And I don’t necessarily mean on a cushion.  I have a practice of looking for moments of intentional stillness.  They can be of varying duration – some momentary, others longer.  One way might be to pause feeling all the fluids in my cells settling and returning home.  Another is to look up and widen my vision peripherally and multi-dimensionally.  Another is to close my eyes and listen deeply for a few moments.  Another is to feel a yielding, deepening contact with whatever parts of my body are touching a surface (chair, keyboard, bed).  I do that until any urgency to change or shift, any impatience or mental busyness is gone.  Then begin again.

With the horses, I find this intentional pausing to be especially delicious.  The weather has been extraordinary in the Hudson Valley — warm days wrapped in light and color.  Before “working” I walk out into the woods on my horse, the two of us taking in all of it.  Sometimes we just stop and stand.  I like to do this until I can feel our shared breathing, feel the inside of me softening to meet the inside of him.  Feeling our skins and all of the moving layers of our bodies within.  During the “working” time, I intentionally pause as well.  I find it helps me to unhinge from any sense of pushing, forcing, bracing or hardening in my body.  I practice being two bodies together, rather than a driver and a vehicle, or one who knows and one who must do.

I recently watched a video of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen teaching, and she talked about how when we touch another person, the cells of that part of the body – our hand and whatever part of the body we are touching – migrate to that place.  That is where we join in feeling and intention.  On a horse, any horse, that cellular harmonizing is what I am seeking.  Then I know that I am sitting.