Horsemanship for Health

So, you get home after two hours of crawling along a road you usually drive down in ten minutes. You’ve been listening to local radio all the way and the Red Warning means you shouldn’t be out in your car because your life is in danger. You tell the announcer that you’re doing your best to get off the road. The trouble is, everyone else is trying to do the same and some roads are already closed. Light cars designed for zipping around a coastal town are in trouble, wheels spinning on ice and snow. A woman gets out of her car and advises another driver to use second gear. Drivers cheer and wave at the sight of the snow plough. The atmosphere is giddy and tense and uncertain.

When you turn into your road, there’s nowhere to park and you end up leaving your vehicle halfway down the street, knowing that you probably won’t be able to move it in the morning. When you reach your house, your steps are immaculately felted with snow, which naturally you plunge your feet into, enjoying the crumpling sound and the sense of relief at having reached safety. The central heating is on, and you make tea and watch from your window the curious sight of snow drifts creating soft islands around the pots on your balcony. Later the lime tree fruits will be crystallised and the fingertips of the palm tree will flaunt perfect jewelled ice beads. Much later, the wind and snow and ice combine into a storm that takes your breath away and keeps you awake, your feelings skittering from awe to worry to incredulity.

You try to go out the next morning but the path around your house is too slippery and you fear that you may fall and injure yourself. You’d like to go out and buy some milk, as people are saying that supplies are running low and you want to feel prepared. You know that you already have enough food and don’t really need to buy anything. The radio is advising people to make soup from leftovers in the fridge. You’re amused because you make soup from leftovers when it doesn’t snow, so what should you do that feels different or special?

You settle into staying at home and try not to worry about the horses because you know they have lived through worse weather conditions than this so-called beast, but your mind keeps thinking of potential disaster such as the barn caving in and burying the big hay bale, or one of the horses twisting a fetlock on the hard ground, or dying of thirst or freezing to death or going mad with fear.

The horses, you learn, from reports from your landowners who can see them from their front window, have huddled together for warmth, ponies on the inside, horses on the outside, and they are quiet and calm. They have ignored the dried food put down for them. When you last saw them, they were settled and even joyful, each one taking a turn to roll in the snow. You learn that the ponies know how to unfreeze a spot of iced-over water with their warm breath and keep it open so that they can drink when they need to. You have been smashing the ice with a mallet, which sometimes doesn’t work. When you think of the horses in the snowy field you can’t help but make comparisons with how the human world is reacting to what is an utterly natural event.

When you next see the horses, they come forward for their feed, and their faces are clean and rain-washed. They are unhurried, beautiful and serene, and you feel a rush of gratitude to them and for them. You feel the layers of care from the past day, has it really been only a day, slip from your shoulders, and you are relaxed. You watch them eat as if for the first time. You want to do something more for them but there is nothing you need to do.