Injuries

In sports, you hear the phrases "playing hurt" versus "playing injured." One can manage to suck it up, apparently, if you are hurt, and continue on. However, if you are actually injured, you either are not suiting up to play at all, or you are possibly getting carried off on a stretcher.


Being hurt and continuing to play the game seems to endow some sense of toughness, courage and potential hero-ness on the athlete. Getting injured, however, seems to just be an unfortunate accident (however intentional or unintentional) that leaves no chance for heroics or proving toughness. You just have to (hopefully) heal and wait it out. Sit on the sidelines. Watch other people play. Hope your career isn't over.


Horses, being the magnificent athletes that they are, have a magnificent propensity for getting hurt. And, unfortunately, that sometimes extends to being injured. For a creature whose every fiber is geared toward survival, they have an amazing ability to throw caution to the winds and find themselves stuck in a fence, fallen into a hole, gouged open from stem to stern by a horse-eating fence post, chewed up and kicked the crap out of by their buddies in playtime...in short, they get a lot of injuries. They are afraid of everything, except, apparently, that which will actually harm them.


That all makes veterinarians happy, but maybe not in the middle of January at 3 a.m. on a Sunday. Going out to some pasture in the cold and the dark can only be so much fun. I'm sure they all have a lot of stories that would border on the unbelievable.


Vet bills are a fact of life if you own a horse. Better budget it in because you will need one to call at some point, just like you need hay for them to eat and that hay will get pooped out as manure. Consider yourself blessed if you are able to patch up any cuts and do without professional services. Also consider yourself blessed if your beloved 4-legged lives a long, happy, relatively injury-free life. That's true for all our animal companions, of course. I think it is one of the cruelest of ironies that most often we are forced to outlive our animal friends.

Grief for our animal friends is unlike any other kind of grief, I believe. I can uncontrollably burst into tears at the sight of a dead cat on the side of the road, while remaining fairly stoic about yet another murder that takes place. Do we pour our hearts out for these animals because they rely so much on our kindness, our good will, our sense of responsibility? Is it that I feel so much grief because I feel they were let down and/or betrayed by humans who so carelessly took their life?

If I feel so sad and horrible for the death of an anonymous animal, obviously the death of one's own friend is sooooo much worse. All of the human emotions are present: guilt, doubt, regret, loss, sorrow. Does this grief reinforce our humanity? Are they helping us to be better humans?

So, when injuries come along, there's a whole lot of emotion that goes with it. Unfortunately, as in the case of human injury, one of the first questions is "Can I afford it? How much treatment can I buy?" As is also true of the human world, the more you can pay the more treatment is available. Anything that can be done to humans by and large can be done to animals, if you are willing and able to pay for it.

Of course, the animal doesn't have any voice in this. Sending your horse, or dog or cat or gerbil to animal heaven is often the kindest, sanest choice to be made. Too bad that's not an option with humans.

A couple of years ago Autumn managed to get a huge (I thought so, anyway) laceration of her lower eyelid. It required a vet call, emergency stitches, loads of medications and lots of anxiety. Not to mention money. That would have been fine if it had proceeded the way it should: heal up, stitches removed, happy horse/happy owner. Go riding.

Alas, things often do not progress the way we want. Long story short: screw-ups. Not mine. What should have taken maybe 2 weeks to recover from, ended up being over 2 months, closer to 3. One month of that was spent with her at the vet clinic. Horrible. Possible loss of eye or vision. Thinking I might have a half-blind horse. Well-intentioned people saying "Oh, there are lots of horses with only one eye." This was supposed to be comforting??!!

The relatively good news is I still have a horse with 2 eyes, albeit one of them has 2 scars on her cornea that was a result of the vet care. Yes, mistakes happen. I am mostly angry with myself that I wasn't more assertive and demanding and a big pain in the butt about what was happening. Lesson learned. I hope. But I'm still angry.

Yes, we all play hurt or even injured sometimes. Sticks and stones do break bones, but words and actions break hearts and spirits. We carry on as if we were not hurt. We pretend that there are no injuries. The physical ones are apparent, but we learn to hide the others. We do not wish to appear vulnerable, lest we get hurt again.

One of the hardest things about this whole horse riding thing is we cannot fake it. Horses can be amazingly kind when they know you are trying to pretend you are not afraid, or sad, or angry. But they can also call your bluff and say "Sister, I ain't buying it. Go ahead and feel what you feel -- just don't pretend you aren't feeling it." Hence, the therapy aspect. We must own our feelings in a genuine way and work with it.

