A couple days ago I asked how you dance with chaos. This is my answer.
When I am in horse time, I find a way out of the chop and current of chaos and into calmer waters. When I am with a horse, and especially this one, the lovely Mustang Nelson, I can’t be anywhere else. He will know. And so will I.
Horse time is a good metaphor for breathing time, for feeling your feet on the ground, noticing where your spine is and spreading yourself into the fullness of the moment.
What is your horse time?
photo: Pam White
Today I am interested in the intersection between order and chaos, and in the way one spills into the other. With horses and children we do not want chaos. We want things to be ordered, for safety – theirs and ours. When things tip into chaos, suddenly we are falling forward, trying to stay one step ahead of disaster. We make plans about how to keep chaos at bay, how to protect ourselves from its ravages.
Several years I ago moved my horse Deo to a new farm. I took him for a walk, wanting him to see the new place. I could feel him sparking and getting very fired up and “on the muscle” at the end of my lead rope. I could feel chaos blooming at the other end of a short rope. Suddenly he startled, spun and kicked out – leg fully extending for maximum impact, his steel shoe catching me on the thigh. I went down, still holding the rope. Somehow I stood up and staggered into the barn, where someone took him and I collapsed. Miraculously, nothing broken, but a big horseshoe shaped bruise and a softball sized swelling laid me up for days.
That was lightening bolt chaos – sudden, unexpected, disastrous. Another chaos is like the tattered webs, an order falling into chaos – gradual disintegration, a loosening of the form.
How do you experience chaos in your day? How do you dance with it?