10/23/2024
I hail from the era of traditional horsemanship. Of old cowboys and unspoken teaching. Of dressage masters and lofty ideals. There was much beauty about it… and there were things that went on behind closed doors that I would dearly love to forget.
There is an incredible amount held within my own memories that haunt me. I have witnessed atrocities, both against horses and their people. Worse, I have done some hard things, myself.
At odds with this, I was born something of a fey child.
I have observed and carried burdens that were too much for any empathic or highly-sensitive young soul and yet, these weights are now a part of who I am. From the earliest age, my horses have spoken to me. My mother remembers me coming from the barn as a small child, then announcing that one of the horses wasn’t feeling well. The adults in my family could see nothing untoward and yet, overnight, the horse colicked. Of course.
Unlike most ten-year-old kids, I can remember asking my father if it wasn’t time to deworm the horses, or, would he please do my pony’s feet? Most young children aren’t so attuned to the physical needs of the horses in their lives, in my experience.
As a teen, when my beautiful Thoroughbred suddenly would not hold the canter, I was the only one to stand up to those in power and say, “No. He cannot hold the canter. There’s a difference!” And so, my mother and I went in search of an equine chiropractor, a very risky business in the wild west of the 1970s and early ‘80s. The people we loved and trusted thought, and said, we were nuts.
I need to—finally—thank my parents for listening to me, when mostly, it must have seemed that their youngest child was plumb weird. A life-long misfit, it wasn’t until I reached adulthood that I realized how dicey it is to be different.
I have always wanted to say what my horses tell me and yet, I’ve been afraid of ridicule for most of my life. Even now, I will post a story of vulnerability and have to shield my heart from those friends and family who might read it and laugh. One of the gifts I’ve given myself as I’ve aged, is the vow to be brave and to tell my own truths. This is getting easier, despite all the laughing emojis.
The times, they are a-changing! I think we are seeing so much of traditional ways that are now being questioned. Asking questions about something that has ‘always been thus’ is healthy and good; it does not necessarily mean that I must renounce all that I know and busy myself by reinventing the wheel. Knowing this soothes Lee the Defender.
I have seen the coming and going of so many ways that were meant to compensate for all the woes in our prior know-how. Many of them have, with time, proven to leave gaping holes. Too many unused—which is perhaps better than overused—round pens are catching tumbleweeds all across the land, misunderstood bits and books and flags and gimmicky gear and patented ‘systems’ are gathering dust, like the cast-off plastic fast-food detritus that litters our roadsides.
We continue to use and discard gadgets and methodry, as we have done to too many horses.
And so, gingerly, we will dip our toes into unknown waters. You and I will continue to look for a better way for the horse, sharing with likeminded people. We will ask questions. We will sit in discomfort. We will try new ways and with open minds, compare these newest findings with our older results. Some of what we learn, we will keep and much of it will end up on that growing discard pile, I'm afraid.
The thought of this both fills my waking hours and keeps me awake at night.
Until we learn to stop mimicking our latest online gurus and start spending real time in real life with real horses and wise teachers, until we stop buying the latest must-have fixes and start learning the cause and effect of why we do what we do, until we stop keeping up with the trends and start following our instincts—until we stop misreading our horses, all the while keeping certain absolutes upon high pedestals—we will be unable to listen to what our horses tell us. Worse, we will be unable to bravely stand up and speak their truths.
So, until then. We have to learn and let go and continue to learn, until we can dare to think and feel for ourselves.
