Yoga and Horses

September, 2019

Driving up the hill to the barn, I could see our farrier’s truck and trailer parked at the barn door.  Oh good, I always like to talk to Larry, a true horseman who serves horses every day not only by taking care of their feet.  My horse is always happy and restored after getting his feet done due to the positive interaction with our farrier.  Four shoes removed, four feet trimmed and balanced, four shoes nailed back on takes about an hour.

On this day, another horse living at our barn is on the cross ties in the middle of his shoeing session.  As I stand next to him greeting the farrier, Hugo leans into me.  He’s a smaller bay Thoroughbred, all brown with black mane and socks.  I start to pat him down and he leans more.  I move up to his left neck, working my way back to his rump.  Short summer hair comes out under my hand, making way for the winter growth coming in.  Larry stands there talking with me, the shoeing on hiatus.

The humans keep talking and Hugo licks and chews, a sure sign of equine peace and satisfaction.  He wiggles his upper lip, flapping it rapidly back and forth, a more unique expression to this horse.  I find myself on his opposite side, starting again at the neck and working back.  Larry fills in some of the backstory for this horse as we chat.  He raced in Canada and still has a lip tattoo and race record to show for it.  Then he went on to have a successful show career.   That’s a lot of accomplishment for any  horse.

When I arrive at the right side of Hugo’s tail end, Larry steps back in to complete the shoeing.  Turns out he has been waiting for this process of rubbing down to complete, recognizing and respecting that something good has been happening.  Later he comments to me that some riders spend lots of time at the barn without even saying hello to their horse much less grooming.  We agree that grooming and interacting with our horses is the best part, even better and more important than riding itself.

June, 2011

Over a year ago, many months after losing my horse I showed up at the barn again.  Out in the paddock where Chandler used to enjoy  flirting with his chestnut girlfriend Tess, where I had come upon him gazing at the full moon on a summer night, a dark mare called Shirley breathed on my face.  It was time to begin again.  Shirley got me back.  She took care of me as I regained my balance.  She cantered steady and stayed calm over crossrails.  Life around horses could go on, but still I never forgot.

Early this spring I met a larger mare, the warmblood Valencia.  She was known as standoffish but she let me rub her face.  One night walking her out I found myself asking her, or perhaps she was asking me, would you like to go along together for a while?  Sensing her just behind me as we padded around the dark ring I got to feel again this curious interaction.  She was a lot of fun to ride.  Willing to go, easy to stop, capable of floating big.  I would have stayed with her longer but wouldn’t stop her from finding a good home, which she did.  I am glad of our time together. Both of us left the farm at the same time, Vali to her new family and me on a two week trip across country.

When I came back little Rolan the bay thoroughbred gelding I helped to start last spring was recovering from colic.  It didn’t kill him but it came close.  He needed the adhesive cut out of his mane and the sterilizing cleanser on the shaved part of his neck cleaned up.  I wasn’t at the hospital with him but I knew evidence of an IV line having been at another hospital with a different horse for similar reasons.  Now Rolan needed to be walked outside and allowed to graze in little bites.  He needed the sticky cleared off his rear from the rectal exams.  No one had to explain this to me.  I already knew.

Now this little guy who never raced, sound and fancy, already nine years old and beautifully trained, a squiggly white line on his face and two rear socks, is up for adoption.  One day he’ll go from this life. We have a plan, even if its winter.  Meanwhile maybe we’ll journey along together for while.  He lets me hold his head in my arms.  He gets to live in a gorgeous field with yummy grass, friends to nibble, an open shed to shelter from the heat and rain.  Why not?

August, 2010

A year ago, Chandler and I  were at the vets again but surgery was not an option.  After having enjoyed an incredible year of rehab, trail rides through woods and fields, and a wonderful little horse show where he was a gentleman and we were together, dear Chandler got sick again.  This time he didn’t make it.

Now it has been a year since he passed away.  He is still so close to my heart.  Sometimes its hard to understand how close we get with our animal friends, but there is such love.  His passing was so full, so intimate, such a dance of listening in to him, following him, stepping up for him, being there for all of it.  It opened me to so much more of life, which includes the release from this body into timeless connection.  And simultaneously the furthering of each being on their journey, expanding into new possibilities and growth.

This past year has been a time of allowing grieving, deepening into the sacred outrageous losses that are included in life, and also a renewal of connection.  One mare breathed me back to life, in the very spot I wrote of below, the place of moon gazing with Chandler.

I’ve been so fortunate to be slowly guided into new relationships with different horses.  Although I might forget at times, I move into these experiences as an initiate into the closeness that is possible with a horse.  Now a horse comes into my life and moves away and I am so grateful for the moments together.  There is so much more to learn.  And if I can sometimes give even a little back, maybe without even knowing it,  its an honor to allow whatever this is to move through me.

August, 2008

These days my horse Chandler’s deep brown eyes are glowing.  Have you ever noticed this in another person, or in your own eyes as you look in a mirror?  It’s your spirit showing through, usually after you have connected deeply with your own heart, and perhaps with the depths of being unveiled in another.  It’s summer now, but sometimes in the winter the furry four leggeds on the farm need to stay indoors, out of the New England blizzards.  That’s when I might notice a dull glaze in their eyes, until they get to come out into the sun and air again.

Twelve weeks ago my horse underwent abdominal surgery to save his life, and came out the other side into the warm night air under the stars and pranced. Ten weeks later the vet pointed out a small hernia along the incision site, nothing protruding through but something to keep an eye on and give more time to heal.  I was worried about it and woke up in the night.  I reached out my mind to make contact with the horse, and feeling he was just fine my body would take a deep breath, recognizing truth and ease.  Then he seemed very quiet.  Still unable to sleep I made the drive to the farm, heading uphill along the long drive under a full moon over rolling hills.

He acknowleged my presence with a touch of his nose, but really he was in horse time.  What was a human doing there?  There was no place for language in the moon glow as he and the others gazed out over the vista.  This morning I sat down to meditate, and the thought arose:  If he can be sustained by the moonbeams so that they shine through his eyes so can I and so can we all.