Snowy Day

It snowed all day yesterday and through the night, dropping a foot and a half of snow seemingly all at once after days of strangely balmy shirtsleeves weather.  This afternoon Annie still has a few icicles hanging from a knot of mane tied by the wind, even though her thick coat is dry now.   The hairs spraying out in a small star on her forehead remind me of a snowflake.  I watch from the overturned feed tub where I sit with my journal as she delicately picks strands of hay from the snow with her soft lips.  Birds make muffled piping noises in the smothered trees nearby.  The snow is like a blank, stark canvas on which Annie's dark coat sinks like a black hole in contrast.  I muse to myself as I watch the horses, content with their hay.  I feel my body settle and some blustery, busy place in my mind drops to a place of quietude.  Two ravens perched in a polished ,weathered dead tree chatter and click to each other.  They remind me of the way my mind chatters and fusses at times.  My mind questions the motivation of my connection with these equine companions. "Why don't you DO anything with them", it says from a place of sternness.  But as I allow myself to just be in the moment, watching the light change and Copper's burnished coat become rich and soft like a fawn's, my heart opens and knows beyond reason.

Relationships

I have heard many horse people speak about the "relationship" they have with their horse,  They want to find ways to improve it and they study, read and take clinics with experienced horse trainers.  What strikes me is how we never talk about the relationship we have with our dog or ,heaven forbid, the relationship we have with our cat!  Why is this?  Could it be that we live with the smaller animals in our lives?  They sleep in our beds and ride with us in our cars.  They sit near us at the dinner table and perhaps get small tidbits of food we share from our plates.  They accompany us on walks or runs and we engage with them in play.  Do we interact in any of these ways with our horses?  We relate to our smaller animals in a completely different way; as if they are part of our family and are companions, confidants, and playmates.  (Even warm bedfellows!)  We don't even consider the need for working on the relationship we have with them because we are relating to them all the time.  How could we translate this to our connection with our horses?  Granted, they are too big to come in the house.   But what if we just spent time with them in similar ways?  We could sit and read a book with them nearby.  We could  create a game to capture their interest.  We could simply take them for a grazing walk instead of being in a hurry to ride.  I wonder how it would change the relationship with our horses if we considered them to be companions like the other animals in our lives!  

Change

     Today I worked with some older horses at a therapeutic riding center.  One of the horses was retired, had a sagging back and dragged the toes of her hind feet as she walked.  She seemed a likely candidate for the gentle bodywork I offer.  I have found that subtle, non- invasive craniosacral work can help boost the vitality of older animals.  I assumed she would be the most receptive of all the horses I had worked with, considering her age and state of decline.  I went into her paddock quietly and approached her with a halter in my hand.  She moved away from me at first until I made it clear that my intention was not to ask anything of her. I put the halter aside and greeted her with my outstretched hand.  She sniffed it and let me put my hands on her back. My hands started to get warm and it seemed this area of her body could use the attention, but to my surprise she walked away.  I stepped back, taking my hands off and watching as she stopped a few feet away and turned to look at me.  I approached again and put my hands on her sacrum, again feeling the warmth, but finding that she walked away again after just a few seconds.  I started to get impressions of her on an emotional level as being secure in her routine and not wanting anything in her world to change.  This included any new sensations in her body that might require her to adjust the way she had learned to compensate.  For her it was more important to maintain a sense of security around what she knew about herself and her body.  I have to respect that as sentient beings, animals have a right to say no to something, but I had never thought about an animal not being receptive to change, especially when it could offer comfort or relief.  How many of us have the same attitude and end up dragging ourselves through life? 

