Tag Archives: horse time

Feb19

trust

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When I first met Nelson, the almost formerly wild Mustang, he did not want to be touched.  He was nervous, and that made me feel nervous, and we did a strange nervous dance for quite a while.  Both of us prickly and alert, sympathetic nervous systems on orange.

I wish I could say that I found a magic key and that suddenly Nelson was easily touchable, but I did not.  What I did find was horse time.  Horse time is biologic, sometimes even geologic.  It does not have to do with any kind of human time measurement.  It has to do with listening and with waiting.

I got very good at waiting.  One day when I came to work with him, Nelson would not let me anywhere near him.  So I sat leaning against the fence for about 2 hours until he finally came close enough to get a treat.  I had a lot of time that day to think about taking that personally.  A lot of time to feel my impatience and what I assumed was my ineptitude.

The real thing that I have learned from Nelson is that if I listen and wait, he gives me everything.  And the lovely thing is that I have also found that to be true about myself.  If I listen and wait, then what I want unfolds and offers itself to me.  All in good horse time.

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Sep22

horse time

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A couple days ago I asked how you dance with chaos.  This is my answer.

When I am in horse time, I find a way out of the chop and current of chaos and into calmer waters.  When I am with a horse, and especially this one, the lovely Mustang Nelson, I can’t be anywhere else.  He will know.  And so will I.

Horse time is a good metaphor for breathing time, for feeling your feet on the ground, noticing where your spine is and spreading yourself into the fullness of the moment.

What is your horse time?

Aug22

Beige or Light Brown?

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Yesterday I read an article in the New York Times about decision making and how our endless cascade of choices basically overwhelms our limited bandwidth, wreaking havoc with our emotional and physical selves.  The way I experience it is as a surfeit of essentially meaningless choices (Coffee or tea?  Pants or shorts?  Write the blog or go for a walk? etc. etc. etc.)  It feels like dithering.  Another symptom of an unquiet mind.  Time to breathe and get quiet.  (Meditate or walk?  Breathe or stretch? . . . oops, there I go again).

Horses don’t dither.  They are not overwhelmed by their choices.  Hay or grass?  This place or that?  Doze or graze?  Lick the salt or wait until later?  They just move in a smooth flow from one thing to the next.  I imagine that to be vastly refreshing, more immediate, sensual and delicious.  I notice that when I am at the barn, in the presence of the horses, the choices dissolve.  I fall into horse time – expanded, open-ended, present.

Aug3

Slow

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I gave myself  permission to take my time at the barn today.  I recommend it.  Maybe you brush your horse longer than necessary, more slowly, savoring the feel of the brush strokes, the gleam of the coat, the movement of your arm over the curves of the horse’s body.  Maybe you just stand together and breathe – looking at the summer green, the air moving the trees, hearing the birds, the cicada, the chewing of the horse in the next stall.  Do nothing.  Be nothing.  Get porous, just molecules dancing with other molecules.