PIK a Journey with Horses

31/12/2023

This. You are what you understand to be true.

What I understand to be true is that it’s ok to begin the new year motivated, inspired, and ready to go. It’s ok to feel hopeful. It’s ok for the new year to begin as a blurry line between one day and the next. It’s ok to slide in gently, with soft edges and flowers in your hair. It’s ok to arrive confused and out of sorts, to have really no firm idea. It’s ok to feel afraid or trepidatious or perhaps somewhat uncertain. It’s ok to arrive in love, alone, or somewhere in between. Ok to arrive feeling slightly beige, or perhaps you are florescent. Ok to be angry, or sad, or falling apart. The day will arrive to greet us and hold us just the same.

What I understand to be true is that change is necessary, inevitable but it’s normal to feel pangs of hanging on. It’s ok to not want to let go at the same time as you want things to arrive. It’s ok to be new, and also to be not quite ready for the newness. Or not right now at least.

What I understand to be true is there are many metrics for success, some without signs that are outward facing. That the numbers being lower, the bank account less than plump, all the sums we’re doing adding up to slightly less, does not necessarily mean that the thing isn’t working, or that you’re not ok, or that something needs to fixed but instead might mean that you’ve taken time to nurture yourself, that priorities have shifted, that you’re busy with your family, or caring for something or someone or yourself, or simply have been outside more and inside less. Numbers cannot be, are not at all, the measure of a full and well lived life.

What I understand to be true is that life can be brutal and hard, and beautiful and tender all at once. That death and aliveness are intertwined and dependent on each other’s gain. That is seems like these ideas compete, but in fact there’s space for both. That sometimes all that we can do is bear witness, say I’m sorry, I know it’s hard. That it’s ok to take your tears to the trees, and the moss and the rivers and the ocean. Maybe the ocean is salty as the way to keep our tears a secret and connect us all the same?

What I understand to be true is that unused creativity becomes energy without productive purpose. That the forces of imagination are the elements of life speaking aloud, arriving in the tiny and the beautiful. That the gentle tapping of a call to do and follow something that you love is an exercise in courage, in thought expressed as color, or words, or hands in the soil, or reins in the hand, or however complicated or simple it may be. It’s worth it and seems important to say strongly and out loud, it’s worth it and so are you.

What I understand to be true is that I hear my heartbeat in hoofbeats. That I find the rhythm of my blood in the movement of four feet. That I have the capacity to fly and still be connected to the ground.

What I understand to be true is if you insist on living in a box that’s too small for you, sooner or later it’s either the box or the body that breaks. That if it’s the body that breaks the box, it can be painful for the mind to catch up. Sometimes we have to allow ourselves the time to breathe more gently, hold our edges more lightly and move out of the way of a process that’s already caught us in its flow.

What I understand to be true is that teaching is a process of exchange, a reciprocal conversation. A weaving of threads. A cycle of renewal and upliftment. That in the process of teaching and of learning, all and both are challenged but not diminished, supported but not suppressed, heard and open to hearing in equal amounts.

What I understand to be true is that wonder is a portal to care. That to share the experience of awe is to multiply it by a thousand. That to walk in delight is a form of activism, especially when expressed, encouraged, and exchanged.

What I understand to be true is that we are designed to sense and feel our way, not think our way, through life. That we aren’t supposed to control, constrict, and contort experience in attempts to keep us safe. That that form of safety is a falsity. That a feeling body is a vital one, that to have a thin skin is to be open to all the measures of beauty that are free to be experienced, the hardships free to be witnessed and transformed and that both are present to declare that we are all owed equal space on hallowed ground.

What I understand to be true is that size is not a sign of might. That the tiny Locust can devastate a land several states wide. That the smallest of Krill is required to sustain the vastness of the ocean. That the Mantis Shrimp, an underwater creature the size of your thumb has the best eyesight on any creature on the planet. That the Water Bear can hold its breath indefinitely, be boiled in water (and survive), is essentially indestructible, all the while quietly going about its business in a body you’ve probably never heard of.

