This is the epitome of uninteresting, non-dramatic, low stakes relating. In other words, a Just Right Challenge for the both of us. I’m exploring whether our conversation has enough room for Tundra to break into a trot using a combination of cues - some of which are auditory, some of which are tactile. She’s willing and able, and it didn’t seem to require her to brace up or get tense. That’s a good thing. Speeding up is adjacent to escalation, for anyone who is experiencing the beginnings of nervousness. This was not a nervous exercise, and that meant it was exceedingly “uneventful.” Nevertheless, I enjoyed it quite a bit, and can’t help feeling happy about what it signifies for further additions of available speeds, and gears.

My intention for this ride is to simply notice. I talk a little bit about what I’m noticing, and I’m also trying to occasionally notice what I’m not noticing. There’s a lot that I could pay attention to. There’s only so much attention width, let alone attention span, that I have. Same goes for my horse.

Thinking about noticing as somewhat selective, and also a direction that can shift, is helpful for me in recognizing what my perceptions may be missing, or including. I can also be more understanding of my horse, who is trying to make sense of a lot of new cues. It’s a nice thing to notice - is noticing.

And that’s all I’ll say about that. Feel free to enjoy a super chill video of me and Tundra changing gears together, with a noticeable lack of stress as we do so.

Happy beautiful September Wednesday.

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I wanted to do a more cerebral description of what I opened up yesterday as a possible way of sorting/filtering complexity in a first line way: a care ecology, vs a care economy.

Then, of course, I went for a walk. And shifted perspectives in real life, in my body, in my Soul even. I confronted a tension I’ve had my whole remembered existence - that of what to do when I am face to face with Beauty. The large scale kind.

Mountains. Northern Lights. Lakes under a full moon. A newborn. The horses running in a herd, manes flying. My dog’s eyes, completely unarmored. Too much to adequately “take in.” I want to treasure this moment, keep it somewhere, store it for later. I want to scour it for its beautiful attributes, and find a way to own the essence of what I’m just looking at. Sniffing, feeling, hearing, seeing.

I’ve always been frustrated at these moments. The more awe-inspiring the vista, the more important it seems to me to somehow pull it in. It’s like…my soul space is not large enough. I’m too small a person to contain this much…wonder. So I write a poem. Or I frame a picture. Or I simply try to remember. That is never quite the same.

But you know, that’s my economic awareness talking. That’s the whole ownership dilemma. I’m not a steward or a participant in these thought processes; I’m somehow a spectator and interested investor. Not the same stances, and not the same transactions available.

So I tried, consciously, with a real effort to right-size myself, to enter the ecology of the moment.

What a change. What a complete shift in possibilities.

Without that need to acquire, I could open up my perceptions to inquire. Without having to save and store and hold, I could allow a felt inhale of generous offers of replenishing overflow from the world around me. Not to keep. But to breathe. Not to own, but to exchange in kind.

I thunked down to earth in a way that was relieving, grounding, and a bit unsettling all at once. I’m just another denizen of the forest. I come with claws and teeth, for sure, but I’m allowed anyway. I’m here, and there is room for me, as well as for all this wealth of splendour to simply continue on, opening before, and closing behind me, relatively undisturbed.

That was quite the walk. I’m happy to climb on a fence and process it a little with you here.

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Better late than never. I’m also coordinating a few variables. I get it. Anyway, if you want to see a fun analysis of how hard it can be to go from a trot to a canter in a circle around a person…here it is. And not even 25 minutes long. Quite.

Making a difficult human task sort of visual is one of the things I’m enjoying here. Integrating streams of cognitive, emotional, and physical information simultaneously, and functionally, is hard for people to do when starting a new challenge. Apparently it’s also hard for horses. Slowing down (as always!) helps.

So does grace and space and softness. And nice cool weather. That’s also helpful. I have a ridiculously comfortable outfit on, because September has arrived.

Happy Wednesday!

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I realize this is late. I apologize. I imagine there are maybe 3 of you who depend on my Friday offering. 🫢 It’s Saturday. My rhythm has been extended somewhat.

However this is all about giving myself the permission to extend my “trot,” or smooth out my reactivity to stimuli, or transition more gently between tasks or states.

I’m wondering if rhythm as a handle for manipulating my experienced reality may be more useful than balance…not sure. Maybe it’s just another tool.

But here you go! I wonder, as I wander, through the various possibilities suggested by all the many ways my points of view intersect, interact, and intertwine.

