Horsemanship for Health

Horses make me late. They sometimes make me late for work, where on arrival I rush to a discreet space to brush hay from my hair, clean my mud-stained-hands and slip on a clean jacket. On really late days, I forget my shoes.

Last week the horses made me late twice. The first time, after feeding, picking out hooves and clearing the mats around their hay tyre, I climbed into my truck and headed off to teach a morning of philosophy. It was a beautiful frosty morning and all I could think about as I drove in my wellies was whether I really did have a spare pair of shoes in the back.

Thinking I might have to teach in my socks, I was relieved to find the shoes squashed under a camping chair and a horse rug. My day continued until I was late for another class because I had to wait for my students outside the drama studio, where I sometimes teach, to redirect them to another room. Some of the students were late to my lesson because they had been held up by the previous lesson.

My second late episode happened a few days later when I left the yard with just 15 minutes to cross town to reach a meeting at a primary school. In my anxiety to make the meeting on time, I missed the turning to the school and had to U-turn. Again, I was fretting because I thought I would not have time to change out of my muddy boots and waterproofs. I did change outside my car and then because I was unsettled, I went to the wrong school gate. By the time I cleared the school security, I saw that all the other meeting attendees were inside waiting for me. I was precisely seven minutes late to this meeting and I apologised, saying in explanation that I had ‘been with the horses.’

And so it goes, the horses ‘making’ me perpetually late. Sheranni made me miss a train to London once because he wouldn’t go back into his field fast enough. I was convinced he was playing with me as he slowly sauntered down the lane, oblivious of my need for him to hurry. That was hard to forgive.

My reading this week has inspired me to think differently about my lateness. Instead of looking to blame the horses for not getting me to my class on time, as if the horses really could be responsible for what is clearly my own failure to prepare or think ahead, I’m looking at response-ability.

“I define response-ability as the ability to choose one’s response to a situation. It’s about focusing on the aspects of reality that you can influence, instead of being victimized by circumstances that you cannot. It’s about being the main character of your own life. Instead of asking, ‘why is this happening to me?’ a person who is response-able asks, ‘what can I do when this happens? Response-ability means you don’t take anything personally. It doesn’t rain on you; it just rains, period. Instead of blaming the rain, you carry an umbrella to stay dry when it rains. And if you get wet, you know it’s because you didn’t bring an umbrella, because you were not prepared.”

The Meaning Revolution. Leading with the Power of Purpose. Fred Kofman 2018

Of course, blaming the horses is simply an excuse for lateness; my own version of forgetting to bring an umbrella when it rains (which I frequently do) and my excuse is sloppy. My excuse is embarrassing because each time I’m late, I’m looking for a way to duck responsibility for not being on time. The horses are ever-present in my life and I take my responsibilities for their welfare very seriously. Reading Fred Kofman, is making me wonder why I’m so selective about certain responsibilities. Could I be more response-able instead?

In his book, Fred Kofman goes into the lateness thing in some detail. You might think that it doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t be annoyed with a friend for keeping me waiting because I know I have kept others waiting, but I also know how delighted and impressed I am when someone shows up on time for a meeting with me. I also know that when I reach work or a meeting without rushing, I feel better in myself. I feel that I am the main character in my own life. Knowing this won’t stop me being late. There may still be times when I am held up in roadworks or stalled in a flood, but my explanations for my lateness won’t be blaming the roadworks or the flood.

Spending time with horses never makes me late.

Bella has many talents. One of her favourite things to do is to get her teeth into whatever we give her, and some other things she finds for herself: fence posts, rails, plastic buckets, plastic trays, grooming kits, j-cloths, hay-nets, Jo’s bonnets, including the vehicular kind. This morning I put down a new bucket filled with salt water ready to clean Bella’s hoof, and while my back was turned, she drank it.

It would be easy to become irritated with Bella. She watches your every move, and carefully chooses the moment you take your eye off the ball, to let herself out of the field and destroy a storage box to reach the sack of feed inside. On this occasion, she worked in tandem with her partner-in-crime Sheranni. Bella’s timing is impeccable and maybe the less crafty horse used this to his advantage. I would have loved to have been present, witnessing the interaction between them…’go on Bella, you know how to split open that plastic box in just the right place to pull through the feed sack, just make sure you leave room for me, so that I can have some too!‘

Bella, who was born a hill pony on Dartmoor, uses her native intelligence to her advantage, and she understands very clearly what she needs to do for survival. She knows how to work with other horses and she knows what she wants. Her actions show an ability to visualise, an understanding of cause and effect, forward thinking, an ability to work things out and an ability to take both independent and collaborative action, which I think is pretty sophisticated cognitive behaviour for a formerly-feral animal.

It used to be thought that some attributes such as taking a visual perspective were limited to the human species, but animal behaviour pioneers such as Charlie Menzel conducted experiments that showed that many animals were much more intelligent than some in the scientific community wanted to admit.

In one experiment to test the mental abilities of chimpanzees, Menzel hid food, while watched by Panzee, a female chimp. Digging small holes in the ground, he hid packets of M&M sweets in the forest around the outside of her enclosure. Contained in her area, Panzee could not reach the hidden goodies. She needed to remember where the treats were hidden and wait until the morning to find someone to help her to unearth them. Her caretakers were not aware of the experiment so Panzee had to find a way to ‘tell them.’

