in Diné and Apache traditions, I learned that the blue or turquoise horse represents the south, the direction of life and vitality, and the time of noon when the sun stands highest. The moment I read this, something stirred in me. It felt like a quiet revelation, as if these teachings had reached across time to answer the questions I had been asking with my art.
Coming full circle, last month I attended a Navajo horse blessing ceremony at Anna Twinney’s Whispering Feather Farm in North Carolina. I was deeply moved to be present at that time and place, knowing that my Cherokee great-great-grandmother, Cindy Walkingstick, had once walked those same mountains. There I heard these teachings directly from Diné medicine men, who shared stories of the creation of the horse and its role in restoring balance to the world. In that sacred space, I felt that I was not merely learning about these stories but receiving them as a gift. Their words settled into my heart like memory rather than knowledge.
The Blue Horse's Path
Throughout human history, the Blue Horse has appeared again and again in myth, art, and vision, revealing herself in moments when the world and humanity are ready to listen once more. I believe that my paintings are part of that remembering, a reappearance of an ancient presence in our time of spiritual disconnection and collective yearning to rediscover balance, reverence, and the unseen language between beings, so that we may once again remember harmony with all life.
The Blue Horses continue to reveal themselves as both muses and messengers, guiding me to share their light in ways that remind us we carry this vibration of harmony within our own hearts.
May the Blue Horse find you when you need her most, in your heart, in your dreams, and in the mystery that guides your own journey.
For those who feel called, prints of all of these works, and the Blue Horse original pastel, are available to bring their presence into your life.
~ Kim McElroy
Further Reading and Cultural References
Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. A Blessing for the People: Native Stories of Horse Origins. Exhibition essay on the Diné story of the Sun’s sacred herds and the colored horses that guard the four directions. https://americanindian.si.edu/exhibitions/horsenation/blessing.html
Șerban, Codruț. “Historicizing the Horse (IV): Untitled Story Told by the Diné.” Meridian Critic, Vol. 1, 2023. Discusses how color in Diné horse myth corresponds to the directions and times of day. https://meridiancritic.usv.ro/uploads/MC%202023/41%20-%20MC%2001%20-%202023/II.09.%20Serban%20Codrut%20.pdf
Twin Rocks Trading Post. “Five Horses: The Five Horses of the Sun Father Are a Way of Telling Time, Navajo Style.” Summary of cultural legend connecting turquoise (blue) horses with the south direction and the midday sun. https://twinrocks.com/legends/creatures/horse.html
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