What I understand to be true is that my heart breaks regularly in the battle between economics and the environment. That when we talk about it and say, yes, it always goes like this, that things will change, I understand. But I am sad for what gets lost in the meantime while we finally work it out.

What I understand to be true is that most people wildly, undoubtedly, enthusiastically underestimate their worth. That they tolerate what they shouldn’t, listen to what they needn’t, give energy to the things that keep them stuck.

What I understand to be true is that, sometimes, I want to take people by the shoulder, shake them, and say to them very loudly, do you know how wonderful you are? Please refuse to live in a skin too small that someone else requires you fit into.

What I understand to be true is that the arts are part of what has saved me. That poetry is a portal to another planet, that writing is a way to make sense of my experience and to express that in a tangible form. That to play with pencils and art and colour is not the domain reserved for the young but a practice as essential as breathing, as nourishing as food, as enlivening as cold wind on hot cheeks.

What I understand to be true is that friendship is the bloodline you choose, the seat you always place your bag on to keep free for the person that makes you laugh til you weep, giggle til you snort, ugly cry, except with them they do not see the ugly. The person with the shoulder the shape of the side of your head, the arms just wide enough to hold you in a full embrace as though they were made to measure just big enough to keep you in a swallow.

What I understand to be true is that dogs share a specific form of joy expressed as circular vibration, a show of waggling ripples all the way from top to tail. A whirling dervish of delight that requires only your presence and kind words.

What I understand to be true is that we don’t always get it right. That there really is no right. That sometimes, the best that we can do will be viewed by future versions of ourselves as not ok, but the practice of being kind really is the only end.

What I understand to be true is that sometimes, walking and talking is a softer cure for conversation than face to face speaking will allow. That flowers in the house are always worth the effort. That a kitchen table well used and full of paint and pencils and well-loved books is the right way to use a table, even if it looks slightly messy there at times.

What I understand to be true is that our ancestors whisper their thoughts inside us, and we are all at once the future ancestor of someone whose thoughts we’ll whisper into ears just the same, even long after it’s been forgotten that we ever had a name.

What I understand to be true is that planting trees is always a good idea. That the trees always talk back. Of course, they do.

What I understand to be true is that to have your heart broken and rebroken is normal and to expected. That it’s through the experience of many tiny deaths that we get to know that we’re alive, and we’re ok. That’s it’s a good idea to check in with people and see if they need a hug. That many people feel alone. And maybe we can play with being alone together, so we’re not alone at all.

What I understand to be true is that family is precious. That there’s a specific softness of skin between the hair and the cheeks that’s mine for kissing. That family is made, not born, that it creates its own form of compound interest with regular deposits and is a privilege that requires energy to maintain.

What I understand to be true is that individual freedom is dependent of the freedom of the collective. That there is no mine and not yours, no yours and not mine. That as creatures we are cooperative, that the universe is friendly and to experience anything that sits outside that as an ‘other’ is an aberration to this universal law.

May we all stay true to the essence of our own aliveness.

May we make a daily practice of wonder, of kindness and of care.

May we tread the earth lightly.

May we recognize our privilege and act in service of those who do not have the same.

May your new year be peaceful and happy.

What I understand to be true is that everyone deserves this.

With love,

xx Jane

02/12/2023

I think we all need to read this sometimes.

[Author's note: this is something a little bit different. Someone asked a question on a forum and my answer was, of course, much, much too long for a comment box. So I wrote it here. I thought: that person is not the only one. This is for anyone who has ever felt overwhelmed. Which might be all of us, in the end.]

One of the reasons I love social media is that it connects me with the minds and hearts and lives of strangers. I may catch little glimpses of people I shall never meet, whom I would never otherwise know about, and walk with them for a step or two.


I read a story yesterday which struck a deep note of melancholy within me. I heard so much sadness in it, and I knew that sadness. I once lived in that sadness. A woman was writing about choices. I immediately paid close attention, because I talk to my clients all the time about choices. I think that understanding that we humans have the ability to choose is one of the most liberating discoveries of life. When I was younger, I had no idea that there was a choice - in the stories we tell ourselves, in whether we listen to our gremlins or not, in what we do with our painful emotions. I just thought that I was how I was. I spent much of my life being blown about like a leaf in a tornado.