In his illuminating book exploring animal intelligence Frans De Waal, explains that the caretakers had a ‘high opinion’ of the abilities of the chimpanzees and this, remarkably, was essential to the success of the experiment.

“All those recruited by Panzee said they were at first surprised by her behaviour but soon understood what she wanted them to do. By following her pointing, beckoning, panting and calling, they had no trouble finding the candies hidden in the forest. Without her instructions, they would never have known where to look. Panzee never pointed in the wrong direction, or to locations that had been used on previous occasions. The result was communications about a past event, present in the ape’s memory, to ignorant members of a different species. If the humans followed the instructions correctly and got closer to the food, Panzee would vigorously bob her head in affirmation (like Yes, Yes!), and like us, she’d lift her hand up, giving higher points, if the item was further away. She realized that she knew something that the other didn’t know, and was intelligent enough to recruit humans as willing slaves to obtain the goodies of her desire.”

Are We Smart Enough To Know How Smart Animals Are. Franz De Waal 2016.

Bella recruited me one day. She met me at the gate and kept looking at me intensely as if she needed to tell me something. When I picked up on her focus, she started walking purposefully across the field, looking back over her shoulder every now and then to check that I was following. The other horses did not follow; this seemed to be something between Bella and me. I followed Bella from one side of the field to the other, and she kept checking to see that I was with her. When she reached to water trough, she dipped her nose into it once, and then looked round at me with a different expression, an almost puzzled look. Curious to see what the pony was pointing to, I went to have a closer look. The trough was empty.

I was still disbelieving what had just occurred as I called the farmer who let me know there was a water leak. The day before, he had turned off the mains and forgotten to turn it back on again. He came out immediately and the old trough filled up again.

My opinion of Bella rose that day. How impressively she had let me know what she knew and understood that she needed to show me so that I could take some action. When I shared this story with Jo, she said: ‘you took Bella seriously,’ and I realised that noticing the pony wanted to share something was key, just as it had been the key with Panzee’s caretakers. I might have discovered the empty trough anyway, but Bella was not going to leave it up to chance.

Another lifetime ago, I lived in London and most weeks I visited art galleries. Art was an important part of my emotional landscape, and I viewed my gallery visits as exciting adventures. I loved looking at tremendous works that had started as ideas, and through an impeccable commitment to a vision had grown into masterpieces. These great works were seemingly complete, but they still compelled me with their mystery.

One day I had an insight into the long and sometimes tedious process of working on a vast painting. An artist I met had been commissioned to copy Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, which itself had been copied several times, and had set up his studio in his North London flat. Each time I visited, he would talk me through his progress, which to my untutored eyes looked like nothing much. I wondered how he stood it, working on the same thing day after day: to me, it seemed about as rewarding as factory assembly work. Often painting by candlelight with the curtains drawn, the artist admitted it was a long labour of love. His whole world had become concentrated to the singularly devotional act of putting paint onto canvas.

I saw the painting near the finish, and I was stunned by its radiance, its glowing power, and the artist’s faithful commitment to the work. In those dark hours, he had wanted to walk away so many times, metaphorically hand back the commission so that he would not have to see it through, but something, a deeper determination, and dry humour kept him going. He remarked that as he was leaving the painting one evening, he swore that Jesus winked at him.

The start of the New Year is a good time to think about the next steps in the bigger picture. Now that my nourishing landscape takes the shape of Devon hills rather than the National Gallery or Royal Academy, I’m drawing inspiration and strength from my reading, most particularly Fred Kofman’s work: Conscious Business: How to Build Value Through Values, a work I approached with the same keyed-up excitement I remember from studying philosophy of art.

Kofman’s work is both an invitation and a guide, and it is personal, insightful and tough. You can’t read it and not be changed on some level, which I know is a strong claim to make. Kofman puts it this way:

You know that there is more to work than making money. You know that it is possible to experience great joy as you engage in meaningful work of which you are proud; soulful work that confronts you with challenges and develops your skills; work that is aligned with your mission in life. This is work you enjoy doing for its own sake, work that provides you with significant material and spiritual rewards.

While you do this work, you feel fully absorbed. Time seems to stop and you enter into an extraordinary reality. Difficulties become creative challenges. You feel in control – not because you can guarantee the result, but because you trust yourself and know that you can respond skilfully. This is an ecstatic world that “stands outside” everyday dullness, a world that captures you so thoroughly you forget yourself. There’s a sense of flow, an experience of hard work performed with ease. Life seems to be living itself effortlessly, and everything that needs to get done gets done.

An Invitation to Conscious Business. Fred Kofman 2006.

As someone who hasn’t been able to properly get back to work yet because my desk is such a mess, there is so much in this short extract which fills my heart with hope, so much practical wisdom that inspires me to work with impeccable attention, so much insight that reminds me of the world beyond daily doing and dealing with ordinary demands. I see that taking one small step at a time, dipping my brush into new colours, but always stepping back to take in what is already present in the bigger picture is the way ahead.