Horsemanship for Health

When I have something to work through, I walk. I’ve always done this. There’s something about the natural rhythm of walking that slows down my hectic thoughts and allows me some breathing space. In my experience, there’s no problem a walk won’t help.

Going on walks to work something out nearly always leads me to a different place. Today I thought about all the passing conversations I’ve had with other walkers over the past few weeks. People have spoken warmly and openly. I’ve learned honest, true things from these conversations which cannot be called consequential.

I don’t walk far. Indeed when my head is painfully pounding, I find long walks exhausting. Instead I wander. I slow down so that I can look up into the trees and I tune into the birds. Their pure music pierces through the muddle in my mind. Today I heard a woodpecker drumming his beat like a practice garage musician. It made me listen longer and for a moment as I became absorbed in the pattern of the sound, I forgot why I had come.

Some people I have met on my walks I have got to know by name and as we walk we share our stories. We share why we’re here, what we feel and what we dream of. These simple elements form the narrative of our encounters. I realise that everyone I meet is looking for a way to share something of their life with others. I see that shining from people now in a lovely untarnished innocence that was not so apparent to me before.

I know that people say they have more time for each other now. I have said the same. I do feel more curious and open. I wonder, though, if it truly is time that has shifted my perception of others, people I might have walked past before without acknowledgement? Does lack of time really make us rude?

It’s common to think so. It’s common to think along the lines of: if I had more time I might be less busy and stressed out and therefore nicer to be around. But time can’t change our inclinations towards one another. Time only acts as an influence when we decide we can’t be bothered to make the effort to be pleasant. We so often make lack of time the villain in our lives. Now it feels to me like a very worn-out excuse for mean mindedness.

My walks teach me the true value of time which is that time is created. As I walk, time is made up moment by moment. It is not a large stick with which I need to beat myself or others. it is not some abstract empty space into which I pour my life. Time is unfolding as I walk step by step. If I slow down enough, sometimes I can feel it pulsing through me like a cool stream.

My walks place me back in time. In true time. In walking rhythm time when I see that my fears about lack of time have no value in my life. I lure myself with promises of more time and see these promises for the falsehoods they truly are. The trees remind me to stop wasting time thinking I have the answers to the conundrum of time itself. They tell me to stop chasing my tail and look up to the leaf canopy instead.

They tell me to stay tall and true and rooted. This is all.