enlightened horsemanship through touch

As I began to explore in my post Critical Mass, major changes are afoot.  Among them,

I have listed my farm for sale.*

Burnt Mountain Farm in October

I have lived in this old farmhouse for longer than I have lived anywhere in my entire life. It is the first home that has been solely my own. It is the first place I have experienced the peace that emanates directly from place. I love it. It loves me.  When I first arrived, I think I sat in a rocker on the porch for two solid years, soaking up the silence composed to birdsong and the snufflings of animals. There are so many reasons to leave. Maybe in some later post I will burden readers with those reasons. Maybe I’ll get an attack of compassion and spare you!

Maira Lycaeia at 3, still a little downhill, and before some much-needed conditioning

I have also sold Maira. Since Maira and I became partners, I have been plagued by injuries (a bad fall, two herniated disks), traveling, and finding my time occupied with my daughter (as it should be). Maira knows Nancy, the woman who leased her while I was in Hawaii, better than she knows me. This painful reality, plus the obvious fact that my back is not going to get better overnight make the decision to send her off to be loved and ridden daily by a foxhunter’s hubby the right one for me and for Maira.

I will ride in Hawaii, but I will not own a horse. I am in negotiations for a condo with a sea view and welcome the opportunity to shrink my life to smaller, more manageable proportions. Not to mention looking forward to the weather. I plan to practice TTouch® and equine massage in Hawaii, in addition to my regular duties for Linda Tellington-Jones and Animal Ambassadors International.

The question is, can a person who no longer rides, hunts, or even has the opportunity to groom a horse on a daily basis really have the right to write a blog about horsemanship? It seems the real meat of the matter may be lost. I’m interested to know what readers may think.

* If you know anyone who wants a completely renovated farmhouse plus nearly 40 acres in the Blue Ridge Mountains of central VA with pastures, woods, a pond, fencing, a barn, heated black-bottom pool, miles and miles of blackberries, Black Mission Figs, black walnuts and peace and quiet, located within 20 minutes of the University of Virginia, please contact me! (Sorry, couldn’t help it.)

Today in the TTEAM Training, it was time to round up our assessments of our horses. We discussed how to effect the necessary changes and encourage beneficial qualities in our horses. We spent a warm and breezy afternoon in the arena figuring out how to use some of the Tellington TTouch® ridden work in the Playground for Higher Learning, experimenting with TTEAM equipment, and getting sunburned.

After examining Maira thoroughly, Linda’s pronouncement confirmed some of my suspicions, but when she threw in everything but the kitchen sink, the diagnosis got a little alarming. I’ve got a lot of work to do.

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and I ache in the places where I used to play…

When I first heard that line in the Leonard Cohen tune, The Tower of Song, I giggled a bit. After all, Mr. Cohen is upwards of seventy years old, I thought smugly, preening my forty-seven-year-old self.

Then God said, “Ha!,” and made me ache in all my places!
Last week I made an ill-advised decision on horseback and received a face full of dirt as my reward. “That’s nothing new,” you say, “I fall off all the time!” And like me you may even have broken a couple of ribs, bruised one entire side of your body, damaged subcutaneous nerves in your thigh, and nearly dislocated your shoulder, as I did. But this is about me!

As I sit, stand, lie, wander (whatever hurts less), my thighs tingling with the regeneration of those damaged nerves, able to take only the shallowest of breaths, wishing I had just bounced like I did all those years ago, I have the opportunity to examine the circumstances surrounding my accident, and to consider my options for preventing a reoccurrence.

Riding accidents happen both in a flash and in slow motion. As we take flight, we have the peculiar combination of acute awareness of our impending doom and no clue at all how it’s going to play out. The minute we hit the dirt (and after we catch our breath), we wonder, “How the heck did that happen?” yet we know. We know. We play the whole scene back in our minds in slow-mo, in our dreams, in the recounting to friends and the EMTs.

Usually you can chalk it up to a series of errors.
Not this time.

I think maybe all horse people have at least one extra risk-taking gene. I have two. This tendency toward a lack of good judgment diametrically opposes my efforts to be a more mindful person. In all areas of my life, the “risk-taking override” often kicks in when I should stop and take a moment to step out of automatic pilot, to exit “doing mode” and enter “being mode” to connect more deeply with the present moment.

My dust-eating face plant is a prime example, and one from which I want to extract every lesson I can.

I remind myself of Henry David Thoreau’s comments on this subject:

“I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit… The thought of some work will run in my head, and I am not where my body is; I am out of my senses… What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?”

I have a young horse. A four-year-old Morgan/Percheron cross, not quite finished growing. Still a little “downhill.” Read more…

…from Hawaii last February.

Unless you have had the misfortune to become ill onboard an airplane, or witness the illness of a nearby passenger, you may not be aware of the large number of medical emergencies that occur at 35,000 feet. Airlines are not required to report them.

Here’s what happened to me:

On a sleepy flight from Hawaii to San Francisco, I was disturbed by a minor kerfuffle in the aisle a couple of seats behind me. It was evident that there was a very sick passenger because the flight attendants began running around looking fraught, wringing their hands, and fiddling with oxygen tanks (so not necessary). The plane sported the standard FAA-required medical kit, including an automated external cardiac defibrillator, a non-working stethoscope, a thermometer, and a blood pressure cuff (useless without the stethoscope). They also had aspirin and acetaminophen.

I don’t necessarily feel it’s the airline’s responsibility to be a flying ER, and provided the equipment they have onboard actually functions and attendants know how to use it, they have a good chance of caring for most onboard illnesses. Additionally, several major airlines have established contacts on the ground to guide them through the process of caring for a sick passenger and getting that passenger to the hospital once landed. In the case of my flight from Hawaii to San Francisco, flight attendants resembled Keystone Kops more than trained professionals. No apparent contact with doctors on the ground was made.

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My second Tellington TTouch® case study, a ten-year-old, OTTB mare named Strawberry, lives at the same barn where I board my own horse, Maira. Over the past year and a half, I’ve had the opportunity to observe Strawberry and her interactions with people. Metaphorically speaking, Strawberry carries a big sign that reads, “Don’t touch me!” and shouts the same over a loud megaphone. As Linda Tellington-Jones would say, “very interesting!”

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