Passings

It's that time of year...the holidays. No matter your tradition, it is a time of remembrance of things past, where you are in the present, and the future yet to come. Scrooge was visited by those three ghosts, as are we each year at this time.

We look forward to January, and the new year, according to our calendar. January was named after the Roman god Janus, who had 2 opposite faces. One looked forward and the other behind. So it is with us, looking back at where we've been and where we think we are going.

This year there have been many passings in and around me, and I feel that's true of just about everyone I know. My mother died. Whatever your relationship is, or was, with your mother, her passing is an enormous milestone. Life changes forever. It changes in ways you can't begin to imagine or comprehend until it happens. It's the big things, yes, like celebrating your first Thanksgiving without her, but really, it is more about the little things.

You are caught unawares many times during the day, transported back to moments in another time and another life, perhaps by a smell or a sound. Something that reminds you of her and all the things that are not about her, even, can send you off in a spiral of memories.

Sometimes the passing of a person in your life is the mourning of what never was, more than what it was. When my father passed away several years ago, I found that I was mourning the relationship I did not have with him. And, I suppose, in doing that I was mourning the one I did have with him. I never really knew him. He was mostly physically absent in my life so he felt like more or less a stranger around whom I had lots of emotional issues.

My mother had an enormous physical presence in my life, but now I am thinking about the emotional vacuum we occupied for much of the time. Who am I, now that I am no longer anyone's child?

I have 2 friends whose mothers also passed away this year. And someone whose father passed away. And several others whose mothers died.

There were unusual passings in my barn this year, too. Unexpected death took the lives of several horses -- the kind of thing that might happen once in a lifetime, happened with some frequency this year.

Species of plants and animals are disappearing from the planet. Maybe the rocks themselves are, too, if anyone is noticing.

It all takes a toll on a person, of course. You find yourself reeling with shock and wondering how much more you can take. This stuff is hard. But you get up in the morning and make sense of your day and do what you do. Or, you try to make sense of your day, anyway.

Sometimes, not much makes sense. I've been thinking lately that the only thing that makes sense to me is being in nature, and/or with my animals. They are not thinking about what happened yesterday, or what will happen tomorrow. They live in the present.

It's hard for us humans to do that. We love to revisit old pains and sorrows and disappointments and regrets, as well as the "good stuff." We sit and fret and worry about the future, and all worry is, as I read somewhere, is putting fear into the future. Don't do that.

These times we now occupy are particularly chaotic, I feel. Leaders and figures of authority are showing us they don't know how to lead and lack any authority save what we give them. They tell us what to do and how to live and we find they are hypocritical about their own lives, and sometimes criminal. We've found that truth and trust are in short supply.

Institutions that have been our safety nets for years are in disarray and are crumbling. All around us the world as we know it is disappearing. "Oh no!" say some. It is just another phase of civilization, and it will straighten itself out again, returning us to "normal." Whatever that is, or was, right? How civilized are we, anyway?

But should it? Are we at a point in our growth as human beings that we are being asked to release what no longer works? Are we being asked to release what does not work for us as individuals and as civilizations? Is it time to start over?

What that means is different to each of us. Releasing the old makes way for the new. If you are in the process of releasing, letting go of what no longer serves you and your spirit, with what are you replacing it?

These are highly creative times. Being forced out of old jobs, old structures and old ways of living are making us get creative about our choices. If your world becomes a blank slate, what pictures are you drawing on it?

Intentions count. Working with Autumn, I find that intentions give focus and focus gives meaning. It brings order out of chaos. Working and playing with her does not permit me to be thinking about yesterday or worrying about tomorrow. I must stay focused or bad things start to happen.

There is a maxim that you are always training your horse, any time you spend with it. You are either training it in a positive way or you are training it not so positively, as in teaching it to do things you do not want. What behavior do you reward? Is that bribe sometimes a reward for unwanted behavior?

Trying to apply that training to myself is not so easy -- and it's not easy with her, to begin with! It takes a long time to undo undesirable behavior, so it is a lot easier to do it right the first time.

I think we are at a cosmic time of starting over, being given a chance to do it right the first time. A lot is passing away: people, institutions, ideas, beliefs, habits, animals. With what are we filling these empty spaces?

The feeling of loss is enormous right now. Many of us have lost much, while others seemingly have escaped it. Appearances are deceiving, however, and don't get into comparing your losses with someone else's. Judgement ends up being pretty hard on the judge, I believe.

Community is the solution. Sometimes, when the leaders get out of the way, people have a gift for finding their own community and making it work. Perhaps we've relied too long on others solving our problems for us, or at too great a distance. Maybe this is a time when we are being asked to look deep within ourselves for what we need and desire to be better people.

Communities aren't necessarily about where you live, but about with whom you interact and support and share ideas. Taking responsibility for ourselves builds strong communities, so that we can help those who need help, and be helped when we need help.

Passings cause reflections and out of reflections come, hopefully, new paths. If we create with joy and focus our intentions to do just that, that's where we'll go.

I have lots of questions...way more than I have answers. Think I'll go to the barn.

The Relationship

You know that thing, where couples start to look like each other? Or, dog owners and their dogs bear a striking resemblance? Do we start to morph into the others in our lives, or are we drawn to those that are similar to us in the first place? My cats and I do all have grey hair. They've given me mine.

Maybe it's both, with us naturally seeking out what is most comfortable and relatable to us...which is namely, us! Then, over time, the edges blur and we become more and more alike in our visage.

Considering that, how am I like a small, spotted horse? For I was surely drawn to her, feeling there was some commonality, some thread of similarity, some connection...some spark! Just like a budding romance, I looked into those big beautiful eyes of hers and fell in love. Sigh...

Oh, the times we fall in love, only later to discover how WRONG it was. We kick ourselves to the curb long after it's been done to us, or after we've done it to the so-and-so who broke our hearts. How stupid! How could I have been so wrong? What was I thinking??!!

Been there, right? We let that gleeful spark of recognition, the one that draws us to the perfect mate (oh, he was just so cute...nice...talented...rich...fill in the blank), lure us in and then we start to find those hidden "assets" of this potential partner.

So it is in the horse world as well. We fall in love. Maybe that's more of a woman thing, too. When men go horse shopping, do they fall in love, I wonder? Or are they looking for the equivalent of a mid-life-crisis sports car and a beautiful blonde? Maybe they are completely sensible and get that horse that is the perfect match...and then fall in love with it later.

I don't know. But the women I've come to know in the horse world all fell in love, at least at some point. Sometimes with disastrous results. Some are able to let go, acknowledge it was a mistake, and find another love of their life. Some approach it with "I've been burned before, and I'm not doing that again," trying to be completely sensible. Some have bought the high heels; now it's time for sensible shoes. Others are going to wear those high heels, dammit.

Others fell in love with what appeared, to the cynical observer, to be the completely wrong horse...only to discover that it was indeed the right one after all. I have participated in, and overheard, many discussions about what's wrong with someone else's horse and the relationship it has with the rider. Likewise, I'm sure I've been the subject of many of those discussions.

Initially, I was sooooo sensitive about this stuff. It was embarrassing. It annoyed me. It hurt my feelings. It made me feel wrong and stupid. And stubborn.

Over time, I've come to see that this discussion of other people and their horses is all part of the sorting out process of each person and their own beast. You sort of get "permission" to have these conversations because you've earned them. You have been where this other poor dope is -- and may very well still be there, yourself.

In all the talking, you are plugging yourself into the equation and thinking "Well, at least I don't have that problem." Or, "At least she doesn't do that any more." Kind of like how we feel when we watch idiots behaving badly on reality shows: at least we're not that bad!! Some sense of smugness and relief are part of the picture.

In all relationships, the goal is to be drawn to that potential, and then with experience and time and hard work, that potential gives way to the reality of pleasure. It can become so much more than you imagined, or what was so promising. After many hours of getting to know each other, trust each other, make mistakes with each other, having fun with each other, you finally have built the foundation for...MAGIC.

Magic can happen early and along the way, too. It's a good thing it does, or we'd give up on the whole thing. But the magic that comes from knowing, from allowing that other one inside your heart and mind, from being vulnerable and strong at the same time...well, that's the true reward.

My little spotted wonder horse didn't seem too magical. Especially when I was on the ground looking up at her. At those times, when I was thinking I was way too old for this, that maybe this relationship wouldn't work, and that maybe I'd have to try this with a new partner, there was darned little magic in the bruises I would have.

I was advised "Get rid of her. There's a lot of other horses out there." Or, more gently, "You know, Martha, she might not be right for you." Or, the usual "We just don't want to see you get hurt." "Worse."

Oh, the sleepless nights. Oh, the tough decisions. Oh, the torment. How could this be so wrong when it had felt so right?

I was always worried about what she was going to do next. So far, nothing she had done had either killed me or scared me off completely. But what else did she have that she hadn't yet revealed? What horsey tricks was she capable of? Was she plotting against me? And when would it happen? This is not fun.

Gayla rode my spotted wonder horse. I could see her thinking, hmmm. Then she told me, "Well, she doesn't do this. She doesn't do that. What she does is this."

Somehow, having a framework, a scope of the problem, was the solution. Knowing what she would and would not do became doable. Gayla never said Autumn was not the horse for me. I knew she would let me come to that decision, myself. She did tell me, however, that it was going to take time. A lot of time.

Good thing I didn't know what I didn't know. Ignorance, as they say, is bliss. Time, I could give. Someone very generously told me that it will just keep getting better. Which has been true. There may be setbacks along the way -- lots of them -- but by and large, it gets better and better. Just like any relationship worth fighting for.