But for this person, choices did not feel like freedom. They were something which sounded more like a prison. She spoke of those who are ‘neurodivergent, weighed down by trauma, or maybe simply tired.’ (How keenly I heard that ‘tired’.) She said that for those people, it would be very challenging to choose to act in a certain way. She feared that if they reacted in ways which represented a bad choice then there was a moral culpability. She said she was struggling with this, and that it left her with a feeling of self-loathing.


The sentiment that broke my heart was - ‘if we choose to act in horrible or destructive ways then that makes us bad people.’


I wanted to fly across the world to wherever this wounded stranger was and give her a great big hug. I wanted to make her green soup and tell her that she was far, far from a bad person. I wondered, as I felt that urge, whether she would believe me.


Choices sound lovely - and I believe they are lovely - but what if we humans find that we can’t make them? What if the trauma or the tiredness or the old wounds are just too deep? What if we are so battered and exhausted that even getting out of bed in the morning feels too much? What if some person - however brilliant and however kind and however good-hearted - suggests the making of choices and it sounds, to our bruised ear, as if they are telling us to climb Mount Everest in bedroom slippers?


I am often that well-meaning person and I have to walk with extreme care. I am acutely aware that something I have learned to do, over years of practice and habit and effort, is way, way too much for a novice client. It would be like asking a three-year-old filly to do fiendishly complex dressage movements.


So, what do we humans do when even a simple, useful choice seems as distant and terrifying as a Himalayan mountain peak?


I look for the smallest, easiest, least frightening, most readily available first step. I’ll say something like, ‘Forget about the choices. Those are for later.’ I’ll take all the pressure off, because even the most well-meaning suggestions can feel like pressure. I’ll talk, over and over again, of the fact that there is no right or wrong, no good or bad. There is the useful and the non-useful. We can take morality and judgement off the table, because they do us no service here. We’ll start, as I would with that nervous three-year-old filly, with where the person is right now, in this moment.


I’ll start with what they have. Even the most exhausted, wounded human has something, although they might not quite have faith in that fact. It might be the simple desire to find hope. It might be an open heart. It could be the bare fact of being alive - the trauma and tragedies have come, but they are still, somehow, standing. They can think a thought and put a sentence together and eat food. That’s not nothing.


And I’ll go right back to the most foundational starting point, which is safety. I’ve been thinking about safety a lot lately. I’ve been writing about it for one of my groups. I know it in my bones, because it’s what horses want most. They are prey animals, and the need for safety is in their very DNA. It lives, every moment, in their fifty-five million years of evolution. I have started to think that we humans, although a much younger species of mammal, and a complex mixture of predator and prey, have exactly the same need.

When the losses and the griefs and the heartbreaks come, everything in our nervous systems tells us that we are in danger. We brace for threat. Our cortisol and adrenaline rise, our hearts beat faster, our every sense goes into hyper-vigilance. (No wonder we are tired.)


In this state, it’s very hard to access the rational brain. We are truly in survival mode, and we can get stuck in it, and that’s when we often don’t behave in the ways we would like. That’s when choices feel utterly impossible.


So, I begin with safety. Choices can come, down the road, when we are ready.


Safety might start with simply asking ourselves what that word means to us. I’ll get my clients to write it down. I’ll get them to imagine it. If they have memories of ever feeling safe, I’ll suggest that they access that sense memory and give it to their poor, stretched body, in this moment. I’ll offer them a lovely little thought experiment: ‘What if you felt safe? What would that feel like? What would that look like? What is your body telling you when you think of it? What is your terror saying?’


I have to get very imaginative when I do this. There is no strict, structured process. I’ll throw out all kinds of possibilities.


Is there a room in the house which feels like a safe room? Could they go there and allow the feeling of safety to enter them, even only for ninety seconds?


Is there a childhood book they could take down from the shelf and slowly read?


