What the horse knows: Life Lesson: No 10
What would life be like if we simply let things happen? If we allowed life to unfold naturally instead of trying to squeeze life into a container suitable for our own personal use? Letting things happen is not easy for busy-minded humans. We feel we’ve accomplished something if we squeeze as much juice as we can out of every day. Horses look at things differently; they live in what Jon Kabat-Zinn calls ‘the landscape of the now.’
Busy days, down days, difficult days, all are meaningless to a horse. For horses, there are simply days without judgement. Their lived days are rich with texture and meaning and create rhythms that move in and out of seasons. Horses weather their experience. We tend to think of experience as something we have set up, and if we’ve done well, a great holiday or family weekend or special meal, we feel a sense of satisfaction. We congratulate ourselves for ‘getting it right,’ and correspondingly, we feel low for ‘getting it wrong’ when our dream holiday disappoints and leaves us wishing we had stayed at home.
When we are prepared to let everything happen to us, we cannot be disappointed. We can stand the storms, the crazy times, the ups and downs, the grief. We’ve let life in and when we let it take its course without trying to divert it to a direction we would prefer, we see life itself, life in its startling fierce beauty. Life contains everything: pain, magic and the mundane are all mixed up together; it is never one thing and it is never ours alone. It is shared with every living thing.
A shared life is something horses understand. They don’t plot their lifescapes on charts or develop five-year career plans or business strategies or even make plans for the next day. They live moment to moment in full awareness. When I’m with them, I find I can let go of my relentless preoccupation with ‘the next thing’ (whatever it is) and stretch into a more elastic way of being.
I notice more. Coming down the hill in the meadow, I saw the fox, twice. The first time he ran across my path; the second time he moved past the horses, unafraid. I caught a good look at him. Long dark legs, heavy auburn body, neat head, nose to the ground as he high-stepped through the long grass.
Pillowed on the hill, the ground supported my back and held me together. The wind brushed my face. My body was warm, protected, the aches and soreness in my arm dampened by a wider feeling of an active aliveness. The skylark rose and released a braid of song, sequinned notes scattered into the air.
Tinker was resting when I came down from the hill. Her lower lip revealed a slim groove of pink. A single blade of grass clung to the side of her mouth. She has a lovely, neat muzzle. Soft, enquiring, yielding, it fits into the palm of my hand. Her neck was warm under the cover of her long dark mane, bleached in places from the sun. Her neck was smooth and shiny with her own conditioning grease. She looked polished, a light bay oak with gold highlights and darker ripples on her flanks and belly. Her legs were shining black to the knee, and finished in grey gleaming hooves. She glowed in the sun, a golden orb of health.
Sheranni came to me. I rubbed his head and behind his ears. Sometimes he’ll play this game for half an hour or more, but today he needed a stronger massage. He greeted Dragonfly with a kneading on his withers. Often Dragonfly will push him away, but he reciprocated. They swapped positions moving, bending their necks over their backs, splaying their legs so that they could stretch, using top and bottom lip to groom, lifting the skin, occasionally using teeth. Their lips gulped as they worked up a rhythm. The power and tenderness were compelling. At any moment they could lift their necks and break the flow and I expected some jousting, but they kept the rhythm going. This was boys’ work, masculine bonding, powerful, deep and strong. I held back.
Then an opening. The horses separated and cocked their hinds to rest. They half closed their eyes. A stillness. I saw that they had formed a circle with the others and I had been allocated a place. I stayed with them. Afterwards I felt altered in some slight but profound way. On the drive home, my motivation rose. I had ideas to follow. I could let them unfold. I was open again.
Horsemanship for Health 