I took inventory of what I did know. My gut instinct told me she was a kind horse, very willing, very smart and with good manners. She wasn't shoving me around on the ground. She was polite and sweet. She just had moments of behaving like a hooligan. Also, when I remembered to breathe and relax and enjoy the ride, she was so much fun!

She was interested in going places. And, she got us there quickly and smoothly. She was a pleasure. That was the magic along the way.

So, I figured there was only one thing to do. I had to learn how to ride my horse.

Enter the Goddess

I thought taking lessons was the solution to my problem. Eventually, it turned out to be. Only, not initially. I thought "Nothing bad can happen in a lesson! I have a teacher now, so that won't be!"

Lessons come in many packages and sometimes in disguise. You might think your lesson is about one thing, only to realize it was about something different, and maybe much, much more.

With riding a horse, safety is of course one of the top priorities. Oh, you want to be able to do things on your horse. Top-level competitors continue to take lessons. You and your horse can always get better; that's one of the beauties and challenges of this riding thing. But safety is always an underlying issue. With green, rank beginners, it's probably THE biggest thing.

First you have to learn what you don't know. Since I hadn't ridden as a child or young adult, I didn't know what it was supposed to feel like. My body had no memory that it was trying to reproduce. So I was constantly wondering "Is this how this is supposed to feel? Is this right?"

Gayla (The Goddess, as I came to dub her) has had many, many riding lessons in her life. Many other lessons, too, but they're for her to tell. She's had those scary instructors that would make me cry just to have them look at me. The ones who yell, who diminish, who rant and rave and think that's how they're going to make you better -- they're not for me.

She's tough. I'm sure she took it and did them one better while she was at it. I would have crumbled into a little pile of horse manure at the mere thought...not that they would have taken me on as a pupil, anyway. Those types are generally for advanced riders. I'd taken lessons with 8-year-olds before, remember?

No, Gayla never said one thing that made me feel inadequate, old, unprepared, foolish or bad. She either read me correctly (she'll cry if I yell at her) or it was a choice she made to not be like those instructors she'd had. She has a great eye. It took me awhile to figure out she wasn't really looking at me, much. Hmmm. She's not even looking at me!! How can she teach me?

It turns out she was figuring out everything from watching my horse. Those darned horses. They are that perfect mirror. They do exactly what you tell them to do -- whether you realize it or not. Just like my golf swing...the ball goes exactly where I hit it. Into trees, water, the rough... She knew what I was doing (and not doing) from looking at the horse. Plus, she had to look at the horse to teach me how to ride it.

Okay, this is one big misconception I had at the beginning. I thought basically that all horses could do pretty much everything, from jumping to dressage to barrel racing to being cute in a show ring. Yeah...that's sort of true. Like it's true that most humans can play basketball to some level -- only some are Michael Jordans. Most humans can dance, but some are Fred Astaire. Most humans can sing, but some are Barbra Streisand.

Horses are athletes, but within that are hundreds of variations and differences in conformation (how they're put together), personality, work ethic, age, experience and general condition. No two are alike, just as no two humans are alike. So, each rider and each horse is an utterly unique combination. Of course they're all different. Duh.

Learning how to ride has some basic essentials, of course. The poetry begins when you have enough tools in your personal toolbox to address the uniqueness that is your horse. You learn to adjust for that horse that loves to go fast, or the one that needs prodding. You learn how to help your horse and yourself to be the best possible combination that you can be.

The goal of that, ultimately, is for the safety and comfort of the horse -- which is always a horse's first priority. But once your horse feels safe and comfortable a whole lot of miraculous things begin to occur.

It's all about the relationship. That's a woman thing. Men riders might not feel that way, or express it that way, although they should. In this relationship, the human must establish his/her leadership. Like dogs or children (probably not cats...mine don't see me as their leader, I'm sure), horses want you to be their leader. It is the leader's job to take care of them, tell them what to do and how to do it, and to keep them safe and comfortable at the same time.

You want to make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard. So I've read and been told. That works with humans, too. You are working with pressure and release. Asking and the reward, which is a release from pressure.

I'm not talking about PRESSURE, either. Those horses can feel a fly anywhere on their body. A little bit will do, unless they've gotten so deadened to pressure from some over-zealous rider or trainer. First you ask, then you ask a little harder, then you demand. That's always the order.

From less to a little more to demanding. Having their attention first means asking a little. Having to metaphorically (or literally) yell at your horse because you haven't gotten its attention first is probably your fault. Oh, well, it's always your fault. The human's in charge, remember?

Set your horse up for success. Would you yell at a 5-year-old child "Be brave! Cross that puddle! Go down the road and face those big trucks! Stand next to that big noisy machine!" And then yell at them or smack them with a stick if they don't? Of course not. I hope.

No, you would gradually introduce them to those scary things and let them know that they can trust you. It's a process and it can be a long one or a short one -- but it takes as long as it takes.

Of course, if you're afraid, it's going to be pretty hard to convince your horse that it shouldn't be afraid. Who's the leader here?

Poor Gayla. She might have thought Autumn and I weren't going to make it. Green horse plus green rider equals black and blue. Could this relationship be saved?

Education

Education is a good thing. In college, we students were essentially told that we were being taught how to learn. Or, said differently, we were told that we were being taught how to teach ourselves -- for a lifetime of learning.

Education provides a foundation for this lifetime of learning. It can be done without a formal education. History is full of self-taught leaders who are scholars, teachers and extremely knowledgeable. A formal education, however, is a blueprint of sorts. It helps you find shortcuts, and provides a potential structure to finding out what you want or need to know.

With computers and the internet today, finding information is exceedingly rapid, literally at your fingertips. But, information is not education. In my mind, education is what you do with information...how you use it. Education makes sense of information, if you will.

Discernment is an important concept, I believe, when it comes to information-gathering. The above-mentioned computer/internet certainly provides information. Discernment is the filter one applies to its veracity and usefulness. Is this true? What is it saying, and not saying? Do I need/want to know more? What, and who, do I trust?

Ah. Trust. Another important concept in the educational process. We are taught to trust our teachers. We are told to trust those in authority.

Alas, through experience we come to see that trust is often not deserved. Respect has to be earned, not given, right? And respect is an important element of trust? Isn't it?

Before I get too philosophical, let's see what we've got here: education, information, discernment, trust, respect. Now what does all this have to do with learning to ride a horse?

Clearly, learning to ride a horse is a big physical, mental, emotional and spiritual challenge. That's why it's so thrilling. It can be so FULL. It hits on all cylinders. It asks you to fully engage in this communication with a half-ton (or more), 4-legged creature created by God to help us learn more about ourselves, along with hauling us and our stuff around.

The key component of education is the teacher. No way around it, these underpaid, overworked people who feel the call to help educate the young and not-so-young are, well, essential. You wouldn't necessarily know it from the importance they're given in decision-making and the economy, for example, but that's another discussion.

So, here I am in need of a teacher to help me learn how to ride this horse. After my great Winter of Discontent, as it were, I needed that teacher. Spring arrived, and so did my teacher.

I should insert here that I've always been a good student, in the traditional sense. I like to please. I like to brilliantly perform what the teacher asks and be perfect. School systems were designed for people like me. Teacher spits it out; I spit it back. Voila'! I'm educated.

Never mind that the kid in the back of the room bored to death and shooting spitballs became president of his own company because he was a rule-breaker. Or, that the girl who refused to follow instructions as the teacher gave them is now in Congress, breaking rules over there. I was the good student, and was rewarded with those good grades, accordingly.

Now, in my post-50 era, I was still looking for how to get a good grade. Life, unfortunately, does not often work like school did. It's a little less black and white -- all part of that learning how to teach yourself stuff.

What was the equivalent of earning an "A" in this horseback-riding thing? Spelling, and reading, and arithmetic, and history...they all had come easily to me. This, I was learning every day, was not.

I needed to learn a new way of learning, which I discovered meant being a participant in the process, in a big way. What information came into my brain had to be filtered through my body and communicated to the horse. Whew! It's like learning to think in a foreign language -- or even dream in that language. You'll know you've integrated it into yourself when that happens.

I wasn't thinking of any of this at the time, however. I just found out that a fellow boarder at my barn -- a woman for whom I had the utmost respect because she looked like a horsewoman to me -- had agreed to take on the unholy prospect of being the resident riding instructor.

When can I start taking lessons??

I'm sure she was thinking "What have I gotten myself into?" Well, long story short: she changed my life, in the most positive of ways. She taught me how to learn how to ride my horse.

I'll say that again: She taught me how to learn how to ride my horse.

Only, not in any way I could have imagined or predicted. And, probably not in any way she could have imagined or predicted. This was an education. She started to teach me how to teach myself. She showed me how to fill my horseback-riding toolbox with the necessary tools.

Unfortunately, there were some setbacks along the way...

Breathing Room

One of the dictionary definitions of breathe is to make manifest. Another is live. Another is to pause and rest before continuing.

Remembering to breathe has always been a problem of mine. Really. I'd be concentrating on something so hard I'd forget to breathe. It might have been taking tests, or learning dance steps or any of a number of tasks I was concentrating soooo much on, that I'd just forget to breathe.

I'd hold my breath. Holding your breath you are not relaxed. You are not making anything manifest, you are not living and you are not pausing and resting before continuing. You are frozen, tense...and waiting. Probably waiting to take your next breath, only maybe you don't realize that.

