Tag Archives: horses

Jun3

tail, breath

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I took many, many pictures of Capprichio yesterday.  He is a black stallion, a Baryshnikov among horses and the love of my horse life.  He is also very equanimous about having his picture taken.

Some horses are not.  Sanne, the Lily of Holland, Pam White’s big Friesian, is very cagey, wary and not especially cooperative.  he is not exactly nervous, but he is an avoider (much like myself).

That brings me to another subject.  After a certain age, I did not want my photo taken. I am more than a little embarrassed about this.  I would like to be easier with it.

I got some significant help yesterday when I watched the film Breath Made Visible about the now ninety year old dancer and choreographer Anna Halprin.  It is stunning.  She is stunning.  There is a glory in her that is so rare, so unabashed, so full that I just sat in silence for many moments after the film.  (It is available on Netflix.)

What this has to do with for me (in part) is a willingness to be seen, to be witnessed, to be held in the attention of a single lens or a large audience.  These are the waters that I am stepping into again now.  At the end of the film, Halprin says that she wants her dances and her dancing to connect to something profound and shared.  (I am paraphrasing badly.)

That is true for me as well.  What I danced about before is not what I want to dance now.  In the past I made beautiful, feral dances that were like a Chinese sliding block puzzle:  you had to work hard to discover the order, the relationships and the meaning.  Now I want to dance you into the eye of the storm and into my wild heart.  I cannot wait to see what will happen.

Watch this film.  It is not to be missed.

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Jun1

the softest place

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There are two places to kiss a horse’s nose.  One is in the soft spot between the nostrils, where the two lines are here on Nelson’s nose.  The other is between the top lip and the outer rim of the nostril.  There is no silk or velvet, absolutely nothing that is as soft as those two places, nestled around the fragrant breath.

Nelson and I are getting reacquainted.  He is allowing me to be near him, but his dark side is dark again.  Not sure why.  He and I have not been able to work in our usual ways for a lot of complicated reasons.  Whatever has happened, all the cues that we built between us are rinsed away.  Today I tried to remind him, and he was doing his best, but at the same time, telling me that he does not feel easy with the things that used to be easy.

The one thing that he was totally happy about was having his picture taken.  Again, not sure why.  Maye it is the clicking sound that is like the click that I make when he does something that I have asked him to do.  So I tried an experiment, and took a lot of photos of Capprichio today as well.  He also was very interested in the camera, but more pushy.

May21

sanne, the lily of holland

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This is Sanne, the beautiful Friesian belonging to Pam.   He was imported from Holland when he was three.  His name, Sanne, means Lily in Dutch.  When Pam saw him, she fell face first in love.  That was twelve years ago.

In this picture, he is performing in Scarlet and is ridden by Brandi Rivera.  Sanne is the great-hearted performer in all of my dances with horses.  He is the center, the soul, the horse that can handle it all  Dancers doing handstands on his side, yard of swirling fabric, crowds, choreography, changes in choreography, travel, loud music – he takes it ALL in stride.  Sanne is always in a good mood.  He is always happy to see whoever comes into his world.  He is a lover, a snuggle, a honey.

So when he suddenly started to drop muscle and weight and seem cranky, we all worried.  His back became stiff and sore, and he could not find it in himself to work.  As it turns out, he has Lyme.  He has been on Doxy for about ten days and already his back feels better, and he is back to being his sweet, affectionate self.

It was a scare.  I realized that I am completely vulnerable here.  Without him, my dancers and I cannot perform most of our dances.  More than that, HIS vulnerability came sharply into focus.  The vets get very nervous about muscle wasting.  It is often a symptom of catastrophic illness.  I got a lot of information about encysted parasites, muscle enzymes and equine polysaccharide storage myopathy.  I did not want to think about any of it.

Two days ago I heard from my former trainer.  She has been diagnosed with cancer.  She is facing six months of surgeries and treatment.  I do not want to think about that either.  What I want is for her to be fine, for Sanne to be fine, for my children to be safe forever and for all suffering to be at an end.

The temptation is to focus on suffering, on the lack of wellness.  I don’t think that helps my friend or my horse.  I know that it does not help me.  What does help me is this, from Abraham:  “Many around you want to point out “reality” to you. They say, “Face the facts. Look at what-is.” And we say to you, if you are able to see only what-is—then, by Law of Attraction, you will create only more of what-is… You must be able to put your thoughts beyond what-is in order to attract something different or something more.”

The way that I do that is this:  I keep looking for something to appreciate.  For something that makes me happy.  Lucky for me, I have seven cats, four dogs, three horses, two children, a beautiful wife and a wild and wonderful collection of friends.  And if all of that fails, today the peonies are blooming outside my window.

May15

the faraway horse

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Here is a new chapter in the story of Nelson.  For the past month, he has not let me get near him.  We went from being good friends to something else.

There are a few reasons for this, having to do with out-of-my-control changes by his owners in his training program.

I like and respect the other person who is working with Nelson.  He is smart, horse savvy and can do things with horses that I would not attempt.  Having said that, it saddens me that Nelson no longer trusts me.  All humans look alike, I guess.

Today, I felt that he was looking at me, through me in a way, and that I had become unreadable to him.After a long while of hiding, he did let me get near him and I was able to pet him and do some very simple movement work with him.  But mostly he was ready to take off if the wind went through the trees.  For the first time I felt like it did not matter how calm and settled I was.  He was on his own track.  Watching his own inner movie, nervous system on full alert.

At the same time that this is happening, there is another Mustang around.  The lovely folks at Little Brook Farm in Old Chatham have brought Amado, a Mustang straight from the wild (after six months in a holding pen), to their farm.  Summer Brennan, the daughter of the owner, has entered the Extreme Mustang Makeover, a competition in which she hopes to take Amado as far in his training as she can in three months. She is documenting the process here.

When I first heard about the Extreme Makeover idea, I was nervous.  “Extreme” anything and horses are not really a good fit.  But Summer and Amado are.  Her idea is that he will tell her what he can do and when.  The basis of the training is love.  You can see it in the pictures.

I don’t know what will happen with Nelson. I am remembering something that I have heard Linda Tellington-Jones say when she encounters a difficult situation with a horse:  “Isn’t that interesting.”  That opens the door, and lifts the limits, which is exactly what Nelson and I need right now.