Tag Archives: horse

Apr21

the help

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I read this poem, “When you Can’t Stop Crying”  by Jon Katz on Friday morning and burst into tears   It has been a raw, dark week for me.  There is a part of me that cannot feel into what is coming, or that fears what is coming and prefers not to look.

And then there is my beloved, beloved Capprichio, nose in the grass, hooves on the earth, eye to me, reminding me to taste what is here right now, to stand where I am and breathe all of this in.  And today, when I was appreciating him, and appreciating the warmth, and appreciating the opening blossoms om my crab apple tree, the lilacs, the sun I could feel a budding possibility, beyond my control, beyond even my ability to imagine.

This weekend I am traveling to Minnesota to visit my sister.  Janet is one of the most ebulliant and optimistic people I know.  When the genetic cards were being dealt, she got those.  Whenever I see her, I say I am going to get an infusion of “Janergy.”

Next post from St. Paul.

 

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Mar31

the wild and the tame

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My friend Michele sent me this picture of the Mustang Nelson lounging in his hay.  Happy horse.

At the end of our time together this week I stood facing him, my hands softly stroking both sides of his shoulders.  Minutes passed, and I could feel his head coming to rest on my shoulder, his breathing relaxation.  Those moments felt holy, like a healing.  I am so blessed.

Most people that I speak to are unaware of the ongoing brutal culling of the fragile herds of wild Mustangs that still run free in Wyoming, Nevada, Colorado and other parts of the West.  The ongoing program of planned extermination of wild horses is well under way in the hands of the Bureau of Land Management in service of the cattle industry.  The helicopter drivers are paid per horse trapped, so there is no particular intelligence guiding the way in which the horses are chosen.  Many of the horses end up being shipped to Mexico for slaughter for the European meat market.  Slaughter is NEVER humane, and horse slaughter in Mexico is an unregulated, unimaginable horror.

As a ten-year old stallion, Nelson would have met that fate were it not for the generosity of Equine Advocates, a sanctuary in upstate New York.

If you have not signed the petition that I have up to the right of this post, please take the time to do so.  The plight of the few remaining wild Mustangs in depends upon our voices.  Not the voices of hysteria, but the steady voice of right action, of compassion and respect for all beings.  As Klaus Hempfing says, the horses are always innocent.  We must speak for them.

I am incredibly blessed to work with Nelson.  He is the anchor for many of my posts and has taught me many lessons about connecting being with horses to the rest of my life.  I do not believe that sanctuary or ownership by a human is a solution for all the wild horses, just as zoos are not solutions for all the endangered elephants.  We need the wild.  We need to feel ourselves in relationship not just to what is tame, but to the wildness within and around us.  The horses do just that.  As poet James Wright says,

Yet the earth contains

The horse as a remembrancer of wild

Arenas we avoid.

Feb21

flow

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Photo:  Pam White                 Dae and Esme flowing down Lucy Vincent Beach on Martha’s Vineyard

I learned some wonderful lessons about flow today.

First, a lesson from the movement analyst (me):  In movement, in creativity, in relationships, there are two kinds of flow. Free flow is where the feeling is unrestricted, outpouring, ongoing.  Bound flow occurs when the movement is restricted, held back.  A lot of us assume that bound flow is bad – it means that we are stuck, or limited in some terrible way.  But there are times when we want to engage bound flow – putting down a delicate cup, or picking up a pen for example.  We don’t want the cup to crash, the pen to fly our of our hands.

  • During my riding lesson with Brandi Rivera, I learned (again) that using bound flow in my riding aids (leg, seat, hands) for short moments creates a clearer sense of free flowing, fluid connection and suppleness with my horse, Sanne.
  • I learned that creating boundaries for a troublesome child opens us to greater ease and communication.
  • I learned that starting the day early by opening the floodgates to my fiction writing creates another one of those great, unexpected entry points to the day.  It is like choosing to enter the cave first, rather than stepping right out into the light.

How do you experience flow?