The word inspiration (also respiration) comes from the same root meaning. Inspiration is to breathe life into an idea. When you don't breathe, there is no life. Nothing can happen. Dead.

So, I realized that a lot of the time I was on this horse I was holding my breath. That couldn't have felt very relaxing to Autumn, and I'm sure I was not feeling very relaxed. I was waiting for what she was going to do next. I was in a very re-active mode, not an active one. If you are not active, you are not the leader. You need to be the leader of your horse. They are waiting for you to tell them what to do.

From the horse's point of view, a "leader" who is perched as rigid as a clothespin on their back, not breathing, is not a leader. They are a nervous wreck. How much confidence do you think that inspires in the horse?

To my little horse's credit, she didn't particularly take advantage of my non-leadership stance. She was giving me the benefit of the doubt, more or less. Are you asking me to do this? Are you asking me to go faster? Are you asking me to not move? Poor thing, she was probably trying to constantly second-guess me.

Other horses are not so kind. They get pissed off. What the !@##! are you doing up there? What do you want? Get off my back!! Now.

In my head I might have been thinking "I want to go right." My body might have told her "go straight" or "I'm not sure where I want to go." So she'd decide for us. Breathing may not be the total answer to being a balanced leader, but you sure can't be one without it!

Before you can get your body to relax (and your mind) you need to breathe. Consciously, sometimes. In...out...in...out. See? Not so hard. It can be, though, once your brain gets taken over with the ugly What Ifs. What if she (fill in the blank)...bucks, rears, jumps sideways, bolts, stops, goes too fast, goes too slow (never an issue with Autumn)? Never mind that she'd never done most of this.

Now that fear had entered the equation, and I accepted that unexpected, bad things can happen, I was waiting for the "what next." What else was she going to do? I was waiting for something bad to happen. Not a particularly confident, leadership place to be...neither in life in general, nor with a horse, specifically.

I was totally projecting into the future, instead of being present in the moment, as they say. The NOW was playing second fiddle to the NEXT. I was always worried. Worry is putting fear into the future.

Unfortunately, the light bulb about breathing didn't really go on. I'd think of it, I'd stop and breathe, and make it through the day. But it just doesn't change that fast. Going from rigid, non-breathing, lack of confidence to relaxed and breathing and confident does not happen overnight, just because you make that decision. Getting your brain on board is one thing; getting your body on the same page is quite another. Especially when you are in your, shall we say, mature years?

It takes time. It takes patience. It takes determination. It takes learning about your limits as well as your horse's. It takes discipline. It takes a teacher.

When the student is ready, the teacher appears.

Boy, was I ready. Now...where's that teacher?

Winter

After taking my first tumble off of a horse, I now knew it was time for a reassessment. I now knew that this "going off" thing was possible. Oh, I knew all along it was possible...I was just hoping it wouldn't happen to us, at least not this soon. Drat.

That blustery afternoon when I found myself on the ground looking up at my horse (always an interesting point of view -- and better than sitting on the ground watching my horse run off without me), I returned to the barn and got back on. I would slather liniment on myself and take ibuprofen later.

I was asked "Were you dumped off, or thrown off?" Hmmm. "Dumped off," says I. I didn't believe she was trying to put me off. She just went in a different direction than I did, and off I went. Times like this one is glad to have a short horse, where you more or less go off sideways. Getting thrown off, as in your horse is bucking and you take a big ol' sky ride before you come to earth, is a whole lot less fun.

And, when one is thrown off, one questions if that was the horse's intent. Another hmmmm. Now why would that nice horse ever want to rid itself of its rider? Something else to think about.

When you and your horse part ways, I believe intention counts. What was your horse's intention? I always intend to stay on my horse -- but sometimes that just doesn't happen. I ask myself what was going on when it happened? What was I doing, or not doing?

Your first instinct is to blame the horse, and maybe sometimes you should, if they are a just plain ornery cuss. Their intention should be to take care of the rider. The rider's intention should be to take care of the horse. Now, that covers a whole lot of territory. I've discovered that if that is not the horse's intention, it's probably because of something the rider is or isn't doing to make it so.

There is a lovely book I came across, There Are No Problem Horses, Only Problem Riders, by Mary Twelveponies. With rare exceptions, the problems in a horse are because of the rider's lack of understanding, and not asking properly for what it is they want. That's a great simplication in a highly complex communication that exists between horse and rider. Essentially, however, I think the horse knows how to do everything. They're perfect!

The rider just needs to figure out how to ask the right questions -- and learn how to listen to the answers you get. Then, maybe you need to ask the same question in a different way. Simple!

Winter came, in more ways than one. The blissful, carefree days of getting on my little horse and going down the road and riding the trails in the beautiful sunshine...were over. We had moved into a new season, one that was cold and unforgiving and nasty. Winter. Fear. Now what?

I love to load myself up with information. I like to think about what I'm thinking about. Paralysis from analysis, some might say. I did realize, however, that this riding thing would only be learned if I actually got on the horse. Duh.

Fortunately, I have an indoor riding arena, so I had no excuse for not continuing my riding in the winter. My barn buddies would put on the long underwear and go out. It was not the cold that was the problem. It was the knot in my stomach. I'd become one of those riders who thought "I can't ride today. It's too...fill in the blank: cold, windy, Tuesday, late, early, scary, etc..

Working with your horse from the ground is a very good thing. Clinicians advise you that if you can't get your horse to do whatever from the ground, you are not going to get them to do it from the saddle. I found that it was a good way to take my and my horse's temperature, so to speak. What kind of mood is she in? Is she paying attention? Is she calm and listening to me? Am I calm and listening to her? How confident are we feeling?

Also, you can do lots of games and exercises to strengthen them, make them more flexible and let them get to know you and how you ask for what you want. I think most of them are trying really hard to figure out what you are asking. Give them time to think about what you are asking. Some horses get it right away. They're smart. Sometimes smarter than you. Others take longer to process.

If a 5-year-old child has trouble understanding what you're asking, yelling at them is not going to make them get it any sooner. Nor will it make them any braver. Quite the contrary. However, I see horse people "yell" all the time at their horses -- both literally and figuratively. "BE BRAVE! MOVE!" Faced with certain death (what your horse fears), yelling at them to be brave will not make them brave. It will however, make them not trust you.

Relax. I'll say that again. Relax. Then ask again.

I spent a long winter trying to learn how to relax. I'd play games with myself. "Just go to the barn. You don't have to ride." "Just saddle her up; you don't have to get on." "Just get on for 5 minutes; then you can get off." "Just go around the arena twice; then you can get off."

I don't know if that's any kind of way to go about it, but it's what I had to do. And that was it. I had to do it. Yes, I wanted to do it, some days more than others. But the bottom line was that I had to do it, for oh so many reasons. Not doing it was not an option. So, whatever it took, I had to find a way.

Was I up to this? Was this ever going to be fun?? I loved this horse. Could I find something in me that would measure up to what she was asking of me? Which, I feel now, was to learn how to breathe.

Breathe?

Listening

I was a passenger on my horse. We'd go off down the road with other people on other horses and she'd follow along, willing to be part of the excursion. Every once in awhile she'd spook, jumping at some real or imagined threat. I'd stay on, thinking, this isn't too bad. I can manage this.

It started to occur to me that I had no control over her. I'd had her for 3-4 months. So far she was willing, and it was fortunate that she, more or less, wanted to do what I wanted to do. If there were battles, they were minor, and I always lost. For example, if I wanted her to turn and go down that trail that led away from home, she'd just stop. "No thank you," she politely said. She would only go when the other horses went that way, and then she'd follow. Certainly not because I was asking her to -- and absolutely not because I was telling her to...because I wasn't telling her anything.

That wasn't particularly awful behavior in horse world. It's fairly typical. Some days she'd be a little more argumentative. Depending on personality, experience, and temperament, they will, to varying degrees, be the leader of the two of you if you are not up to the task. Their leadership can come (if you've abdicated the role, knowingly or unknowingly) in the form of stubborness, bucking, rearing, bolting -- all undesirable behavior that has different levels of danger and safety risks. Unfortunately, lack of leadership and its resulting behaviors tend to escalate.

The bottom line is that a horse willingly lets you onto its back, and does what you ask it to do, because it trusts you and wants to please you. It wants you to be its leader. I believe the Divine Creator asked Horse Spirit if it was willing to come to this world and act as our companions. Horse Spirit probably said "Are you kidding? They do not want companions. They would want slaves, and something to bully. They would want to use us in wars and work us until we drop. That's how humans see animals...not companions, but property."

Divine Creator must have done some fast talking. He/She said "But they desperately need you. Without you they will never learn to fly. They will never know the feeling of the wind in their face, or the magic that you will give them. They will be thoughtless, and cruel, and domineering. But they will one day come to see that you will make them be better human beings. You will teach them the wisdom that is Horse."

"Okay...but you know they have a hard time listening! That is because they make so much noise. We will have to teach them to be quiet, and listen." With that, Horse came to Earth. Perhaps reluctantly, but they came.

So, apparently, I was not listening to Autumn. She had to teach me how. One day coming home on a ride it was rather windy and cool. We were coming up a hill towards home and WHOOSH! Before I knew it, I'd flown off and had landed on my backside in a little bush. My first thought was "Well, so that's what it feels like to fall off a horse." My second thought was "I'm so glad my feet came out of my stirrups."

