I suspect many of us humans muse away many hours each week, and many weeks each year and then many years of our lives thinking, hoping, worrying about what we will become!
What's wrong with this? Plenty!
It takes us away from a focus on how we want to live! We get so caught up in what we will do, achieve and "be" that we don't live now, today, here and in the present. This is so different in approach from our horses' way of life, one lacking in any need to plan or aspire - just live!
We can all get caught up in the rat race of achieving, especially when we take on a sport such as riding. I hear people talk about my horses in the context of what they could achieve or should have achieved!
As an example, Solar Sue has spent her life playing polo. She was a high goal playing pony ie. damned good and with the softest of mouths! When I retired her and began a little local dressage competing, I would hear people say 'she has lovely movement what a waste she spent her career in polo'. What a judgement!
Then there is Grace - a stunning, 17.1 hh (ish) warmblood, bred by the Dutch Vet to the Dutch Dressage team, specifically for a dressage career. Then I rocked up, met her, bought her and her promising dressage career, with BD points already in the bag by 6 years of age, came to a grinding halt!
What's wrong with this? Plenty!
It takes us away from a focus on how we want to live! We get so caught up in what we will do, achieve and "be" that we don't live now, today, here and in the present. This is so different in approach from our horses' way of life, one lacking in any need to plan or aspire - just live!
We can all get caught up in the rat race of achieving, especially when we take on a sport such as riding. I hear people talk about my horses in the context of what they could achieve or should have achieved!
As an example, Solar Sue has spent her life playing polo. She was a high goal playing pony ie. damned good and with the softest of mouths! When I retired her and began a little local dressage competing, I would hear people say 'she has lovely movement what a waste she spent her career in polo'. What a judgement!
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| Solar Sue's Dressage outings in the New Forest |
Then there is Grace - a stunning, 17.1 hh (ish) warmblood, bred by the Dutch Vet to the Dutch Dressage team, specifically for a dressage career. Then I rocked up, met her, bought her and her promising dressage career, with BD points already in the bag by 6 years of age, came to a grinding halt!
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| Grace grazing, living out 24 x 7 |
Has Solar 'wasted' her life? Has Grace failed to reach her potential?
I have wrestled many times with these thoughts. Then a little voice in my head reminds me that "they are horses - do you really think they have career plans, career goals and career aspirations?" Put like that it does sound somewhat crazy to humanise our own 'achievement obsession' onto our horses!
In the case of Grace and Solar, I believe from my own observations that they live for today, in the moment, very much focused on now. This shows up in the way they express their individual needs for food, space, to be scratched, NOT to be ridden, in no mood for change etc.
Can we humans achieve enlightenment? How would this sense of "homecoming" feel to us?
It must be similar to being "comfortable in your skin". It must be based in knowing yourself and being accepting of yourself and your situation, moment by moment, such that there is no need to strive for anything else or betyer - beyond the current moment.
When we think of striving and achieving I look at a horse and I see their main achievement staring us right in our face! They stand with their heads down. They walk and graze and sleep with their heads down. They are 'downward looking' beings. In contrast we 'busy bee' humans tend to look up; we are 'heavenward looking'. We walk aggressively, we de-value our planet - after all heaven isn't here it is up there and up there is where we aspire to end our days!
I may be stretching things a little here but I fundamentally believe that we have so much to learn about how to be our fullest self, from watching our horses and their nature.
The spirit of the horse is without agenda, ego, aspiration or grudges. Only in the hands of humans do we see a horse's spirit and fullest self shut down, become aggressive, or fearful. Equally, it is under our influence that we see them adorned with rosettes and bling and glitz of success! Bottom line however is that if left to their own devices the horse remains true to his spirit and instinct regardless of achievements which no doubt wouldn't feature in their 'daily to do list'!
What if we too could be left to our own devices? Free to find our true spirit and instinct? We would be free from gender, culture and age related expectations and obligations. Could our role as working, married, child raising adults be filled with joy and simplicity instead of strife and complexity? One thing is for sure - currently we get so lost in looking upwards, so caught up in thinking about our future that many of us miss out on today! Our horses do not!
Horses remain focused on today - I don't care how talented they are, or what discipline they are trained to perform in. The nature of the horse is not by instinct - achievement bound. That is our domain.
Fortunately we can change. I am changing. Slowly. Our horses change and adapt to oblige us with our whims and goals, so it is foolish and rude, to think we don't need to do a little adapting along the way too.
For me, the biggest change in myself in the last 2 years has been the sudden loss of Goals and ambition. Maybe it is age or energy related? I don't think so. Career and life goals simply feel less relevant and a bit silly! Oops ... now I am wondering if that's how we make our horses feel?
Another topic for another day!
I have wrestled many times with these thoughts. Then a little voice in my head reminds me that "they are horses - do you really think they have career plans, career goals and career aspirations?" Put like that it does sound somewhat crazy to humanise our own 'achievement obsession' onto our horses!
In the case of Grace and Solar, I believe from my own observations that they live for today, in the moment, very much focused on now. This shows up in the way they express their individual needs for food, space, to be scratched, NOT to be ridden, in no mood for change etc.
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| Grace enjoying space even from her best field buddy |
Spiritual gurus say that enlightenment is not an achievement, it's more like a 'homecoming'.
I have come to think that one of the big attractions for humans withhorses is in being around this very purity that they offer by being in the "now" and being true to their nature, and needs. Such purity is comforting. It is honest and welcoming. It may seem to some like a form of enlightenment.
Can we humans achieve enlightenment? How would this sense of "homecoming" feel to us?
It must be similar to being "comfortable in your skin". It must be based in knowing yourself and being accepting of yourself and your situation, moment by moment, such that there is no need to strive for anything else or betyer - beyond the current moment.
When we think of striving and achieving I look at a horse and I see their main achievement staring us right in our face! They stand with their heads down. They walk and graze and sleep with their heads down. They are 'downward looking' beings. In contrast we 'busy bee' humans tend to look up; we are 'heavenward looking'. We walk aggressively, we de-value our planet - after all heaven isn't here it is up there and up there is where we aspire to end our days!
Striving ruins our ability to see what we have today!
I may be stretching things a little here but I fundamentally believe that we have so much to learn about how to be our fullest self, from watching our horses and their nature.
The spirit of the horse is without agenda, ego, aspiration or grudges. Only in the hands of humans do we see a horse's spirit and fullest self shut down, become aggressive, or fearful. Equally, it is under our influence that we see them adorned with rosettes and bling and glitz of success! Bottom line however is that if left to their own devices the horse remains true to his spirit and instinct regardless of achievements which no doubt wouldn't feature in their 'daily to do list'!
 |
| Solar Sue and her filly foal in 2002 |
Horses remain focused on today - I don't care how talented they are, or what discipline they are trained to perform in. The nature of the horse is not by instinct - achievement bound. That is our domain.
Fortunately we can change. I am changing. Slowly. Our horses change and adapt to oblige us with our whims and goals, so it is foolish and rude, to think we don't need to do a little adapting along the way too.
For me, the biggest change in myself in the last 2 years has been the sudden loss of Goals and ambition. Maybe it is age or energy related? I don't think so. Career and life goals simply feel less relevant and a bit silly! Oops ... now I am wondering if that's how we make our horses feel?
Another topic for another day!
