09/11/2025
This is amazing!
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1KDfjwh3nT/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Lately it feels like things are closing in.
Our farm used to be miles away from the city. Now residential homes and a new school are 700 meters from our fence line. My parents are getting older. A few special horses had to leave sooner than my heart was ready for. Emotions that used to float now seem to sink straight to the bottom.
It’s strange, getting older. The world that once felt wide and endless slowly narrows. Responsibilities grow. Silence thins. Loss becomes a more familiar visitor than I ever agreed to.
And somehow, I keep thinking about dressage.
Because what getting older feels like to me…
is exactly what we ask of our horses as they become more trained.
Their world, too, closes in.
But in a refining way.
The big, loose, sprawling gaits of youth become gathered, intentional, distilled. We ask them to take all that freedom and organize it. To compress power without losing softness. To collect, to carry more weight without losing spirit. To become more by using less.
That is what life is asking of us, isn’t it?
To stay supple while our surroundings compress.
To keep our hearts forward while the world narrows.
To hold more weight with more grace.
To find balance inside smaller spaces.
But if done right, a well-trained horse doesn’t feel trapped in collection, it feels powerful, supported, and ready.
And maybe a well-lived life is the same.
Maybe the closing-in is simply the beginning of a different kind of strength.
Maybe it’s the moment we learn to elevate.
Maybe the narrowing isn’t a negative, maybe it’s refinement.
Maybe it’s strength gathering at the center.
Maybe it’s our chance to discover that we can still lift, still soften, still carry.
Dressage isn’t the antidote to life closing in.
It’s the companion that teaches us how to stay open as it happens.
And in that way, yes, dressage is absolutely a metaphor for life.
Both ask for the same thing:
When the world closes in, don’t shrink.
Stay supple. And rise.