Could they conjure up their own inner child? If she is alarmed and crying, how might they comfort her? (I give my own inner child, who is terrified of abandonment, many hugs, and I’ll cook her something nice to eat, and I’ll take her down to play with the mares.)


Is there anything they could do with their physical selves which would induce a feeling of safety, however fleeting? I sometimes stroke my arm with a rhythmic, consoling hand and I’ll say out loud, ‘You are safe, you are safe, you are safe,’ until my frightened mind can hear that sentence, through all the noise. I often consciously plant my feet on the sturdy Scottish earth and remind myself that this ground under my boots may be relied on, that the turning planet will not fling me off. I will root myself in nature, which is a thing of beauty and safety for me. If I can do this, often and often, then my body starts to understand the feeling of being safe, and begins to trust it.


I let the clients play with those ideas and find the ones that mean something to them. ‘No right or wrong,’ I say, over and over. ‘No homework, no grading, no gold stars. Just you, and what your mind and body and your broken heart need.’


And that might be all we will do, for a while. Because without the sturdy foundation, the house cannot stand.


Choices are beautiful things. They remind us that we have agency. Then we are not those baffled, benighted leaves, hurled about by the hurricanes of life. I’d love everyone to have access to choice - to choose what they do with their wild griefs, their wrenching tears, their flinging joys, their dark imaginings, their brave, bruised hearts. If I could give that to everyone in a box for Christmas, I would. But sometimes we have to back right up. We are all, at some time in our lives, that nervous, trembling filly, who knows nothing and who desperately needs to find her place of safety. So that is where we start, with one small step - literal and figurative - on the ground which will receive us.

25/11/2023

This

Embrace your uniqueness 😊

22/11/2023

Bronze baby is turning a stunning colour. She’s such a sweet and bold girl.

14/11/2023

Bronze Baby is brave and bold. She’ll be lead mare in no time. Such a wonderful addition to the herd. Can’t wait to have them all ‘home’.

14/11/2023

‘There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man’. Churchill

29/10/2023

Had a play with the ponies today. A bit of circling game to start to build their fitness to ride. Bronze baby was the cheer squad. Afterwards I sat in the paddock and chilled with them using the flag to lightly brush the flies from their eyes. Bronze baby laid flat out at my feet and had a deep sleep 😴. This is what I get out of horses… One week in and this sweet yearling trusts me to look out for the lions.

27/10/2023

Happy 3rd birthday 🎂 Lots of scritches for you.

26/10/2023

Words matter.

Let me start by telling you a story of The Other Day. Because The Other Day it was lovely and warm, and the sun teased my skin in a way that made me want to ride in only a T-shirt. Which is of course something I’m forced to declare out loud, to anyone who’ll hear it.

'Look Liz!' I unzipped my jacket, leaving it unwanted and abandoned on the fence. 'I'M ONLY WEARING A TSHIRT!'

Because Liz knows me, she understands this to be a Big Deal. That’s she’s witnessing Something Important. It MUST be warm, I imagine her thinking to herself, if Jane is only in a T-shirt.

She smiles and nods appreciatively. No doubt she’s suitably impressed.

Today, however is not The Other Day. If you had told us The Other Day that today it would be raining with snow to 200 meters, we would have said, this is impossible, untrue. Not only because we (I) are never quite sure what hundred-meter mark we live on (although looking directly at the sea from my window does give me some hints) but because it was very clear The Other Day that we now lived on a kind of Lord of The Rings version of Ibiza, at least from a meteorological perspective.

And also, I was in a T-shirt. Which tells you everything you need to know.

Anyway, My Liz, as she is formally known, has recently returned from Africa, where she has been adventuring with her rather intrepid and quite fantastic family. I’m very glad to have My Liz home.

'It’s true what you said', she mentioned as we were crooning over Merc, talking about restarting playing with her horses. 'The ponies haven’t forgotten anything!'

'They are very smart,' I returned. A lesson I had been grateful to learn many times.

