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.