Taught by a horse

140I’ve long been curious about horses; even had an imaginary friend named Fannie. I viewed them mostly at a distance (carrying warriors and jumpers, performing at the circus or in parades, delivering beer barrels in days of old). Sometimes I came close enough to feel their breath. But it was always me here and them there, always a sense of separation mixed with kinship. My late dad (pictured here aboard his beloved Schimmel) — former black smith and military rider, bless him — tried to teach me on Iceland ponies (all we could afford as they didn’t need an indoor stable), but made it clear that I wasn’t good enough, not nearly as manly as he wished.

Twenty years ago, able to cover boarding costs and wear a smart Harris Tweed jacket with my jodhpurs, I bought my own horse. But even private lessons couldn’t erase the early imprinting of incompetence. “Where did you learn to ride?” an exasperated instructor asked one day, “you remind me of my German dressage coach.” This clearly wasn’t a compliment and she soon declined to teach me further. Thus ended my career as a world-class equestrian.

Fast forward to early this month, on a farm (16 horses, 3 minis, 2 donkeys, 2 goats, and a cat) for a weekend workshop on equine-facilitated wellness. As part of an exercise on personal space and boundaries, I was told to notice my breath, to feel the feet in my boots and the ground below. “As prey animals, horses need to quickly determine who’s leading the herd; is it you or do they have to dominate? And as there are no words, they rely on non-verbal cues via body posture and fields of energy.”

slider-1Facing each other 10 feet apart, I took up ‘my space’ and, bending forward slightly as instructed, invited the horse to approach me. As he stepped nearer, I raised my hands to shoulder height, palms outward, to indicate that ‘this is as far as I want you to go. Any further and you’ll cross my boundary.’ It worked. He stopped 2 feet in front of me with eyes, ears, and lips indicating engagement. My ego rejoiced: horse whisperer I am.

“Do it once more.” Again he came towards me … only to walk right past me, bumping his knee against my hip in passing. No harm done, nothing vicious, but a felt sense of intrusion and, as I said at the time, “unkindness.” Yet all he’d done was test my readiness to lead — and in the process trigger deep-seated hurt and show me the consequences of not being present. “Don’t let me walk all over you!”

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Details on the next phase of equine-facilitated wellness training.

2018-09-17T18:06:15-07:00June 13th, 2014|5 Comments

5 Comments

  1. Tess 14 June 2014 at 13:08 - Reply

    Peter, so glad you got to experience time on the ground with such noble beings. Kindness truly finds its kin eye to eye and even with a bump to the hip.

    • Peter 14 June 2014 at 23:23 - Reply

      “kindness finds its kin” — exquisite. Thank you, Tess.

      p.a. my belated welcome aboard and ‘bonne chance’ from this once-new Canadian. may all beings, here and abroad, benefit from your kindness.

  2. Barbara Huston 14 June 2014 at 18:01 - Reply

    Thank you for your moving, personal reflection on your experience. From you earlier ‘lying in the grass’ post I smelled, felt, tingled with my similar love and respect for the horse. I offer a mindful lesson given to me. A horse named Buddy, trained to willing responsiveness such that only the slight tightening of the rider’s leg would communicate horse and rider’s next action, next moment. Around Buddy’s head a barely visible halter was fashioned of binder twine, no bit. The halter signalled a wise cowboy (a lifetime away from “breaking a horse” and softened into inviting a willingness toward union and cooperation) unsentimentally recognizing that a horse is always a horse, and no matter how trained, the unexpected may present and the horse will return to its’ Nature and run. The horse that is my mind is no longer harshly disciplined into a fleeting submission and compliance. Rather, gentle, persistent, non-judgemental patience is training my mind. But just as horse has horse-nature, it is the nature of my mind to wander, to create, to catastrophize, to aggrandize, and fill a vacuum. Like my beloved cowboy-teacher, I keep a binder-twine halter of awareness on my mind’s nature, seeking to understand what it does and where it goes. … and back to breath. Thank you Peter.

    • Fran 18 June 2014 at 05:23 - Reply

      Dear Barbara, such a sweet wise analogy. I see your mind gently tied with binder twine to keep it from wandering toward the greener grass. Your dear cowboy-teacher’s lesson will be helpful for me too. Thank you. Love, Fran

    • Peter 18 June 2014 at 21:48 - Reply

      How sweet, Barbara, to listen to kindred spirits — cowboy, horse, and now you. I’m so happy to have lived this long, to finally meet horse (and sometimes people) just where they are in each moment. And encounter my own self as it releases its omnipotence. thank you, peter

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