Author Archives: Paula Josa-Jones

Aug9

Nelson time

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I haven’t seen Nelson for over a month.  Today, I got to spend some delicious time with him.  When I got out of the car and called to him, his ears went up and he stood at the fence, waiting.  It felt like no time had passed – that we had seen each other just yesterday.  We mostly hung out in his stall, away from the flies and out of the sun.

I got to thinking about time, and wondering about how Nelson experiences time.  I thought about Jon Katz’s book Rose in a Storm, and how he describes Rose as seeing her world in maps.  I wonder if time is also a map and if for Nelson, when I am not there, I am just not in his time map.  Is there is a piece missing, or if when i do appear, then maybe the map – both space and time – has an overlay of me for an hour or so.

I have written a lot about horse time, but usually what I mean that they are not clock watching, or ticking off the minutes until the next thing happens.  It is more seamless, I suspect, more like an inner canopy of sky-spaciousness.  I wonder about experiencing time-space as vast and unmeasured.

I have had glimpses of that in meditation, but I imagine that the animal experience is even more unfettered than that.

What do you think (feel)?

 

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Aug9

warning signs

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I am slightly embarrassed to admit that I went to see Magic Mike (the movie) last  night.  It is about male strippers.  I have to confess that I would do almost anything to see Channing Tatum dance.  He is a force. We decided to think of it as Bimala’s bachelorette party (also embarrassing).  The Gilson Theater in Winsted serves food which made it a party.  Then I stayed up way too late watching the Olympics.

This morning as I was trying to surface from sleep, I dreamt/thought that my cat, Ivy, was peeing in the bed.  As it turned out, it was not a dream.  It is the third time this week, but we had suspected Precious, not Ivy.  If I had heeded the warning sign – that half-asleep, dozing thought, -I could probably have avoided washing my bedding for the third time this week.

Then I went out to pull some weeds.  A white-faced hornet was buzzing around me near the water spigot, but I ignored him and he stung me in the ankle.  I am pretty allergic and had a major histamine reaction — itchy, swelling, a big whole body response.  No epi pen, but close.  Ankle now ballooned out like a bad sprain.  If I had paid attention to his buzzing around me, I could probably have avoided that event too.

So this morning has me thinking about warning signs, and how good I seem to be at ignoring them, and why.  Stress will do it, I think.  It shuts down my awareness of what is flickering round the periphery because I am so hyperfocused on/peoccupied with a task.

I am more attuned to the warning signs with horses.  The ears prick, head goes up, and there is a little surge of muscle under me if I am riding, or beside me if I am on the ground.  I know better than to just plow ahead with a horse. Stop, pay attention, act accordingly.

Lessons learned, I hope.

Aug6

helping horses, helping humans

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I love working with horses and their humans.  Most of what goes wrong with horse and their humans is not in the saddle.  It happens on the ground.  it happens in the stall.  It happens on the way from one place to another.  A lot of it has nothing to do with the horse at all.  It has to do with things that are older and deeper that make their way into the relationship with the horse.  It is rarely intentional or malicious.  It often has to do with a lack of awareness, or regard, or attention or understanding.

Most often what I do starts with movement observation.  I watch how the person moves around the horse, how the horse responds to them, to its environment, to the various parts of tacking up, leading, riding.  I watch.  And then bit by bit, I start to decode the dance.  What is working?  What is confusing?  What is missing?

Much of what I do has to do with bringing both horse and human more fully into their bodies, and then more fully into connection with each other.  That makes for a better relationship.  And usually it makes for a better ride.  Happier horse, happier human.  I love that.

If you want help, you can contact me here.

Aug5

tender

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We (my family) are all feeling tender, but having trouble being tender.  Not a good combination.  Compounded and complicated by a wicked Mercury retrograde.

Yesterday my daughter and I sparked, flamed.  Both of us got scorched.  Tender.  Today the baby kicked for the first time.  Another tender moment.

There is this:  touching over and over the tender edges of my relationship with my daughter, I am learning something new.  About letting go.  About acceptance, about the necessity of an open heart and hand.

Some days I do not want to have such a big learning curve.  I want it to be finished, this painful growing, these tender, ouchy moments.  Other days I am glad to be challenged, glad to find new ways to come back into alignment, to be like an anemone, snatching its arms back in, then blooming out into love again and again.