These last couple of months, my ponies have had more time off than on. With a work schedule that’s seen me travelling regularly overseas, they’ve put new meaning to the term “wintering”, going to great lengths to make it their own. They even had some meetings about starting their own reality TV show, Horse vs Wild, in a similar format to Bear Grylls.

Production was halted on my return, and without wanting to be a killjoy, I told them it was very difficult to get funding.

In particular, I’d been reluctant to leave Merc. Just prior to him having a little break, we started to get a few trot strides that felt they had panache. A big deal for us. Where his body was free and forward, his trotters hovering for a half a second or so above the ground. We were almost ready the Patchy-Pony-Slightly-Heavier-Horse-Olympics, and I, for one, was here for it.

'Merc!' I had shrilly cried out in delight. 'You are so, so clever!'

It had been 18 months of work, and I could see some shiny glimmers of goodness. I wasn’t sure what the start point would be with a couple of months off, how long it might take to return. To my joy, our trot was still there. And it appears, I found out, we also had more balance in the canter. Rest can be magical like that.

'Look!' I yell to My Liz as I’m cantering around this arena. 'I think this is the best canter we’ve ever had!! WE’RE ALMOST READY TO BE ARWEN!”' I keep going. “DID I TELL YOU THAT I GOT A BOW AND ARROW FOR MY BIRTHDAY? I WANT TO DO MOUNTED ARCHERY!'

I share this with you not only to tell you of my secret dreams of being a bow and arrow shooting Arwen, but also because I am an Enthusiastic Celebrator of The Little Things (which, incidentally, are never really that little). Lightness of feet, I believe, can only exist in combination with lightness of spirit. I tell my horses all-the-day that they are clever and brilliant and gorgeous. That I want to be Arwen from LOTR. That this whole thing we're doing together is and should be fun.

All of which is true.

It's so easy to make the our riding experiences heavy. To pick apart what isn't working, over analyse what is. Every now and then, when I step outside my bubble I hear someone refer to their horse as stupid or an idiot. And a part of me feels injured. I carry with me a naivety that is genuinely shocked.

I'm a firm believer that beauty in action begins with beauty in word. That our inner life is one created through language. Our words are holograms we step into, potentials of lived experience created ahead of time. Possibilities we sing into existence.

To refer to our horses, and ourselves, in a way that is degrading is insulting to the spirit, both ours and theirs. Sometimes we do so thoughtlessly, but we should never do so intentionally.

Clever and brilliant and gorgeous. The start point and the end point, no matter what it is that happens in between.

Onwards.

❤️ Jane

This is a photo from The Other Day of Liz and Merc. Vogue cover models, the pair of them. I couldn't love them more.

26/10/2023

Welcome to Bronze. Integration into the herd is complete. I introduced her to Yukon first in the yard which was going great, as he’s been ‘uncle’ to many before. Then I brought Rain over and she squealed hello which made Yukon think the newcomer must be a c**t (she’s a filly!) and chase her like a banshee! So changed tact and put Bronze in an adjoining paddock next to them for 24 hours. Next step was to put Yukon in the adjoining paddock and put Bronze in with Rain, which worked well as she only hunted her a little to establish boundaries. Yukon was not pleased and called out for them for a few days and when I got back after the weekend I lead him in the paddock with his two ladies. I walked around with him online and guided his behaviour towards Bronze. After about an hour everyone worked out who was allowed how close to who. I let him offline and just wandered around with them as a herd. Bronze is now herd member three and today I watched her and Rain mutually grooming each other. Took it slow and provided some guidance and everyone is happy. My little dun Scottish Highland Pony x will hopefully make a cracking trekking pony one day!

21/10/2023

Ripple has sold to a lovely home in Victoria. I couldn’t be happier with the result of investing in her future so she had the best chance of having a great home. Huge thank you to Eagleview Equine and Castello for putting in the miles.

19/10/2023

This

The reason why some behaviourists and clicker trainers dislike me, is because the research and practices I employ, sometimes contradicts the behaviourist framework.

In layman's terms, I tend to irritate or anger traditional trainers who use R+ or food reward, because it has not been my experience or research that pressure is always aversive to a horse.