Sleeping and Waking

This week I decided to do something I've been wanting to do for a long time.  The moon would soon be full and the nights had been bright and clear.  As I brushed my teeth and pulled on my flannel pajama pants I thought about it again.  It was already dark outside, but the moon gave off a gentle light.  I gathered up a down sleeping bag, a large tent fly and my pillow, pulling my boots on before going out. Coming down the hill behind the house with a wad of fluffy bedding in my arms caused my horses to snort in surprise, but it also piqued their curiosity. Annie startled as I shook out the tent fly and spread it on the ground just outside the fence. I had chosen a soft spot just a couple feet outside the electric fence next to a large and probably very old juniper tree.  This was just the place to sleep for the night!  I was happy to finally be settling in to my long awaited experiment in connecting with the horses.  What do they do all night anyway?  The moon shown brightly on my face, making it hard to sleep,  I could hear the vibration of the horse's hooves through the ground  as I lay with my eyes tightly shut.  I noticed the rhythm this made and how each horse had a different pattern to their movement.  I fell asleep for a while and was awakened by the sound of Domingo's teeth grinding into the salt block.  I could hear this noise from my bedroom if I left the door open at night and now I knew for sure who it was.  "I will have his teeth checked," I told myself.    I traced the path of the moon as it made it's way across the sky in an arc.  Each time I woke up I connected another dot on it's path. At another waking point I could see the horses standing in the same configuration they make when seeking shade in the middle of the day. Annie was in the shelter and the two geldings stood just outside it facing toward her.  Was the moon really that bright?  I chuckled as I felt the rustling of the tent fly and the tug at the edge of it where Annie had reached under the fence to wake me.  I must have finally fallen asleep.  My sleeping bag and pillow were damp with heavy dew and the morning was cold and fresh,  As I sat up and touched Annie's nose, a sense of gratitude filled me.  How lucky I am to be able to share in these simple rhythms of day and night; sleeping and waking with my horses. .

Awareness

Are you aware of your thoughts and intentions as you approach your horse with halter in hand?  Our thoughts are incredibly transparent to horses and having an awareness of them can help in any interaction with your equine friend.  A story might help illustrate this more clearly.  My own horse, Copper, likes to eat the loose hay on the ground in my small hay shed.  Since he has become a bit thin with age, I sometimes just put a halter on him and let him walk up the hill on his own to the hay shed. This particular day I had gone to check on him as his foot had been sore after stepping on a rock. Putting the halter on him, I was thinking about him walking up the hill to the hay shed and eating.  But as I stood with him I could see that his foot was really bothering him.  I didn't think Copper would be comfortable walking up the hill to the hay shed, so I took his halter off and dismissed the idea, forgetting the clear picture I had in my mind of the whole scenario.  As I stooped to look at his foot again, Copper began nudging me with his upper lip.  He rubbed it back and forth on my leg, my hip and my jacket and even took the collar of my jacket in his teeth and pulled it gently! This was highly unusual behavior for him, being of a polite nature.  When I reached for his foot, he pawed the ground vigorously a few times, keeping his foot out of my reach.  I couldn't figure out what he was trying to tell me in such a demonstrative fashion!  I went back to the house feeling baffled by the whole interaction.  The next day it dawned on me that in fact my mental picture had been so clear to him that he was urging me to reconsider letting him out!  I took the other horse out of the paddock and let Copper choose to come along without a halter.  He had no trouble going up the hill where he enjoyed cleaning up the loose hay.  I had to consider how deliberately he had tried to communicate with me that he liked my idea and wanted to go along with it.   I wonder how many other thoughts swirl through my head unconsciously as I interact with the horses!  Certainly this was a lesson in paying more attention to them.

The Heart of the Matter

Inside yourself there is a gift you can offer your horse every time you are with him.  The gift is the gift of your heart.  It is an offering of heart to heart connection.  Listen quietly to the rhythm of your own heart; place your hand over your heart and feel it beating steadily.  Quiet your mind long enough to tune in to this ever-present rhythm within.  Now place your hand over your horse's girth area on her left side.  The horse's heart has it's own rhythm.  Through your hands, listen to your heart, then your horse's heart.  Focus on how much you love and appreciate your horse while you are touching two hearts.  Notice how your horse responds to this new connection between you.  Developing a resonance between your two hearts will allow coherence to flow through your time together.  Awareness will be created of a much larger purpose in being with your horse.  It's not just about riding.  The awareness of your connection to other rhythms in nature will translate into slowing down, gratitude and reciprocity when interacting with horses and people as well.  We all affect each other and are connected through the rhythms of our hearts, minds and spirits.  Acknowledge and appreciate your horse for showing you a different way of being in the world. 

