My mom started me on horseback riding when we lived in the suburbs. I’m estimating I was about 15 years old. The stables were not far from our house. I don’t remember much except getting in the saddle (Western) and learning how to trot. That trot stayed in my muscle memory, as it should have because I remember going around that ring over and over as they drilled points in – heels down, chest up, and the posting rhythm…I’m not sure when I stopped riding. But I suspect it probably had something to do with my parent’s miserable marriage disintegrating, a pending divorce, and possible re-location. And then I forgot about horses for many many years. I got re-acquainted with them in Ireland when I took a trip and stayed half the time in Dublin in the East and near Galway in the West. It was October. Fall is my favorite season. The crisp weather makes me come alive. And I love the rain. I found a riding place in Connemara and they gave some guided day rides. I took a back to back morning and afternoon ride. Before the ride started, the woman who ran the stables tested our riding skill level in an outdoor muddy ring. We were to walk, trot, and canter (on an English saddle). I managed the walk and the trot brilliantly. I nearly fell off the horse on the canter. I had not started to canter when I was young, so this was brand new for me. And learning how to canter on an English saddle, which provides less support, and requires more balance is a whole new world. So I trotted on a sturdy grey draft horse all day long. The afternoon ride was just me and the leader, as the morning riders all left. Nobody was crazy enough to ride on this rainy, grey, and bone dampening afternoon – right before high tide. But, that’s just my style. And this would be the beginning (Part 2) of my love affair with this majestic animal. In another 2 years, I booked a horse riding holiday in Ireland again, this time at a gorgeous place in County Clare. This was a group adventure, though I was there on my own. Again I was able to manage a very fast trot, and had 3 attempts at a canter on an English saddle. I was kinda thrown into the fire and it was pretty terrifying. When riding English, it’s just you and the smallish saddle – as you hold on to the horse’s mane once the animal picks up speed. I stayed back and rode with a private instructor because I didn’t want to inhibit the ride of the group if I needed to take it slower – and I did need to take it slower. Here’s how I feel about it. I’m getting on an animal that weighs 1000 plus pounds, is pure muscle, and can travel about 25 to 30 miles per hour. I’m easing into this. I returned home from this trip determined to improve my riding skills. I took about a dozen local lessons, and signed up for a more in depth educational riding trip near Bordeaux, France, where they would customize every day’s ride according to your level. I’m the type of person who is “all or nothing”, so when I get into something, a new hobby, a new passion, a new love, I go ALL in. So, I promptly started Googling books on horses and horseback riding, specifically, the books that related to the spiritual connection between horses and humans. It’s no wonder that horses came back into my life at the same time I was practicing to become a healer. What I discovered was that horses are natural healers – without even trying. Their heart fields are so expansive that they can hear a human heartbeat 4 feet away. In fact, these herd animals intuitively match their heart rhythm to the beat of the other herd members so that they can pick up any surrounding danger and signal the others. They are born empaths and are ultra sensitive. They are also prey animals, so their first thought when encountering a new person, object, or experience, is “Are you going to kill me?” This is why they spook so easily. A plastic bag floating in the wind could set them off into a mad escape gallop. Many of today’s riders subscribe to natural horsemanship. This takes the animal’s sensitive nature into account. Gone are the days of kicking your spurs underneath the horse’s rib cage or beating the animal to get a response, or violently yanking on the reins to stop them. The tiniest gesture on the rider’s part will elicit a response. That and love is all you need. The point is, we have to be in tune with the horse. Or be on the same energetic wavelength. So learning how to ride these gorgeous beasts, ideally, should make me more aware of energies. One of the books I read is about the original legendary Horse Whisperer – Buck Brannaman. His most famous book is called “The Faraway Horses”. Buck and his brother Smoky were born to Carol, a sweet submissive woman of poor health who died all too early, and an abusive alcoholic father, Ace Brannaman. Under the pressure cooker “techniques” of their father, the two boys became celebrity rope trick artists, performing at regional rodeos, and even landing a few national commercials. As Buck explains in his book, it was either performing rope tricks or getting the living hell beaten out of you. So the boys chose rope tricks. Unfortunately, this wasn’t always enough to please their father. After Carol died, the boys were left alone with him. Ace would often get up in the wee hours of the night and take to the bottle. He’d often wake the boys up as well, sit them at the kitchen table, and go off on a sloshed tirade. At any hint of dissent, a fidget, a sideways glance, or even a slight yawn, he would remove his belt and mercilessly whip them. Sometimes he would use a riding crop or a frying pan – whatever his hand could reach first. Eventually, a local sheriff learned about these beatings and the boys were removed from their father’s “care” and sent to a foster home. Here, in a supportive and loving environment, Buck began to truly bond with horses. And this would be the experience he needed in order to intimately understand an equine state of mind. Buck was all too familiar with visceral fear because in a way he was also a prey animal. In a 2012 Nightline interview, Buck said, “The horses at that time in my life, they saved my life. The horses did way more for me than I did for them. So they were my friends and they were sort of my refuge. So it’s interesting that I’ve been given the opportunity to spend the rest of my life making things better for the horses.” Buck currently travels around the world running horse clinics. He has also used horses to help heal PTSD war survivors, abused children, children with learning disabilities, prisoners with violent tendencies, and many others whose wounds were too deep to recover by any other traditional methods. I have not had the pleasure of meeting this icon and hero, but he will always and forever by one of my greatest inspirations and heroes. The wounded healer theory, also knows as the Chiron effect, states that healers who have experienced trauma or pain can use those experiences to provide more effective healing. Chiron was a centaur in Greek mythology. He was accidentally wounded by Hercules’s poisoned arrow. While the wound was incurable, Chiron continued to heal others. The path that leads you to become a healer is not always the easiest, but the rewards are immeasurable.
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