Category Archives: horses, dogs & more

Dec23

softness inside, softness outside

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Today was a strangely, deliciously balmy December day in the Hudson Valley.  I went to see Nelson (the formerly wild Mustang) with some holiday carrots. He was very cuddly from the beginning, seeming to echo the softness and quiet of the day. Have I mentioned that I love this horse?

I have been asking him to move around me in a small circle, while staying calm and responding to the “go” signal from my hand and the “whoa” signal from my movement and my voice.  Today he was flawless when circling to the right, still uncertain to the left.

So I played with that by asking him to stay with the hard side, to keep trying.  And here’s the lovely part:  he allowed me to improvise more freely with changes of direction and with different kinds of cues than ever before.  My hand, my body, the lead rope, the wand, nothing seemed to really phase him.  It was as if there had been a quantum shift in his tolerance for new information – his ability to take it in without being frightened.

Even after I opened the gate of his catch pen out into the six-acre field, he stayed with me – no halter, no lead rope – moving smoothly around me to the right, and doing his best in the other direction. No running off, no spooking.  He wanted to continue the dance.

Everything about my work with Nelson during the past eight months has been an improvisation.  But the movement vocabulary was very small, very careful.  Now, our language is suddenly expanding:  new options, different choices, greater flexibility. A reservoir of trust. This new softness is deepening, penetrating, lasting from week-to-week.

This expanding relationship reminds me of the comparison of meditating to dipping a cloth into dye. For the first 100 times, the color will rinse away, but slowly, surely, the color starts to take and deepen.

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Dec18

riding, dancing

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Photo:  Claire Glover;  Brandi Rivera riding Amadeo

Riding is the hardest thing that I do.  Physically.  Mentally.  Spiritually.

I am a dancer.  Riding is harder.  The intricacy, the communication, the balance, the nuance, the subtlety required in the riding arena are beyond anything I have experienced in a dance studio.  Martha Graham said that it takes ten years to make a dancer.  One of my first trainers, Beach Bennett, said that it takes at least two lifetimes to become a rider. She is right.

I have had to accept that despite my physical skills, my training and my understanding, I am going to need that second lifetime to become all that I want as a rider.  It is humbling. I welcome it.

I wrote yesterday about touching horses, and the way that brings me to my knees.  How I love it.  Riding is that way too.  Sitting in the saddle (my zafu) and finding the first rhythmic harmonics with my horse’s walk is like breathing. Or like stepping into the water, readying for a swim.  Being challenged to seek harmony, softness, clarity and balance throughout a riding lesson is like sitting with a tough Zen master.  Or like my yoga classes with Patricia Walden.  No tuning out, not ever, not for a moment.

The horse, you see, deserves nothing less than my very best.

Rigor and ecstasy.  Could there be anything better?

Dec17

touching horses

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Today as I was brushing out the second tail of the day, after soaking Capprichio’s abscessed foot, and grooming Amadeo, I suddenly looked up and wondered, why do I love this?  Why do I love touching horses?  I was holding the tip of Deo’s tail, and looking at his very fuzzy hamstrings with their winter wisps of long hair.  Why do I love this?  Why is it that the acts of touching, massaging, brushing, picking out feet, stroking the face never get old.  Why is it that a day without those movements is not complete?

I honestly do not know.

My birth chart has absolutely no earth in it.  I am all air, fire and water.  Maybe the deep groundedness of the horses gives a balance to my energetic constitution.  Or I just love them in this deep helpless way.  They take my breath away.  They are happy to see me.  They express that in many ways.  They nuzzle me, they lay their noses on my cheek and ask me to stand there and breathe.  They appreciate my touching.  There is something in the ritual, the connection, the meditative quality of those movements and those moments spent together that soothes me to the bone.  To the soul.

As I said, though, I really don’t know.

(Asked and answered . . . )

ps.  I re-enabled comments on the blog.  My thought of the moment is why cut off conversation anywhere?  (Thank you Nicole),

Dec17

the quiet eye

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Today my horse Capprichio has an abscess in his hoof.  It is very painful, and hard to watch him stand on three legs, lifting the sore hoof, limping badly as he moves from one place to another. An abscess can happen when a nail from the shoe is poorly seated.  We pulled the shoe, poulticed the hoof, and he will feel better soon.

Capprichio’s eyes, even in pain, are steady and clear.  Soft, even.  He does not look worried  He is not making something out of this.  I think it is because he is not focused on the pain.  He feels it, no doubt, but it is not his chief preoccupation and distraction.  He is enjoying his hay, the December air and the view from his stall.  That and the pear that I brought him today.  Another lesson.