I am rarely perplexed by my horses any more. I don’t often have to wonder for long as to what they are thinking or planning on doing. I used to ponder them wistfully for hours; visions of childhood Black Stalions and Black Beauties pranced through my head, giving me a shaky foundation upon which to build a relationship with a horse. These perceptions of horses as well disguised humans who thought and emoted like us pervaded my early horse training. Every fault or error or injury I incurred on a horse I took ”personally”. Allot of us suffer with horses in this way; it’s an illusion.
How often have I heard… “My Horse doesn’t like me“…ugh. How many times do I have to say it people…please.
Horses don’t think that way. It’s too simple. That’s the way HUMANS think.
The most important lesson we can emulate to our children is a basic love for the earth and the life on it. On this, many of us agree. They will have an incredibly heavy load to carry in the next few generations and we are obliged to show them the importance of their actions. I know this is right every time I am re-amazed by the incredible sentience of any animal, I am really reminded that God, or whatever you believe, lives absolutely everywhere and if we keep behaving as if we are seperate from It, it is evident that we are going to create further disaster for ourselves and our children. I know this sounds dramatic but we seem to be at the point that everyone needs to be looking for better solutions. You just have to keep an open mind.
So, the beginning of my relationship with horses was tentative and fearful and entirely based on fiction. But I have had many years experiences that have shown me that “reality” with horses is far more fruitful and magical than even my imagination or those books could ever have conceived of. Therefore, although my horses and I are pretty accustomed to each other, we never entirely take each other for granted. Their behaviour is as much inside me as mine probably is understood by them. The Divine energy that sees fit to intercede on my behalf reminds me of the benefits of humility. We can all get to a place where we think we can stop learning something that we may know a great deal about and coast on our previo9us merits. But life, as I am discovering, doesn’t ever coast. It is in constant motion and trying to stop it is like trying to stop the ocean with a spoon. The minute I learn one thing with my horses, I am inevitably propelled towards something else.
HERE’S THE THING…
I was caught completely off guard tonight when Otis walked up to me while I was trying to blanket him and began for the next ten minutes to do the strangest thing I have ever seen a horse or any animal do. At first he refused to stand still (strange) insisting upon standing directly in front of me and not beside me as usual. Then he began to lick my left arm up around my shoulder in a strange and rhythmic and insistent way; as if he was super focused. First I hasve never seen an animal do anything so utterly concentrated for so long, unless they were really neurotic which Otis isn’t. Second, I have never had this kind of experience with a horse and it was abit unnerving to tell you the truth. Horses who have thoughtfully licked me in the past have often come back with their teeth, and so I must admit I was on the edge for a moment or two, but his eyes were half closed and he looked so happy; this couldn’t possibly end badly I told myself. Even a massive trailer suddenly bouncing on the road behind him did not deter him. To tell you the truth, I was beginning to wonder after the first 5 minutes if he had lost his mind. He looked high. I concealed my nerves well enough because Otis’ strange licking went on, and on, and on….thoroughly soaking my grey flannel hoodie in horse spit. It was pretty disgusting actually.
At some point though well past 8 minutes, he stopped, and moversd I just laughed and walked away wondering what in the hell that was about?
Maybe he could smell Mac on me, from who’s pen I had just come. Mac has a tumour in his eye and so maybe Otis recognized the scent of illness and sought to do something with it, but what? Was he trying to make my arm feel better? Does he sense my own inner distress at the personal events in my family right now? I have read about those animals that have strange healing powers and can detect illness in their owners. I can’t say if I would ever be really prepared to entertain such a possibility, but I have to say stranger things have happened in the past few years, so I’ll leave it up to my horses once again, to keep the world a mystery to me.
Happy Halloween
Boo! 
Josee