What had happened? I don't know. A stray sound, or smell or something spooked her. Me going off of her probably scared her as much as it did me. She stood there looking at me like "What are you doing down there?" At times like this you are supposed to get back on that horse. Cowgirl up!!!! I did not. I walked home, leading her. I did get back on once we were home. Briefly.

In one short moment my horse life changed. I'd gone from being a naive passenger, to realizing that I had to learn how to actually ride this horse. My baby steps, which I thought I'd been taking, just got smaller. Something new had entered the equation: fear.

How was I going to keep going and learn how to conquer the paralyzing knot in my stomach? Did I want to? Could I imagine not trying? The physical ouch was not nearly so great as the mental one.

What do I do now? She'd given me a message, loud and clear. I heard it. What I heard was "Now are you willing to be the leader?" "Because if you aren't, we're both in trouble."

Can you be a leader if you're afraid?

First Steps

My horse was in charge of the two of us. I don't think she was happy about that, but she figured out fairly quickly that I certainly wasn't in charge, and someone had to be. Since a horse's sense of self-preservation, safety and comfort is a very large part of what and who they are, Autumn had to express her needs to me, somehow. Too bad I really didn't know how to listen.

Since she is at heart a very sweet girl, and not aggressive in the least, this was no doubt a very big problem to her. "Oh, no!" she probably thought. "Here I was hoping for an owner who understood that I like to be asked very nicely what to do, and rewarded for being good by leaving my mouth alone and not kicking me. In exchange for that, I will learn to trust her and she can trust me and we will have many happy rides together to very wonderful places that are full of lush, green grass. Simple."

"Simple is right," Autumn must have concluded. "My new owner is simple. Doesn't she understand that she's supposed to be in charge? She's supposed to protect me from scary stuff and tell me where to go...and above all, not wobble around on my back. Then she really worries me because I'm trying SO hard to keep her on my back so she doesn't fall off!!" "She keeps telling me to go with half of her and stop with the other half. She must not know when she wants to go right or left, or stop or go."

Poor Autumn.

I, in the meantime, was so concerned with looking like an idiot. I had to come to accept that this steep learning curve I had undertaken was going to be on public display, with lots of opinions, judgements and concerns. THAT's what was worrying me. It was hard shifting from a world in which you learn to mask your truths about fears and doubts, to one in which you must be straight-up truthful with yourself and your horse.

We humans tend to practice a lifetime to create the "us" that goes out into the world. We pretend, we role play, we lie, we fake, we deny, we dissemble. That did me absolutely no good in starting to learn to ride this horse. She did not care one little bit about who I pretended to be out in the world. She was only concerned with why I was so nervous. If I was such a nervous wreck, then there must be a very good reason for her to be nervous, too. Still, she tried so hard to do as I asked.

Horses are really, really good at knowing when you are not being truthful. I think they can take the fact that you're nervous, or afraid, and work with it. What they have difficulty with is why you're lying about it! You are pretending to be one thing when they know you are another.

Like a wolf in sheep's clothing, that poses a very great threat to their sense of well-being. As it should to humans, too -- we've just become accustomed to duplicity. It's the way the human world works. No one says what they mean, they don't mean what they say and we all pretend all the time, to be richer, smarter, braver, younger, nicer...you name it.

In looking back to that beginning time with Autumn, I now believe she was doing exactly what I was asking her to do. This was when I thought she was completely out of control. I liken it to how I play golf. That ball goes exactly where I hit it. Often into a tree, water, or the rough, where I never find it again. Autumn was doing exactly what my body was telling her to do.

Sensitive. Autumn is sensitive. Well, that's nice. I didn't understand what that meant, however. And even if I did, and thought, "Oh, she's so sensitive all I have to do is breathe in one direction and that's where she'll go!" I didn't have any control of myself. My own body was just about as foreign to me as hers was. I didn't know what it was supposed to feel like. I didn't know how being balanced on a horse felt. I didn't know if there was more weight in my right stirrup than my left. I didn't know my hands kept creeping up higher and higher. My body and what it was doing on that horse was like an alien had taken me over and my mind was trapped inside of it somewhere, thinking, "Holy crap. There's a lot to think about all at once."

I started to understand the concept of baby steps. Really, really small baby steps. And to ask myself how badly did I want this. There was way, way more to this horseback riding thing than I thought -- and I knew it would be really hard. Just not this hard.

Did I have a horse I could ever learn to ride? How was I going to do this?

But, at least up to that point, I wasn't really afraid. Not yet.

Autumn

Sorrel Roan Tobiano Pinto Tennessee Walking Horse mare. That description is bigger than she is. But there's a lot packed into that small package.

So, she was the opposite of a common sense purchase for a first-time owner...especially one who had a lot of grey hair. She was a "she." She is a mare. Mares have heat cycles and hormones and lots of opinions. She was small. Small often translates to quick and agile. She was young: 5 years old. That means she hadn't had a lot of experience and/or training. In human years, she was maybe 15. An adolescent. A hormonal teenager.

I was thinking about this. I wasn't completely uninformed and I wasn't completely foolish and I'd never describe myself as an adventurous risk-taker. However, I chose to trust my heart and my instincts, which told me that she had come for me. Now, I had found her.

It's a good thing we can't see the future. Sometimes if we have any idea of what we are getting ourselves into, we might reconsider. I've done that plenty of times: try to imagine every last detail and outcome of a possible choice, and then talk myself out of it.

Not this time!

I didn't exactly leap before I looked, but leap I did.

So -- I became the owner of a horse. The implications of that statement were enormous, and still are, to this day. The thrill of a life-long dream fulfilled, the anxiety of hoping you are up to the task, the joy of a new partnership, the fear and realization of knowing that you don't even know what you don't know...life lessons were going to start coming hard and fast.

And when I say hard and fast, I ain't kiddin'.

She was fast and the ground was hard.

Not knowing much about her background (which is often true of horses, cats, dogs and people, I suppose), I was left with guesses and observations from more experienced horse people. Best guess: probably some kid had gotten on her and just taken off. Not much training. Get on and go! Oh, to be 14 again. 14-year-old girls have to be the best riders. They're limber, athletic, fearless and mend quickly.

Autumn seemed overwhelmed by her new life. Part of the guess-work about her background was that she'd lived in smaller places with fewer horses and less activity and noise. This was a big barn, with lots of horses and lots of noise and lots of people. She now lived in a stall at night, with other horses around her. During the day, she was turned out with the other horses.

Even if you go visit your boarded horse every day, that leaves a whole lot of the day that she's living her own life. She has to make new friends, figure out the routine, find out who to stay away from and who will protect her, and learn how to play well with others. Those things she has to do on her own. The rest, like how to become curious instead of fearful, and figuring out what to do when I'm on her back, was part of my job to teach her.

It's said that you are always teaching your horse when you're with him or her. You're either teaching them something positive or you are teaching them something, shall we say, less positive. There's no neutral ground. It takes a whole lot more time to undo the not-so-positive stuff than to teach it right in the first place.

Patience is called for, lots of it. Time is something that is measured by progress: it takes as long as it takes. Persistence, doing it over and over, consistently is also required. This is part of the very large commitment of owning a horse.

Oh, you don't have to do it that way. You can get on and go, kick and yell when they do something wrong. You can blame the horse for bad training or a bad attitude or being lazy or whatever shortcomings you perceive. You can decide you've bought the wrong horse, so you sell it and buy a different one. The horse never gets any better and neither do you.

Or, you can look at this as a relationship. Women are more likely to see it this way than men do, I suppose. We like that kind of stuff. That's how we see the world: one relationship at a time. The horse, however, is half of that relationship. You cannot decide the relationship you will have. You need to get to know one another, each one's fears and strengths and weaknesses. Your goal is to create a relationship where each is stronger within that relationship than outside of it. Hmmm....kind of like life?

Autumn had now entered my life, and I had entered hers. What kind of relationship were we going to have? Patience has never been my strong suit. I knew nothing of training horses. Physically, I was in the worst shape of my life.

She was going to have to tell me what I needed to know. I was going to have to learn how to listen.

Seeing Spots

When I decided it was time to buy a horse of my own, it was more of a reaction to what was going on in the rest of my life than a feeling of "Oh boy! Time for the horse!" I was doing a lot of driving back and forth to family in another state, due to various health concerns and needs. It had me feeling like I had one life in one place and another in the other. More and more I was being pulled toward moving to where I felt I was needed.

This feeling didn't come with the calm assuredness that it was the right thing for me. It came as a sort of "Oh, crap. I should probably do this." I felt trapped. I felt selfish.

Then, I realized, that a little bit (maybe a lot) of selfishness was exactly what I needed. I knew, and had to start to feel, that I could be of very little use to anyone else if I sacrificed myself. Martyrs never last long. They give up their lives and become saints but there is no happy ending. For me, I knew I was in a marathon, not a sprint. I did not choose martyrdom.

So....what would anchor me to my own life? What could I do for myself that spelled COMMITMENT in a big way? What did I need that would be for me, in all my selfish glory?

Enter: the horse.

Oh, so many decisions. Heart-pounding, nerve-wracking, cost-inducing decisions.

I'd done my research, as much as one can do without actually doing anything. I am a procrastinator. I look far ahead, trying to anticipate all possible outcomes and problems. I do not leap before I look -- a lot.

I discovered that, at least around here, it is much easier to find a horse than to find a place to put it. I was a city girl, so keeping it at home was not an option. I knew that driving more than a half hour meant I wouldn't go very much. First-time horse owners are often not still horse owners at the end of their first year. I knew I'd need help and lots of it, because I didn't want to be one of them. Massive destruction of farm land and pastures meant that boarding stables were getting farther and farther away. Time for a road trip!

