Horsemanship for Health

This weekend I joined a group of wonderful women on retreat in the woods. Our flower symbol was the snowdrop. There were little shy gatherings of these perfect pearls lighting our way like tiny lamps. I have always loved snowdrops for their audacity and courage to bloom when most other plants are still sleeping through winter.

Our poem of the day was All the Hemispheres by Persian poet Hafiz and his words invited us to Change Rooms in Your Mind for a day. I love the idea of the mind as a series of rooms. Many January rooms have been cluttered with essential tasks such as the end of year accounts, applying for funding and recycling old furniture. These are my practical rooms. They are not rooms in which to dwell for too long.

I am drawn to more spacious outdoor rooms, sounds of water and wind and the crunch of frost. Some evenings this past week, I have sensed a shift toward spring with the birds singing through twilight.

Changing rooms for a morning to connect with my current season within was both grounding and uplifting. Eating savoury hot soup in the woods with the smell of woodsmoke in my hair, eyes still stinging, I am twelve years old again and needing little except the company of those who wish to connect. I see how crazily full my life is. I go from a webinar in my car to a circle of raw, honest truth and then into conversations about the future. The rooms of my mind have connecting doors. Sometimes they are all open at once. Often I long for a day when I could choose just one room – the cleanest, quietest, most beautiful room where there is a single mesmerising idea that I could turn over and over.

The snowdrop signals simplicity. She needs far less than I do to live her full life. Her example calls to me to follow a clear path. To surrender control and step into the coming year with grace.