There is the understanding in modern horse training circles, that we need to move away from training techniques which cause horse discomfort, fear or confusion. Positive Reinforcement, means "Additive" Reinforcement, not "Morally Superior and Ethically Better" Reinforcement. That is not my opinion, but a fact based plainly on the research.

But because the research is rarely understood properly by the masses, too many R+ trainers and businesses hijack the word positive and don't seek to adequately correct their communities misunderstanding the R+ means "additive" not "better" allowing, perhaps conveniently, for their clientele to believe that they are automatically making a emotionally positive choice for their horse. Of course R+ can be. But it is not a guarantee that it will.

I own a clicker. I use food reward in every single training. I promote it use responsibly and correctly. But I would never advocate it as inherently superior.

I have been in situations where I have had to rehabilitate former R+ horses who showed similar or worse symptoms of trauma as horses who had been abused by heavy pressure based training or R- training.

R+ and P- are two sides of the same coin. Just as R- and P+ are two sides of the same coin. Yin and Yang.

And Operant Conditioning is just one, of the dozens of ways learning can occur.

Learning can be an internal experience not mediated by external reinforcement factors. Learning can be social, emotional and self reinforcing. E.G. Constructivism Learning Theory, Social Learning Theory and Affective Neuroscience. No, there is not enough research done on these theories as relates to horses. But the lack of research does not mean lack of reality. And science is drastically under funded and under motivated around horses, considering that the number 1 and number 2 causes of death in horses are both preventable diseases where science has given us solutions, yet we are still not adopting them. How can we expect more advanced research if as a community we are still not adapting and adopting old research such as Operant Conditioning? So the argument that "there is no science on XYZ" is absolutely baseless.

The best science around is the multi-generational human and horse experiment called horsemanship. It meets all the targets of an experiment and data points required to create strong hypothesis and confident statements of truth. Multiple researches in controlled conditions, not motivated by economic means, in different countries, climates and with different breeds of horses, for hundreds of years have repeated certain experiments and gained consistant results from millions of horses and continue to try and teach these. I do not subscribe to the belief that old school training was always rough and hard on horses.

What happens, when your touch, becomes something the horse likes, enjoys and finds value in? R+ tried to rebrand pressure as Tactile Cues, and I think this was an important step. Because the word pressure carries a projection. But what if we let go of our projections?

Let go of projecting abuse onto pressure
Let go of projecting ethics onto a clicker
Let go of projecting emotional intelligence on 80 year old research that didn't believe in emotions

What if we looked just at the facts, and the horses understanding?

A horse CAN find your touch a good experience, positive for them emotionally. They just can.

But you are going to have to train it. Turns out, it is most likely a learned skill. And I do not mean the touch that itches just scratchy spots. I mean the touch that informs, guides, instructs, leads, flexes, holds, frees and communicates. All different qualities of pressure.

Old timers called it Feel.

I guess so do I. But I try to bring some super modern research onto it.

14/10/2023

My lovely Ripple is ready for her new home.

13/10/2023

This

29/09/2023

Artistic vibes

29/09/2023

Some more of my digital art. I think some of these might make the wall. Loving the colours.

29/09/2023

Some days it’s a struggle to move forward. This greeting always makes it better, especially when our interactions for the last month have been treating a hind leg wound. She’s such a loving girl. Rain. Yukon was less impressed as the gift I brought out for him today was a new grazing muzzle 🦛 🐴 💕

28/09/2023

Ripple is progressing so well with her training. Waiting until she was 5 to start her under saddle has been a great decision. She’s had 6 weeks with a great horseman at Eagleview Equine who did a brilliant start and foundation, and plenty of miles. Now, after a month off to absorb, she’s been brought along by a more traditional but lovely gentle trainer at Castello Park Equestrian. Such a great investment in her having a successful life. She will go on the market in a few weeks.

23/07/2023

Rain starts the long and patient journey of being my next ridden horse.

19/07/2023

Pony pamper week, pedicure, dental, brush. Life is better when the suns out.