Since my clinic with Mark Rashid, I have been feeling that I have more of myself available.  Something about softening my connections with my horses and breathing more has opened my senses out.  It began with my eyes.  During the clinic, he had me trot – a big, lusty working trot from one point to another in the big paddock.  I had to focus on a destination and Go There!  Now!  He wasn’t fooling around.

In the course of doing that, I noticed something interesting.  My peripheral vision opened out and I started to see all the way to the edges of things – not just the spot I was headed,  but all around.  Then I noticed that my other senses were opening too:  I was hearing more, listening out to the far corners of sounds, feeling more inclusively, smelling and tasting with more sensitivity.

That came home with me.  I am feeling more ease, more pleasure, more vitality.  And that aliveness is seeping into my riding and my writing – I feel more improvisational and curious about how changing one thing opens new possibilities.  I am riding on feel, not habit.  Working on my book, I am writing with more abandon.

Can you be peripheral in all of your senses?