Perception

   Conversations with people this week have encouraged  me to consider how much our beliefs about the world influence what we are able to perceive.  What does it mean to perceive something anyway?  According to my big red American Heritage Dictionary, it means to become aware of something directly through any of the senses; especially to see or hear.  It can also mean to take notice of something by observing or detecting it.  And finally, it means to become aware of something  in one's mind; to achieve an understanding of it. The word comes from Latin root words which mean "to seize wholly" or to "see all the way through". This brought to mind an experience with the horses that occurred some time ago, but that illustrates how our thoughts influence our ability to "see all the way through". 
   On a cold spring day I was simply enjoying the company of Annie and the other two horses while cleaning up poop.  Annie is very aware of her surroundings and is always the first one to spot anything unusual or interesting.  As I was working, Annie walked to one edge of the paddock and raised her head.  She lifted and lowered her head a few times, trying to focus her eyes on something only she could see in the distance.  I walked to her side and faced in the same direction, trying to see what she was looking at.  I stretched my head and neck up, imitating her stance.  I strained my eyes, searching the high desert landscape where we live for whatever had riveted her attention.  By this time, one of the other horses had come over, his body facing the same direction and his attention focused on whatever it was that I couldn't see.  I decided to stop trying so hard and instead closed my eyes for a moment.and asked softly that I be allowed to see what they were seeing.  In effect, I changed my thinking from trying, which implies failing, to allowing which implies letting something happen. When I opened my eyes I noticed a flash of red as my neighbor's child wielded her plastic sled and wound through the scrubby juniper trees as she climbed the hill a good distance away. Annie's pointed attention gave me the chance to discover a subtle difference in my thinking that influenced my perception.  And I thought I was just going outside to clean up poop!

Horse lessons

     A few days ago after a rain storm,  I went outside to feed the horses.  They were waiting for me at the gate, anticipating the new batch of hay which contained a bit of alfalfa.  I usually duck under the electric fence with a canvas hay bag full of three flakes of hay, one for each of the horses.  This time, however, I decided not to go in their paddock because the sloping hill was muddy and I didn't want anyone to slip if there was a scuffle over who was walking down the hill first.  Instead, I went around the perimeter of the  fence and about halfway down the sloped part of the pen, tossed a flake of hay under it to Annie, the lead mare.  I then walked to the bottom of the paddock where it is flat and wanted to duck under the fence to put of flake of hay in the black feed tub sitting near a juniper tree.  Copper had made his way over to the tub while I walked on the outside of the fence, but Domingo was standing at an angle between the fence, the tree and where Copper stood at the tub, effectively blocking my ability to come under the fence.  Domingo does not move away easily when asked and as I hesitated for a moment, Annie calmly walked over to him and swung her rear end around at him, sending him shooting backwards out of the way.  She then casually walked back to her hay and resumed eating while I put Copper's hay in the tub and fed Domingo in a spot some distance away.  I was amazed that she had seen what I wanted to do and had come to help me when I hesitated.  It was as if she was showing me how to solve the problem with her firm, clear direction.  She didn't kick out or become overly aggressive, she just made her point and went back to calmly eating. I think what Annie was showing me was that it's sometimes better not to hesitate, but instead to just go forward into a situation with firmness and clarity.  In other words, don't be afraid to speak up! 
     With that in mind,  I am launching my first blog post ever!  It is my hope that I can share some of the passion that I feel towards animals as our friends, companions and teachers on life's journey.  Thank you for joining me!

Welcome!

Welcome to Cauda Equina Arts : Blog, thanks for visiting and be sure to check in for more blog entries to come.