Happy whatever day you get this! Friday will come again. There is that, too. The rhythms are something to rely on as well…

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It’s hard to see a cute little pony be stressed. Embers was a little worried, and used multiple little escape tries to get away from the new and scary situation. She ran around, stuck her head through the rails, called for Tundra to rescue her, tried to eat grass so as to disappear and not be noticeable, ignored me, placated me with her expression and body language…

But Embers is three years old. She’s ready for school. She’s had a long time to get used to the place, her herd, and me as a part of all that. So I’m going to override my impulse to pet her and comfort her and basically keep her young and scared and a “pet.” Instead, I want to pull out the competent, smart, powerful, knowing little mare that is in there. So…

School it is. Any kindergarten teacher reading knows exactly what I’m talking about. You can figure this out. I will be kind but clear. I will expect a little more than you think you can do. I will persist in my messaging without getting in the least upset with you. I will make this achievable and you will succeed and we will build on that success forever. It’s going to be fun.

If you watch Embers’ state at the beginning, and compare it to the end (I only cut out maybe 5 minutes of repeating experimentation), you will see that brave, smart, competent, and also quite food-motivated pony emerge. She’s starting to communicate with me with more confidence, asking more questions, using a trial/error approach to learning without escalating in her fear, and basically thinking instead of reacting. There’s all the room in the world to maneuver in this space.

This required me to have an intention, make it very clear to myself in horse language, and then keep to it. Even when I felt sorry for her or she got it wrong a few times in a row. No worries. Keep on until she figures it out. With no punishment - just a pattern.

Since that lesson, Embers follows all of us all over the place. I’ve given her more freedom to graze with the bigger girls because she will come to me with confidence and that means I can take care of her with less physical confinement.

Win win.

I hate limits. I do. And yet…people who refuse to show me a clear definition of their own “edges,” are also quite frustrating for me to relate with. So it’s possible I don’t so much hate the limits, as the placement, when and where they get in my way. I’m a bit of a selfish person in that regard.

I’m questioning and questioning how to proceed in various tricky situations in my life, but one of the hardest dilemmas I’m finding is kind of the opposite: when nothing bad is happening, then what? If I have more choice than I’m used to, how to set about coming up with a plan of action?

It turns out, I’ve been kind of following the fence lines for a lot of my life, and calling that a direction. It’s not. It’s just a fence, and I’m following it.

I’d like to change this. I’d really like to live my life, on purpose, as they say. This requires me to reimagine how to do that, without leaning on my various limits as my primary antagonist, and therefore the subject of what to do next.

Suppose I think of limits as shaping reality for me. In that case, they are not inherently awful. Quite the opposite. They provide definition, information, and in some cases, clues as to patterns that may be larger than I can see from where I stand.

I have been focusing for most of this year on balancing as an end in and of itself. I’m now wondering if it is more of an indicator that something deeper, more fundamentally of value, is working…Maybe I can work towards balance as a sub-goal of a larger sort of aim, which could be a little more particular. Maybe even occupational! Ha.

In the context of caregiving (which is one of my laboratories of ethical living), this could look like moving together and sharing energy across systems in efficient and effective ways. Ways that maybe promote health in all directions, rather than a tendency to loss by one party in favour of another. Balance would show up as the ability to deal with perturbations from any direction, with people in the system moving to cover gaps based on ability, authority, access to resources, and so on. But the balancing would be a byproduct of a larger, deeper, and far more focused work effort.

…and I’ll stop there. This is extremely interesting to me because it is relevant across the board. Have a listen. Would love to know if any of this view from this particular fence lands in your landscape. :)

Happy Friday.

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Embers is so CUTE! And very expressive. The mop of a mane. I tell you. Anyway, she is now fully incorporated into our herd and even has recently begun to have grazing privileges out in the yard morning and evening instead of wistfully looking through the bars and chewing on hay all by herself.

Here I am beginning to help her understand my language, my place in the herd as a human, and how I use my “accent” to speak with the horses. She is motivated by treats, but clearly also by social interaction. Tundra is a great teacher, and I want to let Tundra speak horse to horse, letting Embers know what’s what. I also need to start to shake up the routine a bit if I’m going to be able to work with either horse based on my own schedule.

Eclipse and BlueJay are quite aware of my habits, but this is all new for the little pony. I do not want to be “resource guarded,” but there is also a clear seniority thing I want to respect. So I’m going slow, letting the two friends talk to each other, and then joining the conversation. I really enjoy this whole interaction. It’s nice to be part of a little herd, and it’s nice that we can each express ourselves without a lot of “yelling” or acting out. Humans can be bad for that.

