Horsemanship for Health

The last time I fell in love with a human it was unrequited. One of those romances that started with so much sparkle and promise and ran for a few years before ending in painful disappointment. Humans are creatures who often have trouble with affairs of the heart. Whole creative industries have been built around our agonising search for connection and cherishing.

My love affairs with animals have never been unrequited or disappointing. They have never let me down because they have opened their hearts and let me in. When you think of it, this is astonishingly courageous and generous of them. For animals don’t particularly need us to complicate their lives. It’s humans who go looking for complexity in love. It’s humans who think there is something missing and work hard to feel worthy in the eyes of others. Animals simply give love. They don’t ask for anything back. This is the unconditional love we all secretly seek.

Over the years many people have shared openly with us that they prefer animals to people. It’s why they were drawn to our work and our way of working with animals, putting them at the heart of all we do. It’s a wonderful feeling to begin the work of love with a tender example, a story that moves others in the circle. Nearly all the conversations we share in our work with animals are fundamentally about finding and living with love. Not a substitute for love, a dimmer version of human love, but the joy of love itself in all its wonder.

Love elevates us. It also brings us down to earth. Living and working with seven animals means doing the daily work of love even when I don’t feel like it. Even when the rain is flinging down again into already sodden ground, I know I must go to give the horses their evening feed. They greet me with rumbles of gratitude. I spend a few moments with each one and let them know I care. It’s a daily ritual no matter how tired or frazzled I am.

Sometimes I receive something remarkable in return. One day recently feeling upset and overwhelmed. I went to see the goats and found Trevor lying down. He didn’t get up when he saw me, he relaxed even further and chewed with little smacking sounds. When I sank into the ground next to him he lifted his head and pressed it firmly against mine. We stayed like this for a while, forehead to forehead, and I felt my busy brain begin to calm down. Trevor kept up the pressure just long enough for me to feel a release. My mind became light and free. Having completed his acupressure treatment, Trevor fell into a deep sleep.

As I got up to go, I took the photo of him I share here. He seemed at peace, utterly relaxed and centred in his own kind being, free and filled with love.

Over the past weeks I have returned to this picture of him and the feeling it gives me of connection, this sense of an offering from one being to another. Trevor used to be known as the ‘thug’ because he liked to spar with his twin Tucker. Trevor has softened, perhaps because he now feels safe. He knows we care about him because we have shown him that we have his best interests at heart. He is now so relaxed he can show who he is undefended.

When animals allow us in, it is to my mind a mysterious romance. A secret threshold into another reality. Our self-centred preoccupation with our small stuff melts away when an animal looks into you and sees you as you truly are. They take in the pain and the confusion and the fear and they alchemise hopelessness into acceptance. With acceptance comes love.

Animals have literally changed the way I think. For the past twenty two years, they have shaped every aspect of my life and shown me who I am at my deepest core. When I shared with a prospective partner that he would have to compete with a horse, he was gracious enough to ask about my animal affair. After I told him, he went very quiet. There were tears in his eyes as he said. ‘Most people will never experience a love like that.’

It is a mistake to think that love exists only in the human realm. We have invented a tepid, artificial and sanitised love to suit our anthropocentric way of life. Every supermarket is currently stuffed with red roses, many of which will be thrown away unloved. The annual ritualised commercialisation of romance leaves many people cold. And yet it continues year after year.

If I gave a red rose to Trevor, he would probably eat it. He likes thorny things. It might make his day. Seeing him and all the animals I am so fortunate to love will make mine.