With a friend along for the ride and to keep up my courage, we started driving around in known horse places outside the city. I was told -- after I gave my speech that I wanted to be a first-time owner and was looking for a place to board -- to "try down the road." After a few of these politely told me no, I turned a corner and there it was.

This was the place. I knew this was where I had to be. A big red barn, people and horses out in the yard (hadn't seen much activity anywhere else), and most importantly, the owner of the place, were all there. One small problem. After I gave her my speech, she, too, said no.

This is where I'd usually quit. I could see her point of view. Why on earth take on a middle-aged first-time, not-yet owner, who didn't even have a horse?

But, I was so sure this was where I was going to be! How was I going to make this happen?

I'd talked with some of the women (yup, mostly all women) at the barn. They told me there was a great vet just up the road. Hmmm...I called and made an appointment to get help becoming a horse owner. She was very informative, giving me lots of useful information and ideas.

She reinforced what I knew: that first-time, especially not-so-young, owners need to find a horse that's calm, quiet, trustworthy and confidence-building. This generally translates into a gelding (male), older and bigger. These are the guys who have seen it all and some dopey woman isn't going to faze them one bit. Just what I needed.

She had some ideas about where to find such a creature, but told me if I could get the owner of that barn to help me search, that would be a very good thing. Hmmm. A two-fer. I could get help finding the horse, and hopefully, have a place to put it.

So, back I went. "Remember me? I thought maybe you could help me find a horse."

Okay...let's talk. Before I knew it, she was on the phone with a friend, who had a horse I should look at. Let's go tomorrow. Okay. One small problem. The horse was female, young and smaller. But she had spots.

Spots were important. I had a little anxiety that I wouldn't be able to pick my own horse out of a crowd. Lots of big brown horses milling around in a paddock all look the same. Trying to capture my own horse wouldn't be easy for me, let alone if I had the wrong horse! Spots would help me identify it.

Next day, off we went. This was happening fast. I knew enough not to take the checkbook. I knew I was supposed to look at several, try them out, and take my time. I knew this stuff, but there was a lot more I didn't know. And I believe in serendipity.

Serendipity, in the form of a somewhat small, spotted horse, was standing before me, in cross-ties, in the barn of this guy. What was I supposed to ask? What was I supposed to see? What was I supposed to think? I looked at that horse, and knew I was going to buy her.

Was it that I would have bought any horse that was standing there? Some friends tell me now that maybe that's true. I don't believe so. I did feel that I was "in the flow" of something happening. It felt important. It felt right. But oh, it was so wrong.

But it was her face, her eyes, that told me she was the one. I have said since that I didn't go looking for her breed, her size, her age or any of that stuff. It just turned out that's the package she came in. I did go looking for that look. And there it was. Intelligent, curious and sweet.

Her name: Autumn.

We went back with the checkbook and the trailer. She came home to that big red barn. She was mine. Now, I was a horse owner.

I was in for a ride...the ride of my life. And, maybe, the ride that saved my life.

Wild Horses

On my way back from Colorado, I decided to swing up through the Black Hills. I'd never been there and thought I'd be a tourist for a bit. What I expected was some beautiful scenery and an overwhelming amount of tourist opportunities. I wasn't disappointed in that regard, but I found it to be so much more.

It was October, so the bulk of the tourist season was over. There was a crispness in the air, color in the trees and that feeling of aliveness that one often feels in the Autumn. I made the required stop at Mt. Rushmore and then went on to the Crazy Horse Monument. This, I felt, was so much more impressive. More massive in scope, and somehow more massive in energy. It felt like something was coming to life, again, that had long lain dormant. That was in contrast to the old white guys on Mt. Rushmore. Not to insult our former Presidents, but seeing their chiseled faces up on a mountain just seemed wrong.

Crazy Horse, on the other hand, was a part of this land. It seems fitting that he is springing to life once again, straight out of that land and rock. I thought his likeness was gorgeous -- if it is his likeness. No one is exactly sure what he looked like, since there were no photos taken of him. Not to my knowledge, anyway. But the representation of him is splendid. Big.

I decided to take a detour south, to the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary, outside of Hot Springs, South Dakota. It turned out to be a very magical day.

It, too, was a crisp, sunny October day when I drove the few miles out towards nowhere, turned onto a long gravel road and arrived at the little Visitors' Cabin at the Sanctuary. It being late in the season, I got lucky. In lieu of the standard tourist bus ride through the designated route, I was treated to a special tour, compliments of one of the women staff members. She loaded me and a very nice Wisconsin couple into her truck and off we went.

Thousands of acres of land, bought with the express purpose of giving wild horses a place to live and remain wild. Dayton Hyde, the man with the vision, started this enterprise with his own money because he felt the wild horses he saw penned up deserved a place to be wild and free, again. It has grown over the years, but still remains a product of that vision and passion.

We bumped and thumped along, catching glimpses of various herds, surrounded by rock canyon walls and the Cheyenne River. And nothing. There aren't many places I am, ever, where you don't hear noise. The only things I could hear were the wind, birds, the sound of hoof beats if we got too close, and the whispers of the Ancestors who once occupied this land.

It remains a sacred place to the Native Americans. They gather each year for their Sun Dance right in the middle of this vast horse-land. Coexistence at its finest.

Arriving back at the Visitors' Center, I mentioned that I had just completed training in Equine Massage. I was asked if I would help one of their very aged mares, who now lived near the Center. Would I??

Down in Colorado in training, we worked on the old horses one day. I felt so privileged to do this. Their bones creaked, their eyes held the wisdom of the ages and the soft Colorado breezes made me feel how much of a gift I was being given.

These horses were, for the most part, very well taken care of. They had probably known many owners, many homes, many jobs and now were in retirement.

The horses at the Wild Horse Sanctuary were just about the antithesis of this. Talk about contrasts! They had lived free, been rounded up, stuck in pens somewhere, and then brought here to South Dakota. These were indeed the lucky ones.

Wild horses seem intertwined with our sense of being American, of who we are as a people. In theory, anyway, we idealize freedom and will fight to the death to defend it. What could represent freedom better than a wild horse? Even non-horse lovers seem to identify with them.

So, here I was, running my hands over a "wild" horse -- a mare who'd had her share of babies and was now full of arthritis. She deserved to spend her days in the sun, in as much comfort as could be managed, and peace. What every living thing deserves.

I didn't want to leave her. I could sense I was bringing her some relief and for that, she was so grateful. I couldn't make her young again. I couldn't get her to run free amongst those canyons, again. Not in this physical body, anyway. But in her mind, I could imagine, that's exactly where she was. What a gift she gave to me that day. Magic.

Often, on a day when the noise, and pollution, and development, and people, make me sad and crazy, I think about those horses -- running wild and free. And, in my mind, at least, I know a bit of that freedom. I run with them, and feel the wind.

Empathy

I am not a psychic -- although I think everyone has a little psychic ability. What I am is sensitive. Often overly sensitive, like to a fault. I am quite thin-skinned when it comes to criticism, judgments, perceived slights, imagined expectations of others...I can be my own worst enemy.

This sensitivity, as with most things, can be a blessing and a curse. The curse part is that stuff I just wrote: I can be defensive, afraid of being hurt and withdrawn. This is the posture of someone who is acting in a self-protective manner.

The blessing part? I tend to be extraordinarily aware of my surroundings. This does not imply super powers. It is more a reaction, or a symptom, of concerning myself with what (and who) feels safe and what does not. It is a blessing because I think I perceive things many people miss -- maybe because they're just not all that interested, or because they have no need, or whatever their personal make-up may be.

That perception makes life so much more interesting! Paying attention is delightful when you pick up on things perhaps others are missing: a small bird singing, a friendly smile from a stranger, the way the sun shines on a small patch of greenery. Paying attention can also be a big pain in the behind. Noticing the ugliness and cruelty of our world around us is painful. It is so wasteful. Then, I would just as soon not notice so much. Maybe that's why so many people are walking around totally tuned out.

I consider myself to be empathic. This is a quality beyond sympathy, which is sort of an understanding of a certain perspective. Empathy...well, it's like you are feeling what others are feeling. All of a sudden, you are totally identifying with whatever, or whomever, you have empathy.

I think perhaps this sensitivity, plus the ability to process a whole lot of information at once (of which I'm not particularly aware), produces a feeling, a certain knowing. Sometimes I just know things. Like I said before, I am not psychic -- not anymore than the average person, anyway. Absorbing information, emotion and other indicators like a sponge, can be overwhelming. Especially if you think that it's all your stuff.

It takes time and practice to figure out what is yours and what you're picking up from around you. Sometimes you just have to let it pass through you, or around you, and let it go. I'm working on that.

And sometimes, you invite it in, try it on and try to figure out what to do with it. See if you can do any good with it -- help someone. The tempation to try and fix others' pain can get you in a whole lot of trouble. It's easier with horses than with people. Learning to step back and listen is a good place to start, but you cannot get sucked into someone else's misery. Some are determined to take you down with them!

Anyway...I've certainly come to appreciate the sensitivity of a horse. Here is a creature so highly tuned to its surroundings, it will notice a leaf is out of place from one day to the next. That sensitivity to their surroundings is for self-preservation. It helps keep them alive. Noticing something different makes them extremely aware of change. That big black spot in the woods? Could be a critter waiting to eat me!

