Tag Archives: Mustang

Jan5

Nelson’s dance

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This morning when I was grooming Nelson, he rested his head on my shoulder and I could feel his soft breath on my cheek.  We stood like that for almost a minute in the cold January sun.

I have been working with Nelson on going away and coming back.  On being able to respond to hand signals to ask him to walk around me in a circle, change directions and then come back to me, turning toward me.

This may sound like no big deal, but it is.  He is saying “OK, I feel safe to come back to you.”  What I especially appreciate is that he is calm throughout.  Even when I asked him to move off more briskly (not on this clip), he was still not anxious.   How I can tell is that he settles immediately on a subtle hand signal.  He is more interested in reading my movement than getting upset. (I was not able to be so clear with my signals because of holding the camera.)

This is a yoga:  opening to more movement, more awareness, more attunement – one breath, one day at a time.  Laying down a path of trust and communication, in what feels like little improvisational dance phrases.

Did I mention that I love this horse?

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Dec23

softness inside, softness outside

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Today was a strangely, deliciously balmy December day in the Hudson Valley.  I went to see Nelson (the formerly wild Mustang) with some holiday carrots. He was very cuddly from the beginning, seeming to echo the softness and quiet of the day. Have I mentioned that I love this horse?

I have been asking him to move around me in a small circle, while staying calm and responding to the “go” signal from my hand and the “whoa” signal from my movement and my voice.  Today he was flawless when circling to the right, still uncertain to the left.

So I played with that by asking him to stay with the hard side, to keep trying.  And here’s the lovely part:  he allowed me to improvise more freely with changes of direction and with different kinds of cues than ever before.  My hand, my body, the lead rope, the wand, nothing seemed to really phase him.  It was as if there had been a quantum shift in his tolerance for new information – his ability to take it in without being frightened.

Even after I opened the gate of his catch pen out into the six-acre field, he stayed with me – no halter, no lead rope – moving smoothly around me to the right, and doing his best in the other direction. No running off, no spooking.  He wanted to continue the dance.

Everything about my work with Nelson during the past eight months has been an improvisation.  But the movement vocabulary was very small, very careful.  Now, our language is suddenly expanding:  new options, different choices, greater flexibility. A reservoir of trust. This new softness is deepening, penetrating, lasting from week-to-week.

This expanding relationship reminds me of the comparison of meditating to dipping a cloth into dye. For the first 100 times, the color will rinse away, but slowly, surely, the color starts to take and deepen.

Dec9

Nelson this week

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Yesterday I went to work with Nelson.  There is The Work, but the other part is that I go to Nelson because being with him is an immediate way to get happy and move into focus.

There had been snow so things were different.  Nelson was spookier than he has been for a long time.  The snow was falling off the trees onto the hood of my car making this random timpani sound which he found alarming (so did I).  For both of us the light was refracting differently, and the footing was sloppy and icy.  He allowed me to take the giant snow balls off his feet, and then we went to work.

I have been developing the work on Nelson’s left – the dark side – asking him to move on cue onto a circle going left so that his dark side is the one facing me.  When he circles to the right, his body is a smooth curve, and he moves comfortably – either close in to me or farther out, depending on how I have asked.  When he goes left, his body is straight as a plank, he doesn’t want to look at me and he is markedly more tense.  It is as if the cannot feel himself on that side.

The BLM freeze brands the captured Mustangs on the left side of their neck.  Given Nelson’s terror and ferocity at that time, I am sure that event was traumatic and violent at least.  Maybe that is why the dark side is so persistently dark.

The lovely thing was that after we practiced his a few times, he got quieter and calmer.  Not exactly soft, but I could see that coming.  That was when I hit a patch of slippery slush and made a shockingly disorganized predator movement.  Arms flung up for balance.  He took off.  After a few moments, he came back and we went on.  That is the very beautiful part of developing a long relationship with a horse.  There is a foundation of trust, a language of ask and answer that let’s us slide seamlessly back into the work and the relationship.

Here are some of the things I have learned from Nelson.  These are lessons that spill into my writing, my choreography, my mothering.

  • the importance of consistency
  • how to go slow
  • how to build the work incrementally
  • how to begin again
  • the meaning of love

The last one is probably the most important.  There is nothing like stopping to take in the sun, the trees, the hills while standing next to a creature that is choosing to be there, to be next to you in that breathing moment.  Today my stallion Capprichio put his nose on my neck and stood like that, just breathing for about two minutes.  Bliss.

postscript:  I am teaching an online class called Breaking into Blossom:  Moving into an Improvisational Life starting on January 23.  If you register before December 23, the price is $75.  On Christmas Eve Day it goes up to $100.

 

 

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?