I admire Tim Gunn, the fashion consultant with the maxim of Make it Work. He means making the most of the situation and somehow bringing it together to get good results. This should be applied to all aspects of life and I find it particularly apt with horses.

Being hurt and/or injured requires truthfulness. Deal with the situation, honestly feel what you feel, and move on. Let go of what does not serve the situation or you. Do not let the injury scar you for life.

And don't run into fences or fall into holes!

Faery Horse

I often look at my little spotted wonder horse, Autumn, and wonder "Who are you?" My beliefs are that we are spiritual beings, who occupy these bodies of ours. We need them to learn our life lessons and to fully experience the 3D world in which we live. I don't feel the 4-legged world is any different. They, too, are spiritual beings who occupy a physical body.

I'm convinced I'm addicted to life here on Earth; hence, I have reincarnated many, many times and have had many different lifetimes here on good ol' Planet Earth. How could you not want to take another spin around the planet? It's so beautiful! When you look at the sky and the trees and smell flowers and hear water running...oh, my goodness. Sign me up!!

Certainly, humans have done a good job of messing that up. They're the ones who make me think twice, I'm sure, about ever returning and doing it again. Wars, pollution, crime, waste -- some of our more ugly accomplishments. We just keep doing the same thing over and over again.

Or, maybe I'm just stubborn. I have to keep coming back because so far I haven't gotten it right. Maybe this time I'll be wiser, earlier in life. Kinder. Less afraid.

There I am, up there on a cloud in between lives and one of my pals comes along and says "Hey! Wanna go back again?" "It's going to be fun this time. We'll have a blast. Besides, it wasn't so bad that last time." Hmmm...you mean the one where I was burned at the stake for being a witch? Or maybe the one where I died young, in war? Yikes.

Apparently, amnesia is part of the game in Spirit World, because here I am again. Maybe I thought this time was going to be different. Or, I thought I'd be smarter, tougher, braver, stronger...whatever. Amnesia must be part of the game down here, too, because once we arrive we don't remember anything. We have to start all over, trying to figure it all out and why the heck we are here.

No, I don't think humans come back as dogs, or horses come back as people. I think you work within the energy pool from which you come: human, animal, plant, mineral. Although, I'm sure there must be exceptions. Every rule needs an exception -- that keeps things exciting. It might be very interesting to live a lifetime as a rock in the middle of a desert. Very quiet, I would imagine.

So, when I look at Autumn and wonder who she is, I just don't see a horse.

Usually, I see this delightful being who is living out this lifetime in a very nice little horse suit. She put it on like a suit of clothes and came to this planet to be my pal. God bless her.

But, somehow, she has this different energy about her. We humans are such victims of our own hubris and ego that we often forget that we share this planet with a whole lot of other beings. Some of them we can see and many of them we cannot. I hate to think of their opinions of how we are managing this world of ours...and theirs.

The Faery Kingdom is one such set of beings that share this planet Earth. I don't think they all look like Tinkerbell, although I suppose some of them do. (Oh, Martha is totally daft. Now she's talking about faeries!) They have their jobs to do, which include helping us to learn what we need to learn and caretaking the earth.

So, I think Autumn is from the Faery Kingdom. I think she volunteered to be made physical so that she could share my life in a meaningful way. And teach me stuff. Perhaps she got special dispensation from Horse Spirit to be a visitor in their world this time around.

Yup, I think Autumn is a Faery Horse -- a marvelous hybrid creature that munches hay and poops just like other horses. Or, maybe all horses have a little bit of the faery in them. Is that what makes them so magical? Is it their other-worldliness that appeals to us? Are they a lovely connection to the realms where all is possible and all is magic and all is light and air?

Do they come to us lucky humans to give us what is so lacking in the rest of our lives? The possibility of magic? To remind us that there are many kingdoms that co-exist with us and to treat them all with respect? And to keep us grounded and connected to this wonderful planet on which we live, at the same time?

Autumn is so much a part of my "therapy." She offers healing and companionship and lessons and wisdom. She also offers play and freedom and laughter. Pretty good work for a faery, I think. Like an angel who is getting its wings when you hear a bell ring (thanks, Hollywood), perhaps a horse faery comes to bestow some wings on us.

Every time you hear a rider yell Whoa! Dammit! you can be sure some faery horse is laughing their wings off, and wondering why their human doesn't want to learn to fly.