Horses are also empathic. They get what you are feeling. This, too, is a form of their self-protection. How cranky is my rider today? What is she lying about? Why is she pretending to be fine when she is not? They can handle fear -- it's indecision and pretense that makes them nervous. They like things straightforward.

When I started touching horses in massage school, sometimes I'd get pictures. Or a story would come to mind. Or, I'd know how the horse was feeling that day. Nothing supernatural about it; I was just picking up a lot of details -- details I probably couldn't itemize, but added together gave me impressions. These impressions helped me know where it hurt. Maybe I just knew to go to a certain part of his neck that day. Or it was in the way he was holding his head. I don't know -- I don't analyze it that much. I just accept it. My imagination? Okay.

One day I was working on a horse and I just had the impression he was so unhappy. I didn't know his background, didn't know what he was used for by his owner. The feeling was nearly overwhelming. I tried to do what I could for him. He certainly hadn't been abused, or mistreated in any way. But that feeling of great unhappiness clung to him, and then to me. It still does, to this day, years later.

I learned a bit of his story. Turns out his great unhappiness was probably due to having the wrong job. Horses need and like having a job -- makes them get up on the right side of their stall every day! When they have the wrong job, when they're being asked to do something their owner wants them to do, disregarding their abilities and make-up, they can be very unhappy about it. That unhappiness shows up in many ways. Some get depressed, some start bucking, some just get mean, some endure. Some adapt, some don't.

I don't know if this horse kept that job, or that owner. What it taught me was to pay attention to how they feel. We can work on muscle aches and pains, provide proper nutrition and exercise, and it still won't necessarily make a happy horse. Do some people care if their horse is happy? Hopefully, most do.

Sometimes circumstances in life, for people and horses, is that we must just do what we need to do. That's just a fact. We try to compromise, in order to survive and endure and hopefully thrive. Feelings cannot always be taken into account.

But, wouldn't the world be a nicer place if they could?

Touched by A Horse

The exchange between horse and human is not an equal one. To my way of thinking, the human gets a lot more than it gives. When being ridden, that horse has to put up with this creature on its back, trying to balance it like I would a child on my shoulders. It must learn to tolerate a big chunk of metal in its mouth, and try to anticipate that silly human's desires. Where does she want me to go? Does she know she's telling me to stop and go at the same time? Why does she sit so crooked? All this for a carrot? Jeepers...just leave me alone and we'll do fine!!



The horse is a very generous being. That generosity is often mistaken for stupidity, while I think it is just the nature of this four-legged to give. As I've said before, it's heart is huge. That huge heart is good for endurance and stamina and speed, but it's also great for opening up to those poor unfortunates, humans.



Horses seem to know the difference between a child that needs taking care of, and an idiot. Put a child on a horse and the horse takes care of the child. It will often (not always) sedately walk around, being very mindful of its responsibility. Put an idiot on a horse's back and the horse knows right away there's an idiot up there. Forgiving beings that they are, idiocy alone doesn't demand sharp lessons. Idiocy, combined with arrogance, cruelty, aggressiveness and/or recklessness, can get that human taught a very quick lesson. Being an idiot, however, those lessons are often not learned -- not even recognized.



Every horse has its story.

Unlike dogs and cats, who might have 1, 2 or 3 owners in a lifetime, horses seem to be the most peripatetic of 4-leggeds...their lives are often a journey that takes them hither and thither. Many times an owner has no idea of the history of their horse. They might know where he/she came from last, and maybe the time before. When you are able to trace their history, you might find that your horse is more well-traveled than you. Born in Kentucky, sold to a first owner in Ohio, then off to South Dakota, back to Illinois. Those are the lucky ones -- they've escaped the "kill lot" which leads to a can of dog food.

Such is the life of a horse, sometimes. They can also be born and raised on a family farm and know only one or two owners. Horses may have many jobs in a lifetime. They need jobs, just as we do. And they need jobs for which their body type and temperament and age suit them.

Too often horses are asked to do the wrong job. Owners get the notion that a horse should be able to do what they want them to do. This is just not always true. The horse tells them, loudly and clearly, sometimes, that this ain't gonna work! Sometimes they quietly endure, and try their best to give what is asked of them.

For example, the owner who buys this horse she falls in love with and thinks "Oh! Here is the horse that I will take to shows and win blue ribbons with, in...fill in the blank." It could be Dressage, or Jumping, or Reining, or Barrel Racing, or any of a great variety of disciplines. Many horses are versatile enough, and athletic enough, that they'll give it a shot. Maybe they'll perform well; maybe they won't.

Owners who are rich enough just sell the one that doesn't get that blue ribbon and buy another one. Owners who are stuck, and may be astute enough to let the horse have the job they are designed to do, say "Well, he'll never be a winner at cutting cows, but I love him and he'll be a great 4-H horse for my daughter." Or, something along those lines.

So, the body of a horse, just as in humans, will carry with them the effects of use, abuse and ill-use. Asked to hold their head in a way their body is not designed to accommodate for too long, will lead to big muscle knots and pain. Their entire body's carriage is affected. What might appear to be stiffness and soreness in one area, may in fact be initiated in an entirely different area.

I've certainly learned this from the body work I've had done on myself. I've discovered that hip pain came from a knee injury, which then resulted in ankle pain, and so on. All our parts make up a whole. What affects one part, affects that whole. You must treat the whole, as well as the specific area.

Which brings me back to horse massage, or properly called Equine Sports Massage Therapy. Massages don't replace going to the doctor for humans. Massages don't replace the need for proper veterinarian care in horses. It is part of a package of wellness, that works in conjunction with farriers, veterinarians, acupuncture, acupressure, chiropractic -- mostly anything that is done to a human can be done to a horse. And is.

Safety and comfort are two top priorities for a horse. Massage addresses the comfort -- maybe even sometimes the safety. When anyone puts their hand on a horse, they are getting an opportunity to hear their story. What is causing them discomfort? How can that be addressed to relieve that discomfort?

Most of the time, horse owners and riders are doing things to their horse: leading them, feeding them, grooming them, riding them, training them. How often do they take time to quietly be with their horse?

Giving a horse a massage is a lovely way to be with your horse -- and you don't have to be a trained equine sports massage therapist to do it. A few simple techniques can be a great source of bringing comfort to both of you.

And, if you're still and quiet, maybe you will hear the horse's story. They all have one, just as we do. In touching, you will be touched. You will feel, and you will hear. You will be touched by the divinity that is a horse.

Touching Horses

That first day, I had no idea what to expect. What I found was that I was in a small group of women, all younger than I, and all experienced with horses to varying degrees. One was a Texas cowgirl, the real thing. She'd grown up doing rodeo. Another was a former equine gymnast, who, with her boyfriend, was starting their own small ranch. The third was a young woman who was driving her horse trailer around the country and could do everything from her own farrier work to training horses to telling tall tales.

And me.

It occurred to me that this was one of those times that it was a good thing I didn't know what I didn't know. I did know I could learn, and that finally I had a chance to join that elite club of horsepeople. I wanted to be viewed as serious -- that I was truly there to learn more about this marvelous creature, the horse. But I didn't want to be viewed as some fool, starry-eyed and unrealistic.

What I didn't realize at the time that it was also a terrific way to start learning about horse people. They, of course, come in different shapes, sizes and ages, too. They also come with a wide range of what they know and don't know about horses. I found that in some cases I knew more than they did. I guess that book learnin' ain't so bad!

There are some general truths when it comes to horse people: Ask ten horse people for an opinion, and you'll get eleven answers; Never be critical of someone's horse -- it's personal; There really is something mystical about women and horses; Being a horse person is a lifestyle. Those are just a few.

You have to have your own experiences. Until you have your own experiences you have to rely on the experiences of others. Take it all in and use what makes sense to you. If one thing doesn't work, try another. Above all, be safe...if you even know what that means.

You don't have any idea how many ways you can be unsafe until a horse shows you. As a wise man told me: "Try to imagine the most impossible thing that a horse can do. Eventually you will see them do it and a lot more you couldn't imagine." This usually involves the horse's safety and well-being, as well as your own. When people tell you "don't do that," listen to them. Wisdom does indeed come from experience. Real wisdom comes from using others' experiences to prevent bad things from happening, so that you don't have to experience it yourself.

My instructor, Sue Mazlum, has been doing this for many years. Her husband had recently passed away and now she was on her own in this business. What I saw first was a woman who very clearly loved horses. Her objective was to pass on her experience, her love, and her skills -- all with the goal of making horses' lives healthier and more comfortable.

Another objective, I believe, is to just make people more knowledgeable about horses. In the years since, I am often surprised by how little people know about their horses. Granted, it is an ongoing process and there is a whole lot to learn. Unfortunately, you tend to learn a lot when the horse gets sick or injured. So, consider yourself fortunate if you're ignorant!

I knew that Sue was a woman from whom I could learn a lot, even beyond the parameters of this class. Here, watching the sun set behind the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, I just wanted to hang around and soak it all in. After class would end in the afternoons, Sue was kind enough to just talk about horses to me. Her "classroom" was located at a big stable. There were all kinds of horses being worked and she would tell me about some of them.

We discussed conformation (how a horse is put together), temperament, riding, ownership -- lots of horse stuff. Sometimes it wasn't even about horses, just about life. I loved it.

Those younger women in my class were all good students, and had come to class for different reasons. They would take this information and their newly-learned skills back to their lives. But, I sensed that for me, this was something different. I was in a mist of delight. I was in a life-altering time of my life, and I knew it. I was being transformed. I couldn't go back.

