Check out these amazing puppet horses — the theater company calls them Wind Horses, but to me they look like clouds that came down from the sky. They remind me of lying on my back, in the grass as a child and trying to find animal shape in the clouds. And, of course, hoping that a cloud horse would come down from the sky and whisk me away like a magic carpet. These Wind horses bring the dream a little bit closer.

Sometimes when clouds start to create shapes and images, they playfully appear – a herd of wind horses with dancing manes and tails. In their ethereal transparency they merge into the changing sky and nearly look like mythical spirit horses. as they are floating on a gentle breeze you hear them calling each other, neighing and breathing……Just spend some time with them and you’ll experience their friendly curiosity, and maybe a nostril will touch a reaching hand.

Panteo theater group

These horses are from a theater troupe in Germany, but the concept of the wind horse goes back to the shamanistic traditions of East Asia and Central Asia., where it is the symbol of the human soul. In Tibetan Buddhism, the wind horse is the bearer of good fortune and fulfills wishes from personal aspirations to attaining enlightenment. For native Americans of the Choktaw tribe, the Wind Horse is a legend that tells how horses were given to the Native Americans as friends, in recognition of the bond the Wind Horse formed with his last rider.

These gracious and delicate horses beautifully capture the sensitive, curious nature of horses and their ephemeral, mystical nature. I’ll be looking for these horses in the clouds on these lazy summer days.