Anyway, this is part 1 of another longer session. I’ll post the round pen game next week. That was a bigger deal for Embers as she was just with me, not able to lean on Tundra’s support as much. But she is brave, willing, and curious. So we are making a start together.

Have a go at reading the horses’ language. I’m just guessing, of course, but I went with those hypotheses and we muddled through well enough.

Happy Wednesday!

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This one seems abstract and maybe nit-picky, but boy oh boy it is not. In my constant search for how to be more ethical, congruent, and safe for BOTH myself and others, it seems to me that the quicksand of making up stories as to why other people do the things they do is particularly dangerous.

The thing is, though, people are doing so very much! It does affect me, or could, if I don't approach living in the world with some respect for my own need for protection. I’m trying to do this, increasingly, by paying attention to my centre, my identity in relation to the largeness of “God,” rather than the more equally sized and fast-moving targets that are my peers (even my four-legged “peers”).

I’m suggesting that attributing meaning as it relates to my location and my path of movement and my safety in general is not only okay, it’s flat out crucial. This does not at all require me to go the next step and conjecture what is behind others’ actions. I just need to sort: safe or less safe? And then: what is my next right action to support my ongoing safe travel and home in the oh-so-real world?

The word “judgement” comes to mind. It can extend a short ways, or a very long ways, into others’ “territory,” can it not? I can judge a horse’s trajectory so as to stay out of its way. I can go further, and “judge” the horse as good or bad, simply based on the data I have available. The first judgement is useful for keeping me safe, and is coming from my centre. The second one is way, way less about my centre, and more about trying to peer into the mystery of another being’s interior. Not so cool. Not really possible, either.

Anyway, as I try to become a better horse person, and a better person in general, this fence came up as the one to sit on, with you, today. If you choose to accompany me, I will appreciate it, whatever your reasons. Those are yours.

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This is somewhere in the vicinity of my 15th or 20th ride on Tundra. So yeah, super slo-mo. On the other hand, by preserving an intentional priority on connection, shared enjoyment, mutual learning of each other (instead of a more hierarchical approach to “teaching”) the entire experience is actually relaxing for my nervous system, rather than a sharp escalated jump into exhilaration, and maybe a little stress.

And this gives me so much room to talk with her, wiggle my butt in the saddle, move my legs and arms around, look at the sky and the horizon, and slowly, ever so slowly, start to connect my movements to hers and vice versa. The container of the round pen is really nice for us here, by limiting the sensory input, and giving us room to experiment with motor outputs in such close proximity to each other.

I don’t think I’ll ever get over the feel of riding as a source of joy. It is that for so many reasons, but I want to exclude (from my container) the rush of using the horse to go fast and escape my body. That isn’t fair to either of us. I’d definitely like to go fast (and can’t wait) but I want to do this IN my body, with the horse also in full possession of calm, alert, positive, collaborative fun energy. That’s going to take as long as it takes for ME to unlearn some very bad habits.

Anyway, here is a non-rodeo and a relaxed conversation between me and my equine partner. It’s all here, how we have more tools and options for interaction than we might originally notice in a highly practiced activity. Slowing down, changing the “rules,” and especially, listening to the partner, opens up a completely different experience.

Happy Wednesday!

I slow down. I figure more out. I am able to “hear” my conversational partner with more clarity. She can hear me with more precision. We can lower our voices. We use less energy to say more. The behaviours start to make sense as communication. The resistance to change is felt as simple feelings within a safe container of relationship. I can make mistakes and be forgiven. She can make mistakes, and be just fine. We don’t look like we’re doing anything great, but the depth of connection, understanding, trust, and simple vocabulary that is well learned and easy to access, is exponentially expanding.

I still tip into patterns of needing to be in charge, get it done, “win,” or other ways that even natural horsemanship unconsciously employs a dominance-based, highly hierarchical approach to “training.” And you know, horses can deal with that. What they can’t deal with is when I flip between two paradigms - one: let’s be friends, partners, and trustworthy allies even though we are so different, and two: I need you to show everyone around me how great I am at controlling your behaviour.

I am trying to carry on with the former, even though it’s observably way less impressive. Experientially, and integratively (don’t think that’s a word, but it should be), it is healing my soul and heart and mind and body. I do resonate with a dominated being. I understand what it is to mask my true feelings and just get along to get by. I do not think that even heroic performance equals “success” anymore. I’ve performed too well for too long at too great a cost to buy into that system for one more round.

So…in the round pen, doing small little things, I’m experimenting with changing not just the process, but my whole lens and dialogue and commentary and outcome measures. The entire thing.

If you love slow events unfolding at the rate of trust, feel free to join me here.