I was learning how to touch a horse and see with my fingers. I was learning how to trust myself in what I found. I was learning that these horses, young and old, big and not-so-big, were absolutely, amazingly sensitive.

They all had their stories, and in touching them I started to hear some of those stories.

Rocky Mountains - Hi!

I didn't expect to be accepted by any place offering courses in equine massage. After all, my only experience with horses was a few riding lessons. I considered one place out east and another out west. There are several places from which to choose, but those two sort of stood out to me.

East? Or West? What was I thinking? There was no real choice. West, of course!! If I'm going on a road trip I'm heading West!

The place that I applied to, and was accepted by, was Equitouch, based in Loveland, Colorado. I figured that they figured you're serious if you are willing to spend the money to do this...and if you're willing to do the 40-hour at-home course on equine anatomy that was required.

Holy cow. That equine anatomy nearly did me in. A very large book had arrived and I was expected to complete it on my own, prior to my arrival in Loveland. So, I put myself on a schedule and studied it and completed it in what I calculated to be a little over 40 hours. Apparently, I was on target with that.

I hadn't studied biology of any kind since college and that had been human. Much of equine anatomy was completely foreign to me and some of it seemed vaguely familiar and some of it was information I had picked up in my reading over the years. I did know a hock from a fetlock and a stifle from a poll. Hmmm...maybe I'm not as ignorant as I thought!

Nothing better than getting in your car and hitting the open road. As I drove west the horizons opened, the skies cleared (literally - it was raining/snowing when I left in October), and my eyeballs felt relief over looking at absolutely nothing. Sigh...and when I finally stopped for the night, in Valentine, Nebraska, and went to dinner who did I see? Cowboys!

Why the sight of men in cowboy boots and plaid shirts with big belt buckles makes me happy, I am not sure. But it does, and did that night. After driving all day and looking at a lot of South Dakota (I'd come from Minnesota) it was great to sit down and have a steak. Yes, I did. It seemed the thing to do. There are plenty of cowboys in Minnesota, but somehow seeing them in their "native habitat" was more special. Like looking at the buffalo on the open range instead of inside a fence. I suppose that's not necessarily a compliment to them, from their viewpoint, but I sure mean it that way.

Maybe, because out there that's just what they do. It's who they are. Seeing a guy in a Vikings cap doesn't do all that much for me here, but maybe to someone from elsewhere it would seem charming and quaint? Don't know about that.

Cowboys are part of American myth and lore -- what makes Americans so American! However much of it is glorified and embellished upon from the historical reality, the cowboy legends and stories are still bigger than life. And what would cowboys be without their trusty horse?

Horses have done a lot for us humans. Part of the reason I wanted to learn massage was so I could not only be around them, but to give something back to them. It was to be a way of saying thank you to the horse. Reading Black Beauty as a kid only made me regret human nature and how we tend to use things. I like getting a massage; I was sure horses would like it, too.

The next day I drove into Colorado. Those mountains kept getting closer and closer. I settled into my Bed & Breakfast (yeah, I was really roughing it) in Loveland for the night and looked forward to the next part of my adventure. I was nervous. This was going to change my life, I knew.

Non-riding Lessons

I grew up Catholic, so I get it when shame and guilt are used as instructive tools. Time-honored, and all that, but not necessarily effective. What worked for the Inquisition can work here!!! Ummm...maybe not so much.

My instructor was younger than I. That was understandable, I figured. Maybe this horse thing is a younger person's game. But surely there must be doddering oldsters who do this, too. Even doddering oldsters who want to start this late in life, like I did.

Her methods, I surmised, were a product of how she'd been taught. That's often what happens when we pass on what we know. We either teach the way we were taught, or we go in the other direction. We teach the opposite of how we are taught. I put together a scenario in my head that went something like this: Okay...she had a tough dad who taught her to ride when she was barely able to walk. Learn it this way, or dire consequences will result! You must do it the way I am telling you or I shall forever disown you as my child! I believe she chose this method to pass on. Or she came up with it on her own.

These were the thoughts that went through my head on my way home from lessons. Gee, I thought, this was the fulfillment of a life-long dream. I was in it for the fun, of course. But -- I certainly had a respect for the horses, for safety, for doing things the proper way. I wanted to not just learn how to ride. I wanted to become a horsewoman, too. But this wasn't fun.

I'm not dumb. I know it takes years. I know that starting late like I did meant I could never be the rider, or the horsewoman, that I'd be if I'd been born to it, like she obviously was. It was not second nature to me. I hoped I'd be a natural, whatever that meant to me at the time, but it turned out it was just going to take time, and practice, and hours and hours of work.

I did not want this to be like golf. Golf was something I also took up fairly late in life, learned to enjoy, never practiced and never got as much pleasure from, if I had learned the game better. If I were better. If I worked at it.

Quickly, I was passed off to assistants, likeable young women who also had ridden from birth and probably never had a lesson. They had just done it. Well-intentioned and fun, but not teachers. Already, after only a few weeks, I was frustrated.

For one thing, having a lesson once a week is not enough. To do this thing properly, one needs to practice in between. One needs to spend time and more time on a horse. And then some more time. Just sitting on a horse becomes an instruction. Besides, it feels great, just sitting. Way better than that old wooden sawhorse I sat on in my garage when I was little.

Now, to be fair, I learned things. Besides some of the rudiments of riding, I learned the beginnings of how much I had to learn. I also learned that words count.

What I mean by that is if a highly skilled, talented teacher cannot find the words to communicate the idea to the student...well, nothing ain't communicated! Words have weight, and emotion, and power.

Pick the right words and a picture is drawn. Aha! It all becomes clear. You may not be able to do the thing, but you get it. Pick the wrong ones and confusion reigns, or, even worse, the student is lost. You are demeaned, your confidence decreases and the fun goes away.

I loved the horses. I loved the barn experience. I knew I was pursuing a lifelong dream and I had to continue. Those lessons were just not being communicated to me in a way that optimized my learning experience, shall we say. Those methods might work for some; they didn't for me.

So! What to do next? I had been accepted at a horse massage school in Colorado.

Time to get another view of the horse. I was off to Colorado.

Lessons, Continued

After a quick discussion of the basics, like which end of the horse was the front (I knew that), I climbed up the little step ladder and put my leg over this creature and plopped myself in the saddle. Not too gracefully, I might add. It should be mentioned here that school horses -- the horses that get used in lessons -- are generally wise old souls that are incredibly tolerant, patient and trustworthy.

Riding instructors can put beginners on them and not have to worry (hopefully) that they will get dumped off, bucked off or thrown off. These horses often just learn to ignore you, because you are asking them to do things that you do not even know you are asking. They somehow seem to know you are an idiot and that they must be in charge of taking care of you.

I had one of these wonderful creatures. His name was Dude. I fell in love with him immediately, of course. In real years he was not that old, but he must have been a very wise old man in spirit. Just sitting on him made me feel as if I were six years old again. I wanted to giggle with delight. I probably did. You are way up high, sitting on a horse. You feel majestic, powerful and special. It is the most marvelous feeling in the world.

Then, he walks...you feel the muscles move underneath you. You get a little giddy. Was I afraid? Not a bit. I trusted him; I trusted my instructor. Oh, the joy of ignorance. In that moment I was home. I was free. I was just totally present in the Now. I could die happy.

Except, I wanted more! That first day, I think, we just walked around in circles in the indoor arena. Not too challenging, but it gave me the feel of being on a horse. I couldn't wait for my next lesson. It was time to get off. Hmmm...

Getting on was not so difficult. You had gravity working with you. Get one leg over and then down you go. Going in reverse was a conundrum to me. How do I get off??

For people who ride as kids, it comes very naturally, even if you don't ride for thirty years. Your body remembers what to do. For us older adults, who have no body memory of this action, it comes hard. At least, it sure did for me. I had to be talked through it: shift your weight into your left stirrup; lean forward; swing your right leg up over the back of the horse; keeping your weight in your left stirrup, step down to the ground. Oh, sure.

Embarrassing? Yes.

Enough to keep me from doing it again? No.

Riding Lessons

If you live in a city, and you wish to be around horses, get ready to do some driving. Horses usually live in the country. I've heard about some people keeping (trying to keep?) miniatures in their sunporches but I hope that's an urban myth.

I found a riding stable about 45 minutes from where I lived and signed myself up. You will have questions asked of you, like English or Western? I said Western, being enamored of cowboys and westerns, etc.. Also, I knew enough to know that there is a variation in style of riding, different tack (equipment), and concepts. I also assumed that there are biases from people on both sides regarding their preference.

I planned on (hoped to be) eventually doing a lot of trail riding. By and large, you are more comfortable in a Western style saddle when going on long rides. After all, those big Western saddles were designed with the comfort of a cowboy in mind -- one who might be spending an entire day in the saddle. Being in the "mature" age range makes one think more of comfort, believe me.

You will also, at a minimum, and regardless of English or Western, be required to wear a helmet and long pants. You will also need some sort of boot that covers your ankle and has a heel. These are all safety requirements. Horseback riding is a dangerous sport. You will be reminded of this quite constantly.

You will be reminded when you, yourself, fall off. You will be reminded when you see others fall off. If you ride horses long enough, you will most likely fall off. If you do not, I believe it is because you haven't fallen off yet. You will also be stepped on, kicked, bitten and/or shoved. With a little luck and a lot of agility, you will be able to leap out of the way or quickly pick yourself up after landing in the dirt.

There's a phrase, a saying, that I've seen on t-shirts and posters: The hardest part about riding is the ground. Oh yeah.

But! As I drove off to my first lesson I was not thinking about this stuff. That came later. When I pulled in the driveway and got out of the car, there was only one thing that came to mind. I was hooked.

I knew it. I hadn't even set foot in the barn yet. It was the smell, you see. The smell of horses is absolutely intoxicatingly beautiful. That is, if you have that gene. And nose. It is the smell of hay and the hay outcome, manure. (Horse manure, by the way, is pretty good compared to much stinkier manure, such as comes from sheep, pigs and cows.) It is also the smell of the horses themselves. They smell of earth and sweat and leather and and the good Lord that made them!

Soon, after signing things and taking a tour and being given the preliminaries, I was about to get on...a horse.

Living the Story

Maybe it's obvious that before you can tell your story you have to live it! I love to talk...or "share information" as a former boss put it. Probably most of what I talk about is other people's stories. Hmmm...is that called gossiping? I prefer to think of it as sharing stories.

For a private person, telling your own story is a challenge. I'm always fascinated with what makes people tick. What motivates them? What are their fears, and dreams and challenges? It's probably safer to think about other people's stuff. Looking at one's own stuff can be, well, scary.

So, here I was, about to add a big ol' chapter to my life when I thought about bringing horses into it. Never being one to leap before I look, I had to think about this. I had to project into the future all possible outcomes and contingencies. I had to attempt to defeat this idea before it defeated me. I knew it was big for me and I had to really, really think about it.

But those ideas about horses just wouldn't leave me alone.

Now, I only planned on trying to find a way to be around horses. I had absolutely no notion of possessing one. I knew they are big. They are dangerous. They require a commitment. They require a lifestyle change. THEY ARE EXPENSIVE. I'd done some of my homework. I knew about boarding costs versus having one at your own place. I knew about farriers and vet bills and teeth floating and equipment (tack) and lessons and good golly who knows what else.

So, my little safe-minded analytical brain turned to the problem of how I could sort of hang out with them without it just being too much. Maybe I wouldn't even like it! Maybe I'd be too nervous, too scared, too fat, too out of shape, too you-name-it.

I happened to see a story in the newspaper about people doing massages on horses. BOING!!! That was it. That's what I wanted to do. Forget that I knew nothing about massage or horses or how the two went together. I thought maybe this was a way to be around them and pay them back a little bit for all they have done, and do, for us humans. Seems the least I could do!

Remember, now -- I am not a person who leaps before she looks. And she looks a loooong time, usually, before she leaps! How can I do this?

Well, first I better find out if I even want to be around them. I decided to take riding lessons.

Memories

When a person turns fifty years old, he or she starts to get the idea that maybe you have fewer years in front of you than you do behind you. You start to think about those things you have "always wanted to do." Mortality seems to surround you like a dark cloud. You have elderly parents, ailing friends, you yourself aren't feeling so great and now your boss is even younger than you are. For the first time, even the President of the United States is younger than you are.

When people would ask me what I wanted to do, I said I didn't know. I didn't. There were things I thought I was supposed to want to do, like march for peace and save the world. There were things that maybe I used to want, like an important career. There were things I needed, but maybe didn't really want so much.

I read somewhere that in order to get in touch with what you really want, you should think back to when you were six or seven years old. That's when you are truest to who you are with your wants about your life. I had to think hard. What did I want when I was six or seven? What did I think about then? What were my dreams about, then?

It took me awhile but it sort of came to me in a flash of clarity one day. I immediately dismissed what came because I thought: "Well, so what good does that do me?" But those thoughts of what I dreamed about when I was six or seven wouldn't leave me alone. There were two things that that rather defined me when I was that age -- two things that I thought about and were a big part of my life...at least, in my memory.

The first was reading stories and writing and telling stories. My part-Irish ancestry was a big part of that, I think. The Irish are professional talkers and not many are better at it than they. Kissing the Blarney Stone is no joke. The Bardic tradition in Ireland is of an oral history. The words not only relayed their history, but wrapped that history in a mist of myth and mystery.

No matter the flaws of my family, story telling was integral to who we were. Whether made up or factual, the stories I heard made me appreciate the fine art of spinning a yarn, weaving a tale and making magic. I saw the pictures that were drawn with those words, saw the characters that were being talked about, and felt an immediacy to the generations before me.

My second memory from that age was of horses. I couldn't get enough of them, at least in my imagination. The details of how and where and all that were inconsequential to me then. It was enough to just love them. It had to be. Besides, every self-respecting story probably had a horse or two in it, too. (Oh yes, the Irish certainly have a way with horses, too. Were my however-many drops of Celtic blood speaking to me?)

So, there I was, at fifty, thinking about these two things from my memory: story-telling and horses. Now what was I going to do with that?

Horse Crazy

Like so many little girls, I was crazy about horses. I don't know exactly when it started...maybe from watching westerns on television. Roy Rogers and Trigger were on Saturday mornings. Gunsmoke was on at night, along with any number of movie westerns and lots of other television westerns.

The sound of those running horses always intrigued me. That fast clippety, clippety, clopping was like no other sound there was. Heroes were always galloping after bad guys, going through deep canyons and mountains and rivers and open prairies. Those ranch houses so often looked like places where I wanted to live and have a horse and grow up and marry a cowboy.

The horses were just at the heart of it all, in the middle of the picture I wanted to step into. When I was younger, I so much wanted to go to Montana and have a horse ranch. I was reading Zane Grey and William MacLeod Raine and Charles Alden Seltzer when my friends were reading young romances. These were romances, too! Romances of the West!

Later, as I got a little older and saw other movies and read other books, I thought it might be better to live in Kentucky and have a horse farm. Then I would go to the Derby and have hunt breakfasts and be landed gentry. Now that's how a person is supposed to live, I thought.

My family didn't have horses, so I had to content myself with looking at pictures of them and making do with the sawhorses in the garage. I'd throw an old rug over one, make stirrups out of a rope by making a loop in both ends, and make a bridle out of another rope that went around the front. I'd sit out there for hours, just imagining what it must feel like.

My nickname was "Black Bart" and for awhile I had my Annie Oakley outfit that I wore. Then there was the summer my mother couldn't get me out of my cowboy boots, which I wore with shorts.

As much as I loved those cowboys, all tall and lanky and suntanned, I really admired the Indians. After all, they didn't ride with saddles, and boots and all those trappings. They just got on their wonderfully painted ponies and rode like the wind. I figured they were onto something and must know a lot those cowboys didn't.

Time marches on, however, and little girls grow up. They go off to college and start going in some direction that they think leads to where they want to be. Or they get married, or do both, or neither. In my case, I started to believe that horses were something that other people had. That picture was a picture that had other people in it. I had a different picture.

Horses cost money. That fact is a big one. They ain't called hay burners for nothin'! So when life intrudes on one's dreams, money is so often the consideration that defines those dreams. At one point I had the money...but I didn't have the time! I thought about learning to ride, which I never had. (Only in my dreams.) But, I thought I was too old. I was probably in my thirties. I saw other people going on trail rides or riding horses on vacations, but I never did.

It felt like a club to which I did not belong. Some part of me knew that, for me anyway, it was an all or nothing proposition. I couldn't be just a little involved with horses. I didn't go to horse shows. I didn't see more than maybe one rodeo. I didn't know anyone with a horse, except for a woman with whom I worked. She used to drive a fairly long way after work to go ride her horse. That rather amazed me.

So what finally changed? What finally got me to the point where I knew it was time to bring myself into the world of horses?

Amongst other things...I turned fifty.

The Horse

Horses have changed human lives for eons. They have enabled mobility, allowing travel from one place to another. They have been willing beasts of burden. They have been immortalized in mythology and been the stuff of legends. They helped mankind go to war and served as companions in peace.


Only in modern times have they come to represent a luxury. That is probably good news for the horse. Now they have new jobs. They are used in therapy for children and adults with physical, mental and emotional issues. They are teachers and healers.

They still do their original job as well: they carry us around on their backs and take us places. That's pretty amazing, when you realize that to them something on their back usually not only wants to kill them, but to eat them, too!

We humans are predators. Horses are prey animals. That means their every instinct is to survive from predators like us. Their brain may be the size of a walnut, but I believe they use a heck of a lot more of that brain than we do of our bigger ones. And interestingly enough, while their brains may be small, their hearts are huge. I think they use those hearts to a greater capacity than we humans use ours, as well.

How does a horse use its heart? Physically, the extreme example is a race horse, using every ounce of heart to win that race...or to do its very best. Mentally, it may just mean survival and self-preservation, but horses take care of their riders all the time. Especially when said rider is on the ground! They'll do their best not to step on you...all the while giving you a look like "What the heck are you doing down there?" Emotionally, they have feelings, just as we do. And they will tell you all about them, if you know how to listen. Spiritually -- the heart of a horse elevates, enlightens and empowers all those who are fortunate enough to interact with them.

My story is about how my life changed when I brought horses into it. After a life-long love affair with them from afar, the powerful effect of finally being around horses -- close up -- is overwhelming to me. It is magic. It is healing. It is elevating. It is...the Horse.

I call it Horse Therapy. The bumper sticker on my car says Horses are my therapy. Certainly one special horse is for me. When this little mare picked me to be her owner, well, the magic began. I had no idea what a bumpy ride magic can be.