Aloha Orion

Every year around this time, our brilliant astrologer, Jane Sezak, sends her reading for the coming year.  Transits, progressions, angles, aspects, conjunctions, dates, planets.  The whole thing is exhilarating and overwhelming.  Last year, there was a six week period when something BIG was supposed to happen.  When it didn’t materialize, I was crushed.  In the twenty years Jane has been doing our readings, that was a first. Later, I realized that the big thing was not the publisher for my book that I had hoped for, but news that my daughter was pregnant.

It’s not about predicting specific outcomes, but seeing patterns, and big confluences.  I like that – makes me feel more connected to the universe in ways I can’t control or understand.

This year, I have a wish list:  more dancing, more teaching, more wonderful clients, more travel, more time with my daughters and my new baby grand daughter.  More reading, more hanging out by the pool, or the lake or the river or the sea.  More excellent meals with friends and my beloved Pam.  More delicious rides, more kissing horses noses, dogs heads and petting cats.  More slow time, tender time, playtime, breathing time, loving time.

And that’s just a beginning.

Embodied Horsemanship from Paula Josa-Jones on Vimeo.

This is a deeply important part of my work with horses, movement and the body.  My goal is to make things better for the horses. Usually, that means helping humans by figuring out where the missing pieces of communication are or where the communication has gone off.  That is also what happened for me when I took the workshop with Mark Rashid.  He made things better for my horse by helping me.  To schedule an appointment or read more about Embodied Horsemanship, CLICK HERE.

I checked the weather online yesterday because I heard that there was snow coming.  I was concerned because I am having a minor procedure in the hospital tomorrow morning.  Our corner of Connecticut was obscured by lurid graphics, so it was impossible to tell if we are in the 6-12 zone or the 12-24 zone.

I think that I am going to take a page from my Buddhist friend here with the jaunty cap of snow.  Just sit and breathe and let it all happen around me with equanimity.  That is happening more easily for me since I got back from Georgia and my mind and body expanding time with Mark Rashid.

Yesterday, I was riding Capprichio, my lovely black Andalusian stallion.  He has a tendency to yaw on the bits, and pull and generally use his big neck to brace.  He also has a history of suspensory ligament injuries and is twenty one years old, so it is important that I ride him as well as possible, and help him to not hollow his neck and brace his jaw.  We started off in the usual way – a minor pulling contest, and I thought why not try the softening strategy that I learned from Mark.  The conversation went a little like this:

“How about this?” as I halted and asked him with a very gentle contact (.5) to stay soft in the bridle.

“No, I don’t think so.”  He stuck his head straight out and set his jaw.

“Well, let’s try this instead.”  I softly tipped his nose to the side, and when he gave, softened my hands toward the bridle without giving away the reins.  I looked for that warm water flowing toward his mouth that I felt with Mark.

“That’s not bad.”  He softened his neck and then I felt him shift back so that his back came up.

“Beautiful.  Let’s try that again.”  We walked off together, then halted, shifted back and walked forward again.

“Hey,  that’s nice.”  He stayed soft in the bridle and moved forward in a smooth chewy walk.

“Thank you,”  I said.  ” I like this much better.”

“Good job.  I